A Skeptic’s Quest – My Testimony Part 9

A number of years ago my life was like a lot of people today in your country, my country, all over the world. It was described by the philosopher, Thomas Aquinas, who said, “There is within every soul, within every person, a restless thirst for happiness and meaning.” That described my life. I truly wanted to be happy. I wanted to be one of the happiest people in the world. And I can’t see anything wrong with that if my happiness is not at the expense of someone else. But equal to being happy, I wanted the answers to three questions. I struggled to answer these three questions: The first one--“Who am I as a person?” Number two--“Why am I here?” Number three--“Where am I going?” You know most people will not ask themselves those three questions, because they’re afraid of the answers.

Then equal to that, the answers to those three questions, I wanted to be free. I wanted to be the freest individual in the whole world. Now freedom to me is not going out and doing what you want to do. Any idiot could do that. That is why we have police. True freedom, to me, is to have the capacity or the character to do what you know you ought to do. You are truly not free until you can do what you know you ought to do morally. So I started looking for answers.

I was brought up in the state of Michigan--that’s in the north central part of the United States in the state that kind of looks like the hand with a thumb coming out--and was born in Union City, Michigan. Where I was born a lot of people had religion. It was a boring place to live, but I thought, “Well, maybe religion is the answer to these questions and that happiness and that freedom.” So I started to go to church, and I went to church, morning, afternoon, and evening. But I think I must have found the wrong church. In spite of what the pastor said, I still believed in God. And here was my problem--I felt worse in church than I did out of church. On the farm we were brought up to be quite practical, so when something didn’t work, you threw it out. So I threw out religion, because I did not think in any way it affected my life. I turned my back on the church, or at least that church.

A Skeptic’s Quest – My Testimony Part 8

One of the greatest pieces of evidence that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that Christianity is true, and that the Bible is the Word of God is what happens in a person’s life when he comes to know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. A changed life is a tremendous, powerful testimony for the reality of the Christian faith. In that light, I would like to be very personal with you starting from today and share my journey from skepticism to faith, from rejection to acceptance, from a denier to one who accepts. And so let me try to bring in my background and all and to point out the process that I went through to come to know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and what happened.

In the Bible it says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “If anyone be in Christ, he will become a new creature, and old things will pass away, and all things will become new.” I believe when the apostle Paul wrote that verse, he was describing what happened in my life.

A Skeptic’s Quest – My Testimony Part 7

I have interns who travel with me. These are young men who believe they are going to go into a teaching ministry, a speaking evangelistic ministry, and people come to me and say, “Oh, you ought to have so-and-so travel with you, he’s so brilliant, he’s such a persuasive speaker, he’s so talented.” They think that I am impressed with that. You know what goes through my mind? “Boy, does that guy have a lot to trust God for.” You know, I believe it is easy to take your natural abilities, your gifts, your talents and place them on the altar. You know what is tougher – to take that step of faith to trust Him with your limitations. I am convinced that ultimately God can glorify himself more through your limitations than your abilities and your talents. He is looking for people who are available to a limitless God to live His life out through you.

And that’s a little bit of what the attributes of God have done in my life when I realized He is greater than my limitations. There is nothing in my life that is greater than God’s power, and what often bothered me for years was that I could trust God with the big things, but I could not trust Him with little things. Why? I didn’t doubt His power, what I doubted was His love. I came to understand there was nothing too great in my life that His power could not overcome. I thought there were many things so insignificant with which His love could not be concerned. And I’ve come to realize now that there is nothing too great in my life for God’s power to deal with, or anything too small or too insignificant for His love not to be concerned about, and that’s when you truly become free.

A Skeptic’s Quest – My Testimony Part 6

But you know, I never really had a joy in knowing how great God is until I was truly sincerely able to thank God for my limitations – to thank God for an alcoholic father; to thank God for a stutter; to thank God for poor grammar; to thank God for my home life. Not that I would ever want my children to have it, and they don’t, but that that is where God raised me and placed me to prepare me. And until I was able to say “Thank you,” I would never have experienced the joy of knowing how great my God is. He took my limitations and turned them into my greatest assets. I am living beyond my limitations. You almost never catch my stutter. Most people never catch it. I still have poor grammar, but most people do not catch it. That is why I speak fast. God used an alcoholic father and a family life to prepare me for who I am as an individual.

