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Learning to Follow the Good Shepherd

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My story reads a lot like a modern novel. The main character (myself) has a defining moment that propels the entire story (having been suicidal and now seeking the meaning of life). Along the way, there are successes that bring me closer to the goal and failures that keep me from attaining it. There is, what could be considered a major failure ... and yet through it all comes a final victory. Unlike a typical story, if I am the protagonist, who is the antagonist? It is not a person. In a search for truth, the enemy is fiction. In a search for something greater, the enemy is fear. In the search for the Kingdom of Heaven, the enemy is sin and a fallen world. In the search for life, the enemy is death. Each of these must be faced multiple times in the journey.

O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our Maker. For He is our God; and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Psalm 95:6-7

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    Camping
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    Van
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    Research

Misunderstanding Life and Death

For almost thirty years, I have been on a quest seeking the meaning of life. This quest began on a snowy night while I was a senior in high school. Within that night was a moment where I questioned if death would be better than life. At the time, I did not understand the many factors which had brought me to that point, but at the base of it was a secular education. This type of education focuses on the physical while ignoring the spiritual and, therefore, excludes religious concepts and beliefs. This education came not only through the school system, but also included a large amount of fiction and fantasy from books, movies, and video games. At the same time, my religious education did little to give an alternative. I grew up in a liberal protestant denomination and perhaps I could have been described as a Sunday morning christian myself. Ultimately, life was not understood and it, therefore, was given little value.

Facing Death

When you are suddenly in mortal danger, you have only the choice to fight to live or to give up and die ... and one will find the desire to live to be quite strong. If you slowly come to look at death because of pain and suffering, it might seem a refreshing idea ... but it is really just running away from the issues that need dealt with and results in the loss of everything that could still happen good in life.

Logic versus Faith

For my entire life, there has been a mental battle between logic and faith. It was logic that largely shaped the first few decades of my life with an emphasis on pursuing philosophies like Epicureanism or pursuing knowledge in the sciences. These influences shaped my life as a teen and through my young adult years. After that, my faith started becoming more active and growing as I spent time in Scripture and prayer. In more recent decades, it was a battle where faith was becoming the victor and miraculous things began to happen. It is only in recent years that faith has taken another leap, not because of more time studying Scripture and in prayer, but because I have been building a relationship with Yahveh and with Yahshuah. It is a relationship that goes beyond respect and honor ... it now has a deeper level of trust.

Public Education

Overall, I probably had a fairly normal education for someone born in the early 1970's. I attended public school for elementary, junior high, and high school. I also went to a university to get a degree. At the time, the education I received seemed good, but not great. How good was my education? Wow ... that is a difficult and complex question to answer. On the one hand, I was taught a lot of information and exposed to a wide variety of topics. On the other hand, I was just repeating information rather than taught critical thinking skills. I was given a broad-brushed history with a European-American bias which had an 'us versus them' mentality. I was given an overly simplified view of the continent, the world, and the nations.

Worldviews

In the months prior to that moment, I had begun trying to improve my life by following the wise sayings of those who have lived before me. I had no goals in life other than trying to live without pain or boredom. Following that night, the search for meaning to life began in the realm of philosophy. Concepts of life and death, physical and spiritual, pleasure and pain, morality and law, and even art and aesthetic beauty were all topics of interest. The Epicurean philosophy, which stressed the pleasures of the mind over the pleasures of the body, became the norm for myself and guided daily life. Eventually, I realized that all of philosophy is based on assumptions and that it only produces a lifestyle rather than leading to the meaning of life.

Returning to Scripture

My attempts to learn the meaning of life finally turned toward the Scriptures. Beginning with the book of Ecclesiastes, and expanding from there, I found an explanation of life, regarding aspects both physical and spiritual, which matched up with what I observed and experienced. Many new questions formed. Am I able to have a relationship with the One Most High? Did I genuinely understand and believe that salvation and eternal life come only through the Messiah? These questions and many others needed to be answered. The greatest change in my life came when I decided to start praying. Prayer about issues in my life was treated somewhat like a three month experiment, but the results were amazing. By the end I found that the things I prayed about generally went better than what I had been accustomed to in the previous thirty years of my life.

Religious Background

Finding Scripture

Seeking the Kingdom

For thirty years, I have been exploring life through the eyes of a believer. In many ways, I have had to start over and relearn what I thought I already knew about life. I abandoned the pleasure seeking of the philosophers and instead found the peace, joy, and hope that the Eternal offers His people. During this time, I had to give up many things I held dear. I have always enjoyed the outdoors and expected to make a living working in a park or forest system. During college I started photography as a hobby and it quickly grew to a semi-professional status; this also seemed a possibility for a career. In order to pursue the Kingdom of Heaven, I had to give up the outdoors and photography. Selling, throwing away, and burning up years of work was required. Looking back, it is clear that I needed to sever myself from the personal pride and spiritual implications of the work I had previously done.

