I was exposed to Christian teaching as a young child, but it didn't resonate much with my scientifically-oriented mind. In high school I became a carefully-reasoned atheist. My senior project for a philosophy class dealt with how mankind in various cultures has invented gods to meet their own needs. I did not abandon belief in God as a way to escape anything. I simply came to the conclusion, based on my exposure to a science-enriched curriculum, that all deities were simply figments of overactive imaginations.
I was soon confronted with evidence that I couldn't ignore. Evidence that called for a reopening of the questions about deity, supernatural events, and the nature of mankind's quest for knowledge of powers beyond what can be measured by physicists, chemists, and other scientists. Here's how it happened:
As a confirmed and carefully-reasoned atheist at age 17, I was suddenly confronted with events that demanded re-examination of my belief system. I was working on a highway road-building crew after graduation from high school, earning money for college. Although I've always been fairly strong for my size, my physique at that age made Don Knotts look like Charles Atlas. Suffice it to say that a crisis soon descended upon me as I worked with a crew the boss had picked from among the top college athletes in our county. (How I happened to get this job is another story.)
The day that Dave, the fullback from a college football team, came after me with a hammer, threatening to "pants" me beside a county road, I knew that I had to do something. I desperately needed the job, which was the best-paying summer job available for college students. But I also desperately needed to be able to maintain my sanity and a smidgen of dignity on the job.
As an atheist, I didn't believe in prayer. But something from my religious background crept up from my subconscious, I suppose, and I remember thinking thoughts that surprised me. Somewhere in the back of my mind I uttered a challenge to the universe: "If there's a god out there, get me put on a different work crew tomorrow!" I suppose it was the classic foxhole prayer, certainly not anything offered willingly or with any degree of faith. It was almost an accident, because I certainly hadn't planned on praying. It just sort of leaked out.
I put this quasi-prayer out of my mind as soon as I finished it, and didn't think of it again until nearly 24 hours later (but that's getting ahead of the story).
The next morning I reported for crew assignment as usual, but the group I had been working with all summer was assigned their jobs, and I wasn't sent with them. Finally all the crews had been assigned, and just one other guy and I were left. The boss never gave me an assignment, but spoke to the other guy: "Royce, take Wade with you today."
I followed Royce out to a water truck. He told me as we drove out of the yard that my job for the day was going to be to watch a water pump. It seems he was pumping water out of an irrigation ditch and hauling it to a construction site. Recently someone had stolen the portable pump he had left by the ditch. So now I was assigned to sit by the ditch and watch the pump all day while he hauled water.
By 10 o'clock that morning I was bored out of my gourd. I had absolutely nothing to do except sit and watch water striders skipping about on the surface of the water while I protected that stupid pump. It was about that time that I suddenly remembered my accidental prayer from the day before, and realized that whether I wanted to admit it or not, it had been answered! There was no other possible explanation for why I had suddenly been removed from the crew I had worked with all summer and given this cushy, boring job.
Later that morning I leaned back against a tree and noticed a lump in the lining of my work jacket. It was one of those old nylon coats that the pockets had worn out on years before. I reached around in the lining and produced a book that had been riding there since someone had given it to me about a year earlier. Of all things, it was a Christian book! Something I hadn't considered reading in a good long time.
The next time Royce came back he saw how bored I looked and he reached under the seat of his truck and tossed me some Playboy magazines. There I sat, wondering what was going on, why I was where I was, and what I was going to do about it. The Playboys seemed a lot more appealing than a religious book. But I was confronted with what seemed to be an answer to the only prayer I had prayed in recent memory. What if this was hard evidence that there was a God in the universe after all?
I was assigned to watch that dumb pump for three days in a row! It gave me a lot of time to ponder what was happening in my life, to compare the life of the people I worked with against the lives of those I had grown up with, and to wonder whether there really could be a God. I read both the religious book and the Playboys. And in the end I decided that it was certainly worth giving another chance to the possibility that there is a God who cares about people like me.
My life since then has been a continuing quest to discover more about God and what He is like. I've come to trust the Bible as a good source of information. I've come to believe in it as the Word of God, because I've seen the difference it has made in my life and in many other people's lives.
Through the years my faith has waxed and waned a few times. But I'm here to tell you that if you don't believe in God, you ought to reconsider the evidence. On this page you'll find stories, essays, and other items that relate to a quest for knowing the true nature of life. Come back often and browse around. And-- Write to me
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