People will say to me, “Well, don’t you get a ‘big head’ speaking to larger crowds than anyone in the history of young people – speaking to more university students, high school students?” This year in one night I had the privilege of speaking to sixty-three thousand. They say, “Don’t you get a ‘big head’ from all the books you have written?” My response, and a very sincere response, at least from me, is, “I don’t think so.” You know why? I cannot remember a time since that morning in Wheaton, Illinois (when I gave my limitations to God) to ever putting on a microphone that I was not aware of the grace God. I cannot remember a time ever putting on a microphone that deep in my soul I failed to say, “Thank you, thank you for helping me become one of the premier speakers – yet with my background.” And every day, I am aware of God’s grace. Let me tell you, that has made life exciting. I will sit back sometimes and just almost chuckle about the books I have written and everything else. Here I was at Stanford University, as I said before, the number one rated university in America at that time, and in two nights five thousand students came out, and almost a thousand came to Christ. I remember I was speaking that night, and here were all these erudite people around there, and inside I started to chuckle. I said, “God, I am a walking example of the scriptural truth that You will use the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.” I thought if these people really knew my background--and for years I couldn’t share that because I was sensitive to it--until it really gripped me emotionally how great my God is. He is not looking for ability, He is looking for availability.

A Skeptic’s Quest – My Testimony Part 5

I walked the streets, and finally I was walking down West Union street about four o’clock in the morning. It was in October, and there was a full harvest moon. Finally, I came to the end. I couldn’t go any further. I remember just stopping that morning about ten after four and I just said, “God I’ve had it. I just cannot go on.”

I prayed something then that I never knew you could pray. In fact, I gave myself an invitation. I never knew it was a legitimate invitation. In fact, I had never heard anyone else in the world to this day give the same invitation that I give all the time. And that was this. I stopped, and I was not angry, I was just simply hurt. I said, “God I want to be used.” I said, “I don’t have any gifts. I don’t have any abilities. I don’t have any talents.” I said, “I have an alcoholic father, poor grammar, and a lousy home life,” and then I did this – and I never knew you could do it--I said, “God here are all my limitations. I give them to you.” I said, “I place them on the altar. Here is my stutter.” When they tried to correct me from being left- handed to right-handed, it caused a tremendous stutter. I said, “Here is my stutter, I place it on the altar. Here is my alcoholic father, I place it on the altar. Here is my home life, I place it on the altar. Here’s my poor grammar, I place it on the altar.” Then I prayed something that, boy, to this day, I thank God I said, “God, here are all my limitations.” See, I heard that God was limitless, I heard He was all powerful, He was eternal. So I said, “Here are all my limitations. I give them to you. I give you my stutter, my grammar, my poor home life, and I place it all on the altar. God here am I, use me.” I really believe that God took my limitations and turned them into my greatest strengths. I truly believe I am living beyond my limitations. That’s how great my God is.

A Skeptic’s Quest – My Testimony Part 4

Dr. Halverson gave the students at Wheaton College this invitation. He said, “Tonight can you step out of your seat and come down to the altar, place your talents, your gifts, your abilities on the altar and say ‘God here am I send me’. It’s not saying you’re going, but are you willing to go. ‘Here am I send me.’” Hundreds went forward, it was like a revival. God had orchestrated that whole week, the student’s opinion of Halverson, and everything, to bring about a revival. Students shot up out of their seats, hundreds started going forward. I sat back to the left totally discouraged. Here I thought it was going to be different. He said “Who will go first, who can we send? Bring your abilities, your talent, your gifts, and place them on the altar, your stethoscope, your law school books, and say, ‘Here am I, send me.’” I felt so discouraged because even then I didn’t think I had any abilities, any talents, or any gifts that God could use.

I sat there and I started to cry. And then my roommate, Dick Purnell, a phenomenal speaker, stood up and went forward. That was it. I couldn’t take it anymore. In front of the entire student body of Wheaton College I got up and I ran out of the chapel. I went back to the room where I was staying, crawled in bed and pulled the blankets up over my head and I couldn’t get to sleep. My roommate came home and went to bed.

I got up and called the young lady who at that time I was engaged to and I knew instantly I wouldn’t marry her. I went down and got Chaplain Walsh out of bed, the Chaplain of the university. This was about two o’clock in the morning and I told him what was going on in my life and what was happening, the struggle I was having. I cannot believe it, here is a man paid to counsel students and all Chaplain Walsh did was look at me and said, “Well young man it looks like you have a decision to make”, and he went to bed. I thought, he gets paid to do that? It was the best thing he could have done. He was right in the center of God’s will. I did not realize it at the time. I walked out and I was kind of hurt.

