The Lord really started changing my heart just before I went to Calvin College at the very end of the summer in 2000. I remember one day when I was sitting in my parents’ basement, typing an email at their computer, I prayed to the Lord that because I loved him, I wanted to do what I thought was pleasing to him. Shortly after, I began memorizing scripture and meditating on it day and night. The Lord really began to work in my heart, but it didn’t last long because after I made it to Calvin, all the pressures of school and homework choked God’s word out of my life. I stopped memorizing verses and started to fill my mind with vile movies that all the other students were watching. Movies full of sex, violence, and a total disregard for what pleases the Lord. My life was the darkest I can ever remember during that time. I knew I was in total rebellion to the Lord and yet I just went ahead and rebelled anyways. My life was full of worry, depression, and selfishness. This went on through my whole first semester at Calvin. It got worse and worse as I was having difficulty in school and then was told that I had a reading disability, a writing disability, and that I had ADD. The Lord used many other things as well to crush me during this time and by the time Christmas break came the Lord had really humbled me and I was at the bottom of my rope. When I went back to my parents’ house I began to seek the Lord and started rememorizing several of the verses that I had forgotten during the semester. Nevertheless, as the second semester rolled around and I went back to school, everything hit me really hard. Once again, the demands of school consumed my time and I started to get depressed. This went on for about two weeks, but this time the Lord began to quicken the scripture I had memorized. I started to consider that the Lord was trying to bring me to maturity by allowing me to face difficulties as it says in James in Chapter 1…Consider it pure joy my brothers whenever you go through trials of many kinds because you know the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be made mature and complete not lacking anything. Also verses like 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 helped me to keep my heart set upon the Lord…Therefore we do not loose heart, though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day, for our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen, for what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

It was with verses like these my life began to turn around. I stopped focusing on all the problems I was having and I started turning my focus to the Lord. In this, the flood gates of heaven broke loose and I became a new man. No longer was I constantly stressed out when life was turned all upside down, no longer was I fighting against God to have things my way. Rather I found peace and rest in submission toward His will. I can even remember one day walking along the path at school and realizing that, “I was abiding in Christ.” That is, the Lord was showing me what he wanted me to do each day, I was walking in it, and I had peace in my heart that transcended all understanding. The Lord did many things in my life and heart during that second semester at Calvin as he taught me to walk by real faith.

After the second semester finished, I went home for the summer. While at home I didn’t see many people, but I spend a lot of time in prayer and memorizing more verses. I was taking an online class and was working in the afternoons and evenings. During the beginning of the summer I started to draw near to God in many ways. As I drew near I began to see hypocrisy in the church I was attending. The people teaching the Sunday school classes didn’t know the bible and other people advising the whole church were just spiritually dead. Sin was rampant and it was not being dealt with. By the end of the summer I began to stumble into sin, as a result of being surrounded with bad company and not having anyone to encourage and exhort me daily to live a life of whole hearted devotion to Jesus (Heb 3:13). When I went back to school again in the fall, I wasn’t doing really great spiritually. I compromised a little here and little there and the Lord started to afflict me. I ended up getting sick for an entire month and got so far behind in my classes that there was no way I could finish them by the end of the semester. Yet the Lord was merciful to me during this time. One of the guys I knew named Chris Walker was talking to a guy he met named Scott Emery who was preaching on Campus. Chris was getting upset when talking to him and then Chris would come and talk to me about what Scott was saying. Scott was telling him that most people who attend churches are going to hell (Luke 13:24). He also said that Christians can actually obey God and that people who are in bondage to sin are children of the devil (1 John 3). As I listened to Chris share these things I began to want to meet Scott because I didn’t disagree with what he was saying and it made sense from things I had seen from when I was at my parents house during the summer. Toward the end of the semester, I ran into Scott and a guy named Palo who was with him. I listen to them talk to a bunch of people for quite a while and then I conversed with them for a time and was encouraged by them. The semester ended and once again I went back to my parents’ house for Christmas break. Throughout the break I began emailing Scott and sharing with him how I was seeing that we need to love God with ALL our Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength. And that from verses like John 14:15 and 1 John 5:3 us loving God means that we do whatever he wants of us. It was not long after that that I began to meet with some of the saints that Scott spent a lot of time with. With these believers, I found the spiritual encouragement I needed to thrive and abound in the Lord.

Many things have happened since that time and I have been very encouraged to see the Lord working. The main things that the Lord has taught me over the last couple years and is teaching me are to believe him, to love him, and to be humble. When we humble ourselves before him, he allows us to believe what he says and gives us the powerful grace we need to love and obey him (James 4:6, Titus 2:11-13). If we continually rely upon him for everything we need we will endure to the end and be saved from the second death and hell (Mat 24:11-13). If we don’t continue in humility, but become proud and either start living for ourselves or simply trying to become right before God by attempting to live a holy life in our own strength, then we will fall from His grace (Gal 5:4, Heb 10:26), and not be saved from the second death and hell. Therefore we must encourage each other daily and all the more as we see the day approaching lest we be hardened by sin deceitfulness and fall away.