Seeking Truth in Today's Troubled World

April 2nd, 1996, I accepted Christ into my life. The picture below was taken (without my knowledge) as I contemplated the glory of God the very next morning on the edge of a river flowing through the rainforest of Australia, wondering what it all meant. I was completing my student-teaching in Sydney and God found me. I was having the time of my life, and God found me. I didn’t know who I was, and God gave me an identity. I was floundering in self and God gave me purpose. I thought I knew it all, and God began to show me the depths of His wisdom and the shallowness of my own intellect. I was arrogant and God showed me humility. It’s been an amazing journey ever since as he brought me to Las Vegas and He introduced me to my beautiful wife, gave me three amazing children and a challenging career in education. I only hope that I am living up to the calling that He placed on my life that day. I fall short in many aspects daily, but He is faithful and continues to forgive me all my failures. This life is a marathon and not a sprint, and I thank God that he has given me another day to celebrate Him and the sacrifice of his Son Jesus. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20

Before I was saved, I was a chronic eye-roller. When others would share their faith, I would roll my eyes in ridicule. When Greg Gagne, the shortstop for the Twins back in the 80’s, found God, every interview he ever gave began, “I would first like to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ . . . ” and I would roll my eyes. When Gary Gaetti, the Twins 3rd basemen, got saved and did the same thing, I would again laugh and do the eye roll. At that time, I held the same position as Jesse Ventura when he said in 1999, ”Religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers,” he said. ”It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people’s business.” I was a liberal-minded Democrat that believe in the theory of evolution as fact and that abortion and physician-assisted suicide were good things. I never went to church and when I did I refused to pick up a bible or pray. I was raised a good little Lutheran boy by my parents, became and atheist when I was a teenager and by college I moved on to agnosticism. And at 26, in the rainforests of Australia, God found me and then everything began to change . . .

I have to back up a little bit here. In 1993, before Australia was even on my radar, I went to the movies with my older sister to watch Jeff Bridges star in a movie called “Fearless.” This movie is amazing. If you have never seen it, see it. It is gut-wrenching in it’s reality of grief and survival. It is about an airplane crash survivor (Max) who struggles to come to terms with why he was spared and so many others (his best friend included) perished. He begins to believe that he is invincible. It is not until the very end that he comes to terms with everything in a very dramatic way, and all I can say is that I began sobbing. Absolutely uncontrolled, shuddering-type of sobbing, just trying to keep it together in the theater. My sister is looking at me like I had lost my mind. I managed to get myself together and as we are leaving the theater going back to the car, my sister quietly asks, “Why were you crying?” I said, “I really have no idea.” To which my sister replied, “Shoot, I knew you were going to say that!” I tried to explain it nonetheless. I told her that the best I could figure is that it had to do the unconditional love that his wife had for him and it was his wife who ‘brought him back’ at the end. It was as if Max had been ‘asleep’ (not physically, but consciously) for the entire movie and he was suddenly awakened. That’s when I lost it. I wanted that awakening in my own life. I needed that awakening. A part of me knew that I had been ‘asleep’ for some years by that point, and I wanted so badly to feel something, anything. But the funny thing is, God, or the need for God, had not yet entered my calculus. I was still running. And I was alone.

When I say, “I was alone,” that is not a pitiful statement as much as a factual one and I want to make something perfectly clear here. I was alone by choice. That was my doing, no one else’s. I had a mom and dad that loved me and supported me, solid friends that had my back most of the time, a college degree and a small degree of purpose. What else could a young man want? Over time, I had successfully destroyed every meaningful relationship I had, friends, family, you name it. I was floundering in my own self-importance and therefore my own self-pity. As it turns out, I was missing the most important thing. I lack the Power of God in my life. There is a God-shaped hole in all of us, and mine was gaping. I just hadn’t figured that out yet.

After graduating from Gustavus Adolphus College (St. Peter, MN) in ’92, I plowed around for two years before going back to school at UW River Falls to pursue a teaching degree. That is where I met this girl. She was gorgeous, had a gregarious personality, an infectious smile that lights up a room and I was drawn to her almost instantly. As I got to know her, I found out that she had it all, a normal, healthy family, two career-oriented parents at home who loved and supported her, she was also a captain on the gymnastics team, AND YET, she was a Christian, which totally blew my preconceived notion that Christians are weak-minded people who needed to hold onto something bigger than themselves. She was the exact opposite of what I thought Christians were supposed to be. So, I was intrigued. We became friends, hung out a few times, we talked about God here and there, we decided to enter this program to student-teach in Australia, and then she gets engaged to some other guy. Ah, c’est la vie! I was hurt of course, and crawled back into the emotional shell from whence I came.

