Stability and Reference for College Students – The Way, The Truth and The Life
This is the second in a series of articles providing college students the opportunity to actually be and feel secure. I referenced a potential life-changing message, which should be simple, clear and based on solid facts and experienced reality. Well, here it is below. It should not take you more than two to four minutes to read the rest of this article; it is based on my own life changing experience and a brief description of six years immediately following.
It was November, 1981. I was watching the “700 Club” and Reverend Pat Robinson on TV. Actually, over the past year or two I had been reading my Bible and reading several books on God and religion, including Satan Is Alive and Well On Planet Earth by Hal Lindsay and The Holy Spirit by Billy Graham. But I still had questions.
- Who is God?
- Is heaven and hell real?
- Is the Bible really the Word of God and inspired by God Himself?
- Who is Jesus Christ? And is he really God?
- Did all the miracles described in the Bible really happen?
I had gone to Catholic Priests, Protestant Ministers, Jewish Rabbis and even studied with Jehovah’s Witnesses and attended sciences with a master teacher in transcendental meditation. But I had found no answers, at least none that were definitive. There was much I just did not know. But I was very intrigued by the whole concept of God, heaven, hell and what the Bible had to say.
Reverend Pat Robinson said, “If you really want to meet and know God Himself, do yourself a favor and say this prayer with me.” I said to myself, “Well I have certainly been searching for quite sometime. Maybe this really is the way to meet and know God and get some answers. So I said this little prayer:
Jesus, I know that you died on the cross to pay the price for everything I have ever done wrong, all my sins. I know that I am a sinner. I accept that sacrifice you made for me on the cross and invite You into my life. I turn from my sins and will follow you to the best of my ability all the days of my life. Amen
Pat Robinson then said, “What you need to do now is go out and tell somebody about Jesus Christ, and that they too can have eternal life with Him in heaven – if they can say that little prayer and really mean it in their heart. Then go out, find and join a good church that preaches the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Well, I did mean what I said in that prayer. But I did not tell anyone. However, I did start looking for “good church” that preached the Gospel. The following August, 1982, I found such a church; it was called “The FourSquare Gospel Church” and was located in Prescott, Arizona. The people were friendly and even introduced themselves to me, even though I was a total stranger. And I had never heard preaching like happened in this church. I could actually relate to it and felt convicted about applying it to my life on Monday morning. Shortly, for the first time in my life, I enjoyed and looked forward to going to church, and eventually also began attending services both Sunday and Wednesday evenings; and I was learning answers to all of my questions. Together with inviting Christ into my life in 1981, and the following events over the next six years, the Lord had set the foundation for the rest of my life:
- August 1982: I found a great church.
- August 1983: I was married, in the same church, to my wife Sandra, who was a single mother with 3 children, ages 11, 17 and 18.
- August 1984: My 19 year old daughter (She never really knew her biological dad.) was married in the same church.
- 1984: My other daughter, also now 19, also got married in the same church.
- 1985: I received a $10,000 inheritance from my grandmother back in Maine.
- 1986: Our first grandchild was born in April.
Life has certainly not always been easy or smooth up to the present day. But I have had a stability and assurance that God was my Friend and I could depend on that Friend for the rest of my life. I truly had stability and reference for my life and often shared that with many others, including many college students, administrators, administrative assistants, faculty and staff at my work; I was a faculty member of one of the best aeronautical universities in the world today, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
All comments and questions are most welcome and encouraged. Do come back soon. Other articles will be posted each week describing “Stability and Reference for College Students.” Thank you for reading!
Categorised as: Uncategorized