Exploring Our World

During my college years, I also started exploring the world in the sciences. I have always had a special interest in the outdoors and eventually received a Bachelor of Science degree for a Conservation Biology major and a Geography minor from Kent State University. At the time, I thought I was doing well. However, I did not realize that I was being taught a secular form of science based on the concepts of Evolutionism. Within the classroom, I was never told of the problems with the Theory of Evolution or the evidence against it. I simply accepted it and then helped teach it to others through my work in the Ohio State Park system. After years of studying science and nature, I was still empty inside. The meaning of life was not to be found in science. Not only that, but I had begun to notice that life was not matching up with what I had been taught. Instead, it was much more complex and had deeper levels to it than those the sciences were allowing. When I read the Scriptures it now had at its base the concept of a Creator, His creation, and His relationship with mankind. This understanding actually brought an increased focus on the need for salvation and the work of the Messiah in fulfilling this need. The great questions connected with the meaning of life were beginning to be answered.

Creation Science

A lot has happened in my life since then as I have grown as a believer. Perhaps the greatest influence in starting to understand the value of life came when the scriptural account of Creation and the secular concept of Evolution came into conflict. I knew what was taught about evolution. However, I did not know about creation. The next couple years were spent studying and comparing both as scientific theories. When all the evidence was taken together, it became quite clear that Evolution does not work and that the Creation account fits with what happens in life. Furthermore, when I read the Scriptures it now had at its base the concept of a Creator, His creation, and His relationship with mankind. This understanding actually brought an increased focus on the need for salvation and the work of the Messiah in fulfilling this need. The great questions connected with the meaning of life were beginning to be answered.

In Service to Others

I grew up in a society where one is expected to work at being productive and making money. I started leaving this system and began spending my time trying to help people. At the start, a large amount of the time went into service (helping people with physical effort). Over the years this became less as I learned to help people more in the spiritual aspects of life. During this time I also began writing newsletter articles for the local believing community. Throughout all of this, real life, with all of the difficulties and challenges that people must deal with, began to become focused in my mind. Both the physical and spiritual aspects of life must be dealt with because neglecting either can cause pain and trouble.

Traveling in Faith

Not surprisingly, it was this same enjoyment for the outdoors and joy of recording things with the camera that the Eternal brought back into my life with a new purpose. For one decade, my life included the calling to spend time living in a tent while traveling across the United States in order to study His creation first hand. Similarly, the photography was no longer about the pride of an artist, but instead became a tool to share an understanding and appreciation of His creation. It has been a journey of faith which has been rewarded with a closer relationship to the Heavenly Father and Son. It has also brought about new concepts in understanding the Almighty's creation in Scripture, science, and society.

Learning to Trust

Preparing to Travel

On the Road

Moments of Difficulty

As I have grown as a believer, mistakes have been made. Yet, even in the times of wandering from the Narrow Path or not clearly understanding His will for my life, He was there keeping me safe. Many situations could have been much worse than they were. Often, the situation was a test or trial to simply show me that I was in error and to gently correct me.

Dealing with Persecution

Times of Wandering

Ancestry and Past Relationships

My testimony would not be complete without sharing some of the many things that have happened with other people, both believers and non-believers. These are the lives that have touched me ... for better or worse. It is lives who I have impacted. These are the events that demonstrate how a person's relationship with the Almighty impacts everyday life and the consequences of both good and bad choices. Yet, I must be careful how much I say because many of these people are still alive and I do not want to invade their privacy. Therefore, some places and names will be obscured or treated generically rather than named directly.

Children's Mission and Outreaches

For over a decade, the main direction of my work has been going away from Creation Science and into preparing to have Children's Outreaches that help the poor both physically and spiritually. The training that took place during travel, as well as the more recent settled years, has taken me many surprising places where there has been opportunity to help both ministries to the poor and occasionally to individual homeless people.

Spiritual Cleansing

During the last thirty years, there has been a continual growth in understanding the spiritual aspects of life and the need to cleanse our lives spiritually. It is an increasing awareness of the activities of angels and demons, blessings and cursings, as well as miracles and magic going on behind the scenes of daily life. Cleansing life spiritually has brought an ever increasing amount of peace and healing in my life.

Living Life versus a Lifestyle

AND FINALLY ... slowly, almost imperceptibly, my goal of trying to see if there is meaning to life has changed. As I have discovered meaning and purpose - even if it cannnot be narrowed down to exacting detail - as it has been discovered my goal has been switching to wantig to 'live life to the fullest'. This does not mean being rich. This does not mean being powerful. It does not even mean trying to defeat evil in some large categorical way. And it definitely is not through academic exercises dealing with truth and reality. Living life to the fullest means living in the kingdom o fheaven and doing the work that it requires. Living life to the fullest, at least for me, involves helping people come out of their problems and the desparate situations they are in just Ias I have come out of my own. It means focusing on helping children and their families. I cannot state the ultimate meaning to life, but I think it is safe to say that one o fthe purposes of life being the way it is, is to teach us to love ... to love Him and to love one another.

Twenty-five years ago, I was suicidal and I started a quest to see if there was meaning to life. At this time, I can say yes there is meaning to life and understanding His creation has allowed me to appreciate it all the more. Perhaps the greatest thing I learned about genuinely living life, rather than having only a lifestyle, is to value life and love others. Relationships suddenly became important while the pursuit of physical things like possessions, wealth, and knowledge are now found quite lacking in terms of value or goals. When life itself becomes the focus, the many virtues mentioned in the Scriptures become clearer and I understand why they help so much physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. These are concepts that cannot be truly appreciated by a secular world and they simply do not fit into an evolutionary point of view on life.

It Continues

The journey to explore life continues. The final conclusion to the meaning of life is still out there. However, knowing the Creator of the Universe and a growing relationship with Him helps to focus the value of life and is a base upon which to build.

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