The question
In my early teens, as my ability to think abstractly and to question began to develop, the question that arose within my mind was this: is there more to life than what I see with my eyes, hear with my ears, feel with my fingers? Is there anything beyond the immediate material world? Within my heart I was certain that there must be, but I had no idea what it was or how to discover it. There was a need within me to get at the root of the question of life - the underlying purpose of existence, both of existence in general and, more acutely, my own existence in particular. I remember standing in the front room of our house, looking out of the window, and saying to myself, "I'm looking for something that I will never find."
Fortunately, I was wrong. I did find the answer that I was looking for, but it took a while, and it was a tedious and sometimes painful journey. In the following I give a summary of the major paths that I investigated and my conclusions as to the value of each one.
Atheism and agnosticism
Atheism is the belief that there is no god (from the two Greek words 'a' indicating the negative, and 'theos' meaning 'god'). Is this a logically sustainable position? To be so it must be possible to prove it. I asked myself, "What proof can there be that there is NOT a god?". The normal line of reasoning on this subject runs something like this: "If there were a god then such-and-such would be the case". For example: "If there were a god, surely there would be no wars and no natural catastrophes that make life so miserable for so many people."
At first sight there seems to be some merit in this argument, but on closer examination it becomes clear that there is an underlying assumption that a god must behave in a certain way.
In the example above, the speaker assumes that a god must always prevent disasters from occurring in his world. For sure, it would be wonderful to live in a world where we were protected so well, but we have to recognise that this definition of god is based not upon knowledge but upon either an assumption or an aspiration or a desire. It may just as easily be based upon a cynical attitude at whose heart is the thought: "Life is not as I would like it to be, so if there is a god, I resent the fact that he has not looked after me as I think he should have, so I refuse to believe in him."
The downfall of the atheist's position is that it is not possible to prove that there is no god, either in logic or in science. The fact that nearly every culture in the world acknowledges some type of god or is involved in some form of worship means that the evidence for the existence of a god or gods far outweighs any evidence to the contrary. I concluded in the light of this that I could not be an atheist, as it was impossible to be certain that there is no god.
The term "agnostic" was coined by the scientist T.H. Huxley. Reason told him that it was impossible to know that there is no god, so he could not describe himself as an atheist. He also took the view that it is impossible to know that there IS a god, or gods. He, therefore, designated himself an agnostic (from the two Greek words 'a' indicating the negative, and 'gnosis' meaning 'knowledge'). He had concluded that it is not possible to know whether there is or is not a god, or gods.
For many years I also considered myself to be an agnostic. I thought the type of story-book Christianity that I had known in childhood to be unworthy of serious deliberation, and I knew nothing of any other religions, so this seemed to me to be a satisfactory position to adopt.
However, as I was engaged in a quest for truth and a search for the reality beyond the material world, it could be no more than a temporary resting place. At some stage I would have to move on.
Christianity as I knew it
I was brought up to attend church services on Sunday mornings, but I must confess that I found the experience empty, meaningless, and irrelevant. I whiled away much of the time by examining the three impressive stained glass windows that dominated the front of the church building, just behind the choir. The three figures depicted so artistically were labelled Michael, Gabriel, and Charity. Who they were, and why they were there, was never explained to me, and neither did I ask. It seemed to me not to be important.
At an early age I concluded that Christianity was not the way. What I saw and experienced was merely a formality. There was no substance to it. The questions of life were not answered. Those who embraced the religion had no more wisdom, understanding, or power than those who did not. I concluded that Christianity was merely a cultural religion and that if I were to find the answer to my big question, I would have to look elsewhere.
Looking elsewhere
My investigation into Buddhism was not particularly deep, I must confess. My view of it was that it required you to shave your head, wear a saffron robe, live in a monastery, and spend lots of time in meditation. I couldn't see myself fitting into that mould.
My understanding of the principal beliefs of Buddhism was that each one of us exists as a separate entity, but that our purpose is to become one with the ultimate being, and that in so doing our separateness ceases, as the separateness of a drop of water ceases when it falls into the ocean. The water still exists, but no longer as a separate entity. The material world has no lasting reality, but may be considered to be an illusion. The progress of the soul toward Nirvana involves many lifetimes in this illusory material world, through the process of re-incarnation, until the moment of enlightenment comes, and the loss of self for ever.
I was attracted to the Buddhist worldview because there was no need to believe in a personal god, and the concept of enlightenment appealed to me. However, I was repelled by the accounts I read of the practices of the tantric Buddhists of Tibet, and I also had no desire to don the saffron robe. I was open-minded about the question of re-incarnation, but I had a sense of urgency that made we want to find my answer in this life.
I bought a translation of the Koran to see if I might find any answers there. I concluded that Islam was not the way when I read the description in the Koran of the Moslem paradise. Here the men sit about feasting while being waited upon by the women and mocking the souls of the infidels who are suffering in hell. I knew that such a way was certainly not for me, and I could not believe that the way of truth would be like this.