Fast forward to April 2nd, 1996. In the middle of my practicum, Australia high schools allow two weeks for Easter Break and I chose to use that time to travel. I met two friends, Joy and Sue (student-teaching at the time in the same international program as I) in Cairns, Queensland. While in Cairns we took a tour into the Daintree Rainforest and we stayed at a sort of youth hostel in the forest. After dinner, I was listening to my Walkman (some of you youngsters may have to Google what that is). Among my cassettes (same) was Van Morrison’s Greatest Hits (still one of my favorites). A song had just ended, and the song coming up was one of my favorites, so I decided to stop the tape there. Joy and I began to talk. We found a secluded room toward the back of the hostel where we could talk uninterrupted. Once the conversation turned to God and faith, Joy began talking about her relationship with her fiancee and how they each had to put Christ first, before each other, in order for the relationship to work. I will be honest, that statement sounded absolutely bat-crap crazy to me. I countered with that the “fact” that their is something innately good about people and if each person would focus on that goodness, the world would be a much better place. I also declared that the concept of hell was something that was used by preachers to scare people into being good and going to church and therefore, most of it was fake anyway. We went back and forth like this for quite a while. She never wavered and remained adamant about what she was talking about and I was equally adamant about what I was talking about. I was desperately trying to understand what she was even saying, but it sounded like absolute foolishness to me. Yet, I felt a slight tug at my heart. I became suddenly fearful. I feared that if I gave in to this, whatever it was, I would lose myself entirely and become a sandal-wearing, Bible-toting, bearded, street-walking person preaching to strangers. Joy assured me that was not how it worked. It was at that point, that something deep inside me just broke.

Something deep inside me just broke. I no longer had words to keep going. I softened. And then I remembered something. I remembered that every prayer I prayed as a kid had somehow been answered. I remembered one night in middle school (I considered myself a very good student and always did my work), I had forgotten to do a homework assignment that was due the very next day. I was freaking out, stressed out and I prayed out loud for God to help me somehow. The next day I got to school and the assignment deadline had been extended to my immense relief. ‘Little’ things like that. I started to see God’s hand on my life all the way through my rebellion. It occurred to me that Joy and I were coming at this from two totally different points of view, but we were actually talking about the very same thing. I realized that God had been a part of my life throughout my life’s journey, I had just refused to recognize Him as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. At that moment, all the walls I had constructed within and around myself came crashing down. Joy led me in a short prayer. She then left me alone and I spent the rest of the night talking to God for the first time in years.

The very next morning after breakfast, I reached for my Walkman and played the next song on my ‘playlist.’ In spite of the fact that this song was one of my favorites and I had heard it hundreds of times before, I had never truly heard the words and that morning it was like I was hearing it for the very first time. I was overwhelmed. I shared this with Joy and let her listen to it as tears came to her eyes. I have embedded the song for you below. It is Van Morrison’s ‘Whenever God Shines His Light.’ It speaks to me of the wonders of God’s Grace and mercy to this day. Enjoy.

That Sunday was Easter Sunday. The three of us attended a church in Port Douglas, a coastal town in the Shire of Douglas, Queensland, approximately 40 mi north of Cairns. This was my first time in a church in a very long time. This is my journal entry from that day:
“It was a good feeling to attend church on Easter. It was an Assembly of God church held in a small community theater. The congregation was small, no more than 20 people. We sang a few simple hymns accompanied by the band on stage. As Pastor Peter spoke, I was able to listen and hear the message for the first time in years. I had never realized just how lost I was. I felt at home.”

I went to Australia to student-teach, to have an adventure, to see someplace new. I never imagined God would reach down and touch me, heal me and remove the scales from my eyes. The old me was angry, bitter and resentful for so many things. The new me was at peace, at real peace with myself, with God, with the world for the first time in over a decade. Praise God for second chances. Praise God for never giving up on me.

Before I was a believer in Christ, whatever peace I found was in nature. Whether it was walking my dog through the woods, watching an amazing sunset or climbing a mountain, I found peace there. I was able to think there.
And that is exactly where God met me. Two weeks after my conversion in the rainforest, I went hiking by myself one morning through the Blue Mountains just outside of Sydney. I took the train to Katoomba and walked the rest of the way to the trail head. I had purchased a map so I knew where I was going, more or less. It was approaching winter in Australia so the days were getting shorter, the temps were getting colder and this particular day as overcast with a few sprinkles here and there. No sun whatsoever. I hiked the entire day, had lunch at a place called Ruined Castle (not a real castle, just a rock formation that look a little like a castle), and came back out at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon. I wanted to take one more trail before I called it a day as this was probably my last opportunity to hike here. However, there was little more than an hour of daylight left, so I would no doubt finish the trail in the dark and I had no flashlight. This particular trail head was nearby, so against my better judgment, I ventured out once again. The trail head started out as a wide dirt road which had tall trees on either side. The road went along this plateau for about a mile and as the sun began to set and the sky became a shade darker, I said aloud, “What am I doing?” After about 20 minutes of this I arrived at a break in the trees to my right and I turned and saw this tiny break in the clouds right at the horizon just as the sun began to set. And then I witnessed the most beautiful sunset I have every seen, and these pictures just don’t do it justice. The golden light from the sun began to flood the valley of trees below me and I just stood there, mesmerized. At that moment, I heard a strong wind pick up behind me in the trees, a rather strong gust, yet the air around me remained completely still. I then heard a crystal clear bird call. I turned to see four large Magpies fly over the trees behind me as the wind died down. I opened my Bible and turned to 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 and I read Paul’s sonnet on Love for the first time in my life: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.” Those words leapt off the page at me. As the sun tucked behind the horizon, I stuck my camera and Bible back in my pack, turned around and headed back into town. I knew that I had experienced what I came for. That is what God wanted me to see. God was saying, “I have been here all along.” It was not until 7 months later, when I was reading through the Gospel of John in my room in Las Vegas when I sat upright when I came across the following verse from John chapter 3:8 “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” God met me on the mountain that day. I am forever indebted to Him for picking me up out of the muck and the mire. Praise His Holy Name.

In Christ’s Service,

~JH