Hello again to everyone! Thanks so much for stopping by the blog. Today what I’m writing will be a little different than normal (and much more lengthy!). I was reading Donald Miller’s blog the other day and he mentioned a little contest, so I have decided to give it a go. The winner of this contest gets to attend a conference run by Don. The purpose of this conference is to learn how to live a better life/story. One may win the contest and attend the conference for free if they are chosen. Don and his staff will choose a winner based upon a blogger’s personal story and what he or she specifically wants to do with their future as well. This is what I plan on writing about today, so I hope you all enjoy! The video about the conference is below.
Living a Better Story Seminar from All Things Converge Podcast on Vimeo.
And here is the link to the website: www.donmilleris.com/conference
People remember stories. People are much more likely to remember a story which communicates a certain truth as opposed to simply a list of facts. It’s no wonder the Gospel is saturated with stories. These stories range from the Jesus’ many parables to the legendary history found in the Old Testament. The Bible is filled with stories because we can relate to them, because we can put ourselves in the place of the protagonist(s). We can cry, suffer, and rejoice with the character as the great stories of their lives play out in front of us. People read and hear these stories and are touched but too often people overlook the fact that our lives are also stories. Sometimes, we just become content with our day to day current situation and life. But lets try looking at our lives as stories instead. Stories that that people will want to tell others about and most importantly, stories that will point others toward the overarching and ever relevant story of the Gospel. This conference, as I see it, is about helping seemingly “normal” people strive to lead blessed and story filled lives that ultimately point towards the story of Jesus dying on the cross for all. People will hopefully look back on the story of our lives and see, not how we personally created our story, but rather how God worked through us to show his glory.
This is what I believe the famous stories of David and Goliath, Job, Esther, and Daniel all do. If you look at all of the heroes of the Old Testament, most have flaws. Moses was disobedient to the Lord’s command. Noah had trouble with alcohol. Samson and David were easily tempted. These examples go on and on. It all seems to say that even ordinary people can be used by the Lord. The stories of these peoples lives were so great that it was obvious the Lord worked in their lives. The more flawed we are as people, it seems the more God can show his glory through us.
At first, after looking at the number of comments already on Don’s blog I seriously considered just ignoring the possibility of winning. There were already 188 people that had entered and I thought that what I want to do with my life would be relatively boring compared to all these other people. But then I got to thinking about the purpose of living my life as a story. No one, including myself, is going to care about my story or remember my life if I don’t take risks and try things that aren't guaranteed. The foundation needed to live my life as a story to be remembered is to take risks, it is to do things that I would normally not do if I wanted to stay comfortable. But nobody tells the story of the dude who just sat in his room stuffing his face with Chinese food, playing Call of Duty while Facebook chatting with some other dudes playing Call of Duty stuffing their faces with Chinese food. So I decided to take a risk in writing this little bit of my personal story by putting it out there for others to read; and I decided to take a risk to be sitting where I am sitting right now.
I have been in Cape Town for about 9 weeks now. This is my second time out of the country (I had travelled to Mbeya, Tanzania with my father in High School but that’s a story for another time ;) and it was a fairly quick decision for me to come here. One day in the caf at my university, I heard my friend Justine talking about a mission trip to South Africa for the World Cup and I knew immediately that I was interested. I looked in to it a little more and I discovered the trip with my church was for only 10 days. I felt as though this would not be worth the amount of money I was paying for plane tickets for this short amount of time so I just decided to go for as long as I possibly could (this ended up being just over 10 weeks). I decided to go for 10 weeks so my time here would give me an opportunity to develop relationships with the locals and create not only interesting, but meaningful relationships and stories throughout the summer. Something I certainly would not have done a year earlier. Let me tell you why.
College.
Its a time of new beginnings and new ideas. I knew coming into college that I wanted to go into the ministry, as well as pursue a relatively easy major, so I decided to become a Religion major. Meaning I would focus on Biblical studies and dive into theology and become the perfect pastor kind of thing...
My first semester Sophomore year I began taking Hebrew and I took a class called “Studies in the Prophets.” The first day of the class I got into an argument with the professor about how Genesis 1 must be taken as scientifically accurate and it must be literal. You see, I thought the world must have been created in 6 days and that the world was only about 6,000 years old. I thought every word in the Bible was spelled correctly and everything about it was perfect in terms of grammar, science and chronology. Needless to say it was a very challenging semester. In fact, it was the first time in my life I began to care about my education and my understanding/view of the world. I began reading the Bible more closely (in Hebrew and English) and I also began considering what scientists were saying. I had always thought that science was set against Christianity and that the goal of modern science was to prove God non-existent. I read a lot of C.S. Lewis, some Stephen Hawking, a little Darwin, a little Einstein, and a bit of Augustine. Now, for those of you that know me well, you know that C.S. Lewis is my role model (aside, of course from Christ) and that I deeply respect all of his writing. I was reading Mere Christianity one day and something he wrote struck me.
