Part 1: My life before knowing Christ

    The oldest memory I have regarding my relationship with God shows how I saw God up through the age of 21. I remember lying in bed ‘chatting’ with God. This just meant that my parents put me to bed early in the evening when I, of course, was not ready to go to sleep. I would lie in bed for what seemed like an eternity...and my mind would wander around thinking about all sorts of things before I fell asleep.  It was then as a curious child, I started talking with God. Now, no – God did not speak back to me as my year older sister did. He didn’t seem to do much of anything...and I would spend most of my time pondering over what or who God was. At that point, the extent of what I thought of God was that He was someone who knew everything – He knew my thoughts, my actions, and everything else about me. This blew my mind away. I didn’t get down on my knees next to my bed and pray every night. Instead, I would lie in my bed and think and talk it over with God, “why do I need to do that, God? You know everything and hear everything, right? You can hear me while lying on my bed or if I was next to my bed on my knees, right?!” I didn’t pray aloud, either. I thought, “If You truly know everything...You know the thoughts in my mind, and I don’t even have to speak out loud, do I!?” I thought that was pretty amazing. In addition, I didn’t make the sign of the cross before praying, as I had seen. I didn’t know what that meant, anyway. Furthermore, I’d think, “Why should I have to do that, God? You hear and know ALL, whether or not I am even in the middle of a prayer! Where and why does a prayer even have to start or end?” At one point, I remember feeling pretty bold and didn’t end my prayer at all. Instead, I thought, I would just be in one continued prayer, or conversation with God. I thought that that way, He’d always be there to talk to – even if He never spoke back. So, in silence I would ponder many things in my mind, day and night...and I always thought God was there.
   
    My first thoughts on God, of course, had to come from my family. They had to have fed me this idea that God knew everything, for they were feeding me all of my knowledge during those early days of my life. We attended a Catholic Church on Sundays up until I was confirmed into the Catholic faith and I started High School. I attended public schools, so it seemed God only existed within my mind. For, at home growing up, God rarely came up as a conversation topic – even less, yet, the name ‘Jesus’. So, it would seem the topic of God was a Sunday thing, or even more specifically – a church thing. And church seemed like a chore. It meant that I had to get dressed up and had “be on my best behavior” – which I did not like. As a child, I would play with toys or my sister. When I was older, I had to participate in the all of motions of sitting, standing, singing, sitting, standing, kneeling, sitting, standing, etc. that came with the Catholic Mass. Still though, I would let my mind wander and make jokes with my sister instead of listening. That about summed up my thoughts on church. Every week we went through the same rituals, prayers, and songs...and they had no meaning to me. I felt like that even if they did have meaning, the meaning would be lost in the redundancy just like any other habit in life that is done without thought or meaning. So, when I started High School and we stopped going to church regularly, I didn’t exactly put up a fight. Instead, I was too busy playing tennis, soccer, golf, or whatever else I could.  We still went to church for Easter and Christmas, but church became even more of a hassle in this setting. As a family, we had rationalized why not to go the rest of the year and none of us seemed to come up with a really good reason to motivate ourselves to go during these holidays. We would all still managed to go, but more begrudgingly as each year passed. Therefore, the most of what I heard about Jesus came through brief mentioning of him as the ‘Son of God’ in church. I knew there were all sorts of ‘issues’ surrounding this so-called man named Jesus, but for the most part I was oblivious to them all. The pictures in my mind that I did have surrounding Jesus were of crazy zealots screaming at the top of their lungs ‘Jesus’ this and ‘Jesus’ that...and telling everybody they were going to the “fiery depths of Hell.” I figured Jesus, whether real or fictional, was a similar crazy madman that lived on earth and yelled and screamed at people...especially bad people...and told them that they were all going to Hell because of their ‘sins’. But even still, in silence, all my thoughts and questions went through my mind regarding everything...and I always thought that God was there.