The occult
I was fascinated by the occult. In my reading, I perceived that my personal quest was similar to the endeavours of many before me and many of my contemporaries. It seemed to me that answers could be found to all of the major questions of life, if only I could unlock the appropriate doors. This, of course, was the big problem. I read many things that I could not understand, and I had no-one to guide me. I read about spirit masters, and I concluded that if such beings did exist then I should be able to make contact with them through some form of meditation.
At this period in my journey I did not understand that there are both good and evil spiritual beings, and that the purpose of the evil ones is to control and to destroy. Without going into any detail, let me only note that as a result of my enquiry into the occult I found myself liable to bouts of the most terrifying depression. I remember being in the place where the thought of taking another breath was more than I could bear. I longed for death to come and put an end to my misery. In my ignorance I had allowed myself to become subject to evil spiritual forces whose purpose was to destroy me.
If you have ventured into the path of the occult in any way, I urge you to get out of it now, for this is not the way of truth and enlightenment, but of deception, darkness, and death.
Psychology and Taoism
I read a number of books on psychology, primarily because I knew that I was a crazy, mixed-up kid, and I wanted to understand myself. I don't know whether I did actually understand myself more fully, but I certainly did learn that although psychology might be able to answer questions about personality and the functioning of the mind and the heart, it was of no value to me in addressing the big question about the meaning and purpose of life.
I discovered the Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu, and I loved it. I don't say that I understood it, but I loved it. I can't remember much about it now, as it is many years since I read it, but I remember the sense of rightness that I had about it. I didn't need to shave my head and wear a saffron robe; I didn't need to bow the knee to an angry god; I didn't need to join any organisation or society; all I needed to do was to get in tune with Tao. This appealed to my nature. I was also drawn to the off-beat but pragmatic wisdom of the legendary Chuang Tzu, and loved to read the accounts of how he dealt with the issues of life. Of all of the ways that I investigated, Taoism impressed me the most. Perhaps if I'd met someone who understood it and had been able to mentor me I might have been a Taoist today. However, that did not happen. I found enlightenment in a different way.
An unexpected direction
Enlightenment came to me from an unexpected direction. My involvement with the occult had dumped me into a state of constant fear and bouts of unbearable suicidal depression. My quest for truth had been transformed into an urgent search for salvation from a state wherein I was inthe grip of forces that (a) I did not understand and (b) I was unable to resist.
During this time I renewed my acquaintance with an old school friend. Although still struggling with some personal problems, he had found meaning and purpose in life through embracing Christianity. We spent much time debating the issues of life, he from a Christian perspective, and I from the perspective of a seeker who had fallen prey to evil spirits.
Two events at this time brought me to the door of the way of truth at last. The first was when my friend was speaking about Jesus coming into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, a few days before his crucifixion. As he spoke, he made the observation that Jesus was both alone and misunderstood. As he said these words, I had he distinct sense that someone other than my friend was speaking, and that he was speaking to my heart. The message being conveyed to me, but without words, was this: "I know that you're feeling alone and misunderstood, and I know where you're at, because I've been there too." I had never experienced anything like this before. I was aware that not a something but a someone was trying to communicate with me, and I had the very clear sense that whoever that someone might have been, they were on my side and had my best interests at heart.
The second event took place a few weeks later. I was walking home from a meeting with my friend and some other young people, and I had sunk into one of my suicidal depressions. In desperation, I said to myself: "You've tried everything else and nothing has worked for you. Why don't you try asking Jesus for help. You've got nothing to lose. If anything happens, it has to be better than this." I had no idea how to talk to Jesus or ask for his help, so I just cried out in my desperation. Almost at once I had the distinct sense that someone was there with me. I felt as if I was up to my waist in quicksand and sinking fast, but that a rope had been thrown to me, and I was pulling on the rope, trying to haul myself out of the quagmire. Without words, the following instruction was given to me, by whom I did not know. What I did know was that it was not my own thought. "Stop trying to pull yourself out and let me pull you out". I found myself able to stop trying and to simply relax and allow this unknown someone to do for me what I as unable to do for myself. At once, I felt the depression lifting. It was replaced by profound sense of well-being and of hope. I knew in my heart that something had changed. Something had happened that meant that my life would never be the same again. I did not understand it, but I had the sense that I had started a new journey. I began to say over and over again, "I accept Jesus Christ as my only lord and master".
This was only the beginning of my quest. I had tried many avenues that led only to confusion, darkness, or deception. I had, at long last, found the door to the true path of enlightenment. I had found the way of truth.
A new journey
At this point it would be tempting to talk about how wonderful life became; how, all of a sudden, everything fell into place; how the mist began to clear and I was able to discern truth, hear the voices of angels, and see visions of heavenly glory; how my heart was filled with a peace beyond words; how my destiny lay unveiled before me. Tempting, it might be; but honest, it would not be.
