“A Testimony”, J.P.

“A Testimony”, J.P.

As a typical “baby boomer,” I found myself growing up in the middle of the social and political unrest in the late 1960's. This was an era blemished by political assassinations, social upheaval among the classes, civil rights tension, youth insurrection and a war that nobody really wanted. Like many American youth on the campuses at that time, I actively protested our country's involvement in Vietnam and narrowly escaped going to war myself. In the midst of all the turbulence, making sense of it all was not easy and to find my own identity was even harder. Could all of our efforts make a difference? What should my role in making a change be? Who was I? Was there any deeper meaning to human existence? Was there anything more than going to school to get a degree, to land a job, to get married, to buy a house in suburbia, struggle for a promotion, have kids to repeat this cycle, grow old on a pension, move to Florida, buy a condominium and die? With all this monotony it hardly made sense. Is it all only to repeat history and to consummate with a grave?

All these unanswered questions haunted me even to the place of depression. From the womb to the tomb we plod along struggling for mean little advantages over each other only to die and be forgotten. As Mark Twain wrote, “Only to be remembered for a short time and be forgotten forever.”

Working in a hospital gave me an acute awareness of my own mortality and the fragility of human life. Watching people die drove home the point that death was a given inevitability and yet it strangely seemed to be a welcomed release from a life of purposeless and vanity. Often, senior or terminal patients I worked with commented that if they were my young age again they would do it all over differently. I believe that even if they had had the opportunity they would have reached the same conclusion. Again, this last minute regret resonated with a message of vanity.

A quest for deeper meaning spurred many young people to throw off conventional norms, to experiment with hallucinogens, cast aside time-honored values and morality, even to the place of ruin, all to find greater rhyme and reason. This search was the very spark that ignited the Jesus movement across this country. I too, came to question the value of empty religion and began to seek a real relationship with God. One day, in despair on the campus, I cried out to God and challenged Him that if He really existed He would have to reveal Himself to me. I couldn't wait until someday in the sweet bye and bye; if God were real I wanted to know Him or else I would write off the whole notion of God as hokey nonsense. I tried to be as scientific and objective as possible by putting Him to the test. Well, the Lord heard my voice and two weeks later sent another young man to speak to me of His existence. He invited me to dinner with a number of young people and then later a meeting at the local church in Akron. Immediately I realized that they had something real and I remember their joy and freedom that was unfeigned. It bothered me that anyone could be so happy over apparently nothing tangible--only their faith in Jesus. I drank in all the young men had to say and eventually invited Christ into my heart, to be filled with a joy I had never known. I couldn't believe it was really happening--I had found the missing link, the real puzzle piece that answered life's question, opened up life's meaning and gave value to my existence! I remember my face hurt from smiling so much; I had never known a life full of value, joy and eternal destiny!

The Lord Jesus said, “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall by no means thirst forever, but the water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water gushing up into eternal life.” (John 4:14) This has been my experience.