A Skeptic’s Quest – My Testimony Part 3

I had the opportunity of going to Wheaton College, a very intellectual college in America, one of the top Christian colleges. And the only way I got in there was not on my grades, it was because of our pastor. Everyone that went to that little church where I accepted Christ always went to a certain other college and he finally wanted someone to go to Wheaton. He said, “Young man I want to get you into Wheaton.” He took me up there, called in every favor that he had. Now that is humbling, when you know you got into a university based on somebody else’s favors, not based upon your own expertise as it showed in tests and things. I thought going to a Christian college would be different, I really did. I was so excited.

I started school about the fourth or fifth of September. In October they had spiritual emphasis week and Dr. Richard Halverson, who many of you know as the Chaplain of the United States Senate, was the speaker. Nobody liked him. Nobody liked him. In fact, later he told me, he said a committee of students came to him and asked him to leave. Boy that would be embarrassing, but they came and asked him to leave. And so, the last night, on a Friday night, of spiritual emphasis week, all the alumni were back and everything, the chapel at the university was packed full.

Richard Halverson walked out and let us have it. He says, “I’m not going to give a talk tonight.” He said, “You are some of the most..”, well I don’t want to use the terminology, he said, “You are some of the most prideful..” and went on with other descriptions, “students I have met anywhere in the world.” He says, “You do not deserve a talk.” I wouldn’t lower myself to give you a talk tonight. Well then he offended us. I mean he offended them and then he offended us. He says, “All I am going to do is give you an invitation.” His invitation was from Isaiah. He said, “God showed Isaiah a vision of the world, all the needs of the gospel going out. Then he showed Isaiah how sinful he was and then he took a coal and touched his lips and made him clean. And then God said this to Isaiah, ‘Who would go for us, whom can we send?’” He said, “God did not say, ‘I am going to send you’. He did not say ‘go’. He said ‘are you willing?’” He said, “Are you willing, whom will go for us, whom can we send? God did not say ‘I am going to send you’. He just said ‘are you willing?’” He said, “Now later God said to Isaiah, ‘Go,’” but that wasn’t the invitation. The invitation was “are you willing to go?”

A Skeptic’s Quest – My Testimony Part 2

I grew up with very poor grammar. My brother who is two years older than me, a phenomenal guy, went away to Michigan State University. He would come home and right in front of my friends (now I did not realize he was trying to help me) would correct my grammar. I’d say, “I don’t want none.” He’d say, “Don’t use a double negative.” I just thought that meant exceptionally bad attitude. And so every time my brother would come home, I would clam up. I would be quiet. Why? Who wants to be embarrassed around their friends? And so I would just shut up.

I went to college, I got out of the Air Force, went to college. And I will never forget it. I went to meet with a counselor before classes began. She looked over everything and she said you are a straight D student. Well that means you are hardly going to make it. That wasn’t really encouraging. I’ll never forget, she said, “You have something going for you that would take you further than most people’s minds and grammar will ever take them.” I said, “Give me a hint.” I was ready for anything at that moment. She said, “You have drive and determination.” And then I will never forget, her name was Mrs. Hamilton and she said, “Josh if you are willing to work at it, I am willing to work with you.” Wow! She couldn’t have made that commitment to very many students. I would record things onto a tape recorder and she would listen to it and correct my grammar.

But you know I wanted her to do that. I knew she was trying to help me. You know what was interesting, every time she corrected me, internally I would react emotionally. I mean it kind of hurt. She never indicated she knew it but she had to. Constantly she would give me books to help improve my grammar. I mean books for a 10, 11, 12 year old and here I was in the university. After I trusted Christ as Savior and Lord, I never thought that any of the invitations given in church, at Christian conferences, or Christian camps ever applied to me. Why?

Think back in your own life, after you came to Christ, you would go to church, you would go to a youth rally, you would go to a camp – here was the challenge. God wants to use your life. Bring your gifts, your abilities, your talents, place them on the altar. God wants to use you. Here was my problem. I didn’t think I had any gifts. I didn’t think I had any talents. My Dad was an alcoholic. I never even knew him sober until I was twenty years old. I never once saw my parents love each other – a very, very, very dysfunctional home life. I had poor grammar. And so I didn’t think God could use me. Every time an invitation was given, I was so hurt, I was so discouraged. I wanted to be a part of it but I didn’t think God could use me. I didn’t think I had any gifts, talents or anything - now I did, but as the Bible says, “As a man thinketh so he is.” And because of my background, I didn’t think I had any gifts, talents or abilities for God to use so I always felt left out. Let me tell you that’s a lonely place to be – to be a Christian and felt left out that God can’t use you.