    I had always been rather ignorant, naïve, and/or unassuming up through High School. I believe it went hand-in-hand with my slowly developing body. I did not reach the 5-foot mark on the wall until my junior year in High School...at the age of 17. Indeed, I was always one of the three shortest and smallest kids in the class and entire High School. It was nothing less than devastating...especially concerning my relationship with girls. I sought the help of endocrinologists, but they just told me I was a late developer and failed to offer a solution I’d be happy with. I began to despise the supposedly reassuring consolation I heard from so many – “you’ll love it when you are older and you’ll look so young.” I masked my insecurity by putting forth all of my energies into excelling in sports, and God did bless me with athletic talent. I truly believe my success in sports was a saving grace from God, and thank God my parents encouraged me in my involvement with sports. It certainly kept me distant from the bullies of the world, though I felt the pain of friends my size as I saw them being picked last for sport teams and being stuffed into a gym locker after class. Outside of sports, I hid behind humor and sought attention by any means. Girls saw me as non-threatening and as a thoughtful nice boy they could trust. They confided in me and treated me like a brother, while my hormones and emotions inside drove me crazy and angered me. I was further angered to see the real faces of these girls when talking with me compared to the mask they put on when around boys they were truly interested in. I saw this behavior in the guys, too, mind you...and constantly wondered why everybody was putting on an act. As a person sitting on the sidelines and not getting to play, seeing relationships as a ‘game’ and putting on an act disgusted me so much it gave me a reason for not even wishing to be in such a ‘game’. It seemed to me that after the ‘catch’ has been made and a relationship has been established, the masks of insecurity are slowly peeled away as you grow closer only to reveal a true partner you don’t even know – perhaps, in your eyes, they even seem to change. I bring this up because it is exactly how I began to view people and how they treated religion. It seemed to me that religious people used church and their ‘beliefs’ as a shield, mask, or front. I saw many as two-faced hypocrites that were chained to their religion out of fear. Going to church, giving, praying – it all seemed like a fake mask of their own insecurities stemming from some irrational fear of going to some place called Hell when they died. If it wasn’t an action out of the fear of going to Hell, I saw it as a mask for others to see or a means for feeling better about themselves – “See...I’m a good person...I go to church...I do this and that,” they tell themselves and others while feeding their insecurities. Outside of church, they proved themselves liars when they went about life as if God did not exist! So, my lack of interest in church grew to a bitter distaste. I entered college still very ignorant and naïve. I was completely apolitical, did not have a view on any debate, held no strong convictions about anything, and had no idea what I wanted to do with my life – in short; I had no idea who I was. Still inside, though, I thought God was there.

    When I went to college at Clemson, I gave up my saving grace of childhood – athletics. Some of my good friends went to smaller schools on tennis scholarships, of which I was offered, but I instead chose to pursue an academic route. I was gifted at and enjoyed math and sciences, so many people encouraged me to go into engineering or medicine. I was completely lost and started wondering what life was all about. Why did I need a job? Why engineering or medicine? How would I know what I would be happy doing for the rest of my life if I didn’t even know who I was? I couldn’t find satisfying answers to any of these questions, so I chose a route that left the most doors open. At the time, I saw a job only as a means for provisions...which basically means I was seeking money. If I enjoyed everything in math and sciences, as I did, it only seemed logical to choose a profession that paid the most amount of money! Since engineering left the doors to medicine open and not vice versa, I chose engineering. Furthermore, since Chemical Engineering was the only type of engineering that contained a necessary prerequisite for medical school, Organic Chemistry, I chose it as my major. Into my sophomore year, I lost myself in studies. I missed tennis deeply and was feeling some regret about my past choices, but only used that anger as a means for motivation for excelling in school – and I did. My success in school, though, did not match my emotions inside. I still constantly questioned all of my decisions and feared the future. Things were moving so fast...a future I didn’t know if I wanted was coming too quickly. I felt as if each decision I made now would drastically effect the rest of my life, and that there was no true basis or foundation behind any of the decisions I made. Still, life relentlessly marched on regardless and I was forced to make more and more decisions that further determined and fixed my future. I felt as though I was trapping myself and scurried around frantically trying to just keep up! I was hanging on the wing of a plane I had created in my mind – a plane that now had a mind of its own, was out of control, and heading an unknown direction toward a destination I feared.

In short: I was lost. I didn’t know who I was. I lacked peace. I was not in control of my life. My emotions were enslaved to the rapidly changing conditions of my life, and were thus chaotic.

Part 2: How I Became Aware Of My Need