LIFE LESSONS

I grew up, the eldest of four kids, in the upper-middle-class Chicago suburb of Glen Ellyn. Being of fine Scandinavian/German stock, I never really learned how to express myself. I was not very socially adept, and, by high school, was--well, if not a nerd, at least eccentric. (My senior picture is quite amusing!) I was an acolyte in the Episcopal Church, never smoked or drank, and dated only two girls, the more serious of whom it took me months before I kissed. The only exception to this picture of innocence was my growing fascination with pornography and the occult. The former was kept carefully secret; the latter was actively indulged through séances, ouija board sessions, a bit of dabbling in astrology, astral projection, and auras, and one (thankfully, unsuccessful) attempt at raising a demon. (My friends and I did, I believe, succeed in contacting a demon through the ouija board; it fed us a corrupt version of Revelations that had us as an "island" of believers at the end of the world, based physically and spiritually around a risen and renewed Atlantis).

In 1970, I came down to Illinois State University to pursue a degree in Music, with an eye to becoming a teacher. That was to change slightly; when I graduated in 1975, it was with a degree in Music Composition. Also to change--somewhat more radically--was my spiritual state. One could not dabble in the occult for long without acknowledging the presence of a supernatural world, and my Episcopalian training had convinced me that God was real. What role He had in my life was another matter; by the time we entered college, my friends and I cheerfully referred to ourselves as Pagans--i.e., we recognized God, but not necessarily as the Bible portrayed Him. In a way, I guess I was ripe for the harvest, and the Navigators were there to do the harvesting. Not that they would have realized it at the time; I gave them a strong argument. But they were persistent, and, to get them off my back, I agreed to pray with them in late October or early November of my freshman year. I didn't know just how persistent they were.

The next step in the Navigator approach to evangelism is discipling. One of the Navs, Barry, took it upon himself to see that I grew as a new Christian. This meant, for him, walking from Wilkins to Walker Hall [about a half mile] at six every morning for the next few months to have a "quiet time" with me. This meant, for me, faking a Christian life. Why? Mostly because I liked the guy; he showed a genuine interest in me. I didn't want to hurt him, but I couldn't continue a lie for very long, and, in May, I basically told him, "Thank you, but I think I'll try it on my own now". He agreed under one condition: That I go to a Navigator conference in Carlinville [in downstate Illinois] for the weekend. I had nothing better to do (hey, I didn't have all that much of a social life!), so I went. and it was there that I was finally confronted with my own falseness. I prayed again, this time for real. C.S. Lewis claimed that he was dragged into the kingdom, darting his eyes about for any way of escape, the most reluctant convert in all England; I know how he must have felt.

So, my life since the weekend of May 19, 1971 has been one of brilliant spiritual success. Not! Remember how I was so "straight" before becoming a Christian? Well, it was after becoming a Christian that I got stoned for the first time. I had gotten drunk for the first time during that "in-between" period from November to May, but it wasn't the last. (I don't want to give the wrong impression; I was never a regular drinker or drug user, but it was not because of any great spiritual victories; I just didn’t like not being in control. On the other hand, I'm grateful that I never had the opportunity to try any of the hallucinogens, otherwise this story might have been different.) I continued my battle with pornography, became bolder in my dating relationships, and eventually found myself sexually attracted to a Christian brother. I did nothing about it, and he never knew, but it gave me something sobering to think about.

Eventually, of course, God gave me the grace and strength to overcome these things. But in the interim, I suffered under a lot of defeat and self-doubt. And through it all, I've come to several conclusions. I'd like to share two of them with you.

First, the testimonies of those who have lived a middle-class, white-bread existence are just as important as the testimonies of those who have come out of hell. This may seem obvious, but I think we tend to forget this when confronted by all the dramatic conversion stories featuring release from addictions or Satanism or organized crime or what-have-you. Because many of us lead comparatively moral, upstanding lives, we look at those whose lives are a mess and say, "What can I offer to anyone?" But we have forgotten that while our stories may not be as spectacular, they are every bit as real and as precious. We humans are attracted to the spectacular, whether it is a bloody auto accident or a dramatic testimony; we are in danger sometimes of thinking that only the spectacular conversions are somehow valid. We have to show the world that even the "nicest" non-Christian needs Jesus, and we have to remind ourselves that the least dramatic of us is equally valuable to God and to the world.

Secondly, I've come out of my experience with the realization that the heart truly is deceitful and desperately wicked. I am convinced that anyone, be he (or she) a brand-new Christian or a saint of fifty years, is capable of any sin, from lies to murder, given the right circumstances! Granted, the longer we are in service to our Savior and King the more likely we are to recognize the attack, the quicker we will be to appropriate the power of the Holy Spirit, and the more successful we will be in living the Christian life. But the more we think of ourselves as superior to any particular sin, the bigger a target we're making of ourselves for that very sin. Pride is the first step toward a fall. Should it happen, the essential thing is that we not become paralyzed with guilt. Whatever we have done, we are not alone, and God's grace is always available. We may have to rethink our attitudes; we may have to accept discipline from God and/or the church; we may even have to rebuild our credibility. But, ultimately, the only thing we have to lose is our pride. And what's so bad about that?