He said essentially that it would be foolish for a person to choose Christianity if they believed the evidence for it was not good or absent. Hawking said the universe was actually about 14.5 billion years old and that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old. (using plate tectonics, radiation aftermath, and many other means to support this) I read Dawkins and read some pretty interesting and possible stuff about evolution. I even heard Christian scientists say that the “theory of evolution” is a theory in the same sense as our “theory of germ infection” and our “theory of gravity.” I read Einstein and other reliable physicists who supported the above ideas. And then I read Augustine. Augustine said that one should follow the truth wherever it leads them. And if God is true then He will be shown to be true, since if God is the truth neither He nor us need to hide from it (meaning that I should not be intentionally ignorant of what science claims). So I considered all of these factors along with the problem of evil in the world and several additional major theological problems inherent in Christianity and I gradually lost my faith.
I will never forget the many sleep-deprived nights I used to argue with myself at lying in bed. I would lose hours and hours of sleep thinking about the above and much more. I wanted God to exist so badly and yet it seemed as if the “truth” was pointing away from God. I wanted to be honest with myself and “follow the truth wherever it may lead.” I will never forget the night I whispered to myself, so my roommate wouldn’t hear me, “I don’t believe in God. I really do not believe that God exists.” I don’t cry very often but I did that night. I cried that I had lost my faith. I did not cry because I thought that life was meaningless and that nothing would happen when I died. I didn’t cry because life was without purpose and I didn’t even cry because I no longer had a relationship with God. Quite the opposite! I actually thought it was pretty funny that humans, myself included, had tricked themselves into belief in God in order to create for themselves some kind of “hope” for the future. God was “the imaginary friend” that almost everyone sang to and prayed to but was never there.
Instead I cried because I felt I could no longer be the person I wanted to be or felt that I should be. I cried because I wanted to help people and give them a reason to hope and I felt I could not lie to them. I cried because I had wasted nearly two years of my college career on religious studies and now had to do something else with my life. I cried because I was afraid that my friends would find out and that they would reject me or judge me. I cried because I thought my unbelief would deeply hurt and disappoint my parents. All very selfish reasons honestly.
So I decided not to tell anyone about my unbelief. Not a single person. I lived this way for about 6 months that year. But I tell you the truth when I say that the things I cried about in the previous chapter hurt me very badly over the next 6 months. I still laid in bed for hours trying to argue why God does/should exist. I wanted him to exist but I couldn’t find the logical foundation for a belief in him.
I was never an atheist. Never will be. I was an agnostic. If I am ever to lose my belief in Jesus Christ as God or the existence of the Christian God I would never be an atheist. I feel, and have always felt, it a fairly illogical position. Let me explain briefly. The atheist (and I am stereotyping here) generally claims that belief in a God without proof is essentially silliness. Additionally, an atheist generally accepts modern science and attempts to use it as means to prove or disprove the existence of God. But the problem comes in here for me: Science can only “prove” something if it is able to be tested. The possibility that God exists cannot be tested (because it is a spiritual existence not necessarily a physical one) and therefore cannot be proven to be non-existent. So if science cannot prove or disprove God (however, it can and does give evidence for both sides of the argument) then there is some “belief” involved in the unbelieving atheist. You see, the common atheist says God doesn’t exist because it can’t be proven, but therein lies the problem in their position: God cannot be disproven either. Therefore there is some type of belief/faith involved in being an atheist. They don’t have absolute proof they just think they do. A Christian may also believe they have absolute proof but I would argue they probably don’t. I thought, and still believe today, that the most logical position on this issue is to be agnostic.
But as my life progressed that year I learned life is not all about logic (as much as I wish it was). You cannot prove logically that love exists. And it is a rare person indeed who would argue that love does not exist. And this idea led me to say that:
Logically, it seems that logic is not always logical.
Meaning logic tells me that logic cannot apply in all aspects of life (such as love or altruism) and it is therefore fairly illogical to attempt to use logic to explain the illogical.
Does this make any sense? If not, think about it... And if it still doesn’t then maybe I’m being illogical...
I then decided to read a bunch of books trying to find a way to logically regain my faith, allowing for the possibility of being illogical as just discussed. I read everything from Lee Strobel’s The Case for a Creator (which was scientifically terrible) to The Reason for God by Tim Keller to The Language of God, by the head of the Human Genome Project, Francis Collins. And aside for the pretty conservative arguments (like The Case for a Creator) these books and books like them helped establish a logical foundation for a belief in a deity. Even Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, believe there is a strong scientific argument for the existence of a god and not only that but it seems as though Hawking would say there probably is a some kind of deity out there. It also encouraged me to read intelligent people who believed in God and Christ as his son, like Francis Collins. It encouraged me to read C.S. Lewis give his account of what the story of Adam and Eve may have been like if God did in fact use evolution as a means to his creation (Yes, he did this. It’s in the Problem of Pain). I discovered that smart people can believe in God. It no longer seemed intellectual suicide to believe in Christianity and science. I won’t go into the specifics on my beliefs about science and Christianity since that is not the point of this story. I will just say this: You can be a genuine Christian and think the world is a little older than 6,000 years, you can be a Christian if you believe much of what modern science teaches is correct, and contrastingly, I also believe you can be a Christian if you think that science is the enemy of Christianity (as naive as I believe that may be). I do believe you are fooling yourself if you say that God could not have used a certain method or a certain process in creation. You would be limiting not only your thinking but also His power. I say this not to offend you but to encourage you. And, of course, I may be completely wrong on all of this!
Ok, back to the story...
At this point, I now had the logic basis for belief in Christianity but was lacking the experiential basis for belief. I don’t think that every case one is saved by a prayer to Jesus asking him into his or her heart during an emotionally driven service at a Christian youth camp in middle school. That may be the case for some but it seems as if that is not the case for all. I know my faith did not just reappear instantly when I prayed that prayer... And prayed it again.... And again... And again. There was not tree of faith that instantly sprung up in my life, rather, it was a process. Like a seed planted in the ground that sprouts and slowly grows root by root and branch by branch until it becomes a tree. And such was the story of my newfound faith. The logical foundation was my seed and the Christians I met during the summer of 2009, who discipled me, helped my seed grow a little bit and over the course of that summer at “Beach Project” and the following year, with a few droughts here and there, I have continued to grow my tree of faith. Praise God.
So now it has been just over a year since that seed was planted and has continued to grow. This past two months I have spent in Cape Town has caused my faith to be seriously challenged and in the process, greatly strengthened. I heard someone famous, whom I can’t remember, say: “A fire tested faith is a strong faith.” I fight doubt and belief every single day of my life (often on an hourly basis) and it often makes life miserable. But I hold on to the Lord and trust that in the end he will use the time I have spent in torment over these beliefs to increase and strengthen my faith.
Don and friends, that is my story. I apologize for its length (and believe it or not, it is a shortened version)! As far as my future story, I have long term plans and short term. Long term I want to get my doctorate in theology and then in cosmology so I can travel the country speaking to college students and others that have doubts or questions about the Christian faith. I plan on using my knowledge of the Bible and theology combined with knowledge of modern science and physics to show and encourage others to consider the realistic possibility that there is, in fact, a God. And if there is a God that designed the universe with just the perfect conditions in order for life to exist, He might even care enough to come down and spend some time with us. Then again that is very long term and my life certainly may not head in that direction but I’ll go where God leads and I’m not too worried about it!
As far as short term goals. I am heading into my final year in college as a fourth year religion major. I plan on getting involved in my local Campus Outreach and working with our Religion Department at my school to organize group or individual meetings where new religion majors or any who have legitimate doubts about Christianity can come and talk to someone who can relate.
The real reason I cried that night was simply because I was alone. I had no one I could talk to about it. I couldn’t tell my friends my doubts and questions because I didn’t want to cause them to doubt their faith. I was so jealous of what I saw as their ignorance. I just wanted someone to talk to about my doubts and I had absolutely no one to speak with. If I could have merely spoken some of my doubts to someone who could relate to me, I may not have lost my faith and had these hellish debates and wars with myself every night of my life for months. I want to give these slightly younger people someone they can talk to about their doubts and someone they can open up to about their problems with Christianity. I heard somewhere that 75% percent of Christians lose their faith coming out of High School and into College. For those that study the both the Bible and science closely, I’m sure the statistics are much worse.
I want to use my next couple of years to prevent this type of thing. I want to work though individuals doubts and fears and point them to a God who accepts and understands their doubts. A God who allows us to be tested for the betterment of ourselves and those around us. And finally, a God who will love and accept us whether or not we have a perfect theology or understanding of science. This is my story. My story that I hope will point towards the much greater and overarching story of the Gospel. I’m sure that attending this conference would be of great benefit in helping me discover more specific ways to make my story greater and, at the same time, more transparent. Transparent in the sense that they would not see my story as a story about me, but rather a story which inevitably point towards Christ’s influence in my life.
Like I said before, I almost did not enter this story in the contest because I’m sure there are many other great and unique stories out there to choose from. But making my life story interesting means taking risks like telling everyone who reads this blog my testimony which I often hesitate to tell. My story is simple and my goal is clear. Thank the Lord that the gospel is as well. His story is simple and his goal is unequivocally clear. I only hope that through this story and my stories to come that I can clearly reflect the overarching story of the Christ.
For those of you who are here read more about my trip, I will have an update about the previous week here at Living Grace and Ocean View as soon as I get the chance!
Love you and thanks for your prayer and support!
Josh Sheppard
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