It is certainly true to say that I knew that I had "started a new journey". This was how it felt to me. I knew, without any doubt, that something significant, something life-changing, had occurred to me, but I did not yet understand what it was. From my limited perspective of personal need, I knew that my depression had lifted and that I was experiencing a joy that I had never known before. I also knew that, if I were to understand this experience, I needed to do some investigation; and since the experience was associated with Jesus Christ, and since the Bible is the book that tells about him, then the Bible was the book that I should be reading. As an earnest of my determination to pursue this path, rather than just picking up a Bible that belonged to someone else in the family, I went out the next day and bought my own copy.
The Bible is not an easy book to understand, and I have to say that I struggled with it. At the same time, I was still struggling with the turmoil within my soul that had been generated through the years of drug-abuse, investigation into ways that led into darkness, and basic self-centredness. As I read the Bible and spent time with other Christians, I became aware of the concept of "sin". This is a word which is scarcely used in normal conversation today. In our post-Christian, humanistic culture, where everything is OK so long as it doesn't hurt anyone else, and where there is no such thing as a moral absolute, sin seems to be something of an anachronism. However, the whole thrust of the Bible is that man has sinned against a holy God, and that God is reaching out to man to save him from his sin and restore him to a position of righteousness, or right-standing with God.
Responsibility and surrender
Being honest with myself, I had to face the fact that my problem with sin was not a philosophical one, but a very personal one. I came to see that I considered myself to be a victim of circumstances. I could not see that I was in any way responsible for my own plight. When it was suggested that I was a guilty party, I felt resentment rising up within me. It was many months after my initial experience of meeting Christ that he was able to bring me to the place where I was willing, or able, to accept the responsibility and admit that I was in the wrong. This experience, like the first one, took place while I was walking along the road. With that, the similarity ends.
The place that I had been brought to was this: that I was able to say to God that I accepted full personal responsibility before him, not only for everything that I had ever done, but also for everything that had ever been done to me. That may seem a strange statement to make, and it was certainly not made lightly. However, it was made in the confidence that the One to whom I was speaking was perfectly righteous, perfectly just, perfectly compassionate, and perfectly merciful. The result of my admission, very significantly, was that for the first time in my life I experienced genuine peace - the peace that, as the Bible says, is beyond understanding.
Up until this point, my agenda had been a totally self-centred and self-interested one. I had been a consumer, interested only in what would be of benefit to me. The transformation that took place that day was that rather than seeing truth as a commodity that I could acquire by means of study or meditation or some other practice, I began to realise that if understanding were to come to me it would be because I had allowed myself to be shaped and moulded into the person that God wanted me to be. I could no longer be the one in the driving seat. I did not set the agenda. I needed to align myself with the will and purposes of the Almighty. I needed to surrender to him. Accepting responsibility for the whole of my life, and not just for my voluntary actions, was an essential component of that act of surrender, and it opened up the way for God to begin to work within me to transform me according to his purpose.
Wisdom and understanding began to come to me gradually. The selfish part of me longed for spiritual experiences and profound revelations. However, I was struck by a statement made by the apostle James, who says:
A quest for character
Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing will be there. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. (James chapter 3 verses 13-17)
From this it was evident to me that my quest for truth must become a quest for character. True wisdom and understanding would not be mine because I selfishly desired them, but if I yielded myself to the will of God, then wisdom and understanding would become an integral part of me. And it would not be because I was especially clever. James's statement makes no mention of intelligence or education. I was beginning to see that true wisdom, the wisdom that comes from the one who created our intelligence, was not an intellectual thing but was in fact a quality of the spirit that owed little to the natural mind.
A second milestone for me was when I caught on to the fact that the truth is not a something but a someone. This was a radical idea, as far as I was concerned, and I struggled with it for a long time. Jesus made the following statement to his disciples on the eve of his crucifixion:
The truth is a person
I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me. (John's gospel, chapter 14, verse 6)
The implications of this statement are two-fold:
If Jesus is the way, the truth, the life, then any way that differs from his way leads away from truth and life toward deception and death;
- The only way to make any progress on this journey is to develop a close personal relationship with Jesus, with him as the master and me as the disciple.
- In a short space of time my quest had taken a radical turn, but it was a turn for the better, because for the first time in my life I had the sense that I was getting somewhere, that I was making some progress. Most importantly for me, I realised that I was no longer alone, that I need never be alone again, and that I now had someone in my life who was genuinely concerned about my welfare, and that person was the most powerful person in the universe - in fact, he was the one who had designed the universe in the first place. I found that God would speak to me; not in an audible voice (although I believe that some people have had that experience), but in a variety of other ways:
Walking with God
He would impress a particular passage of scripture upon my heart, give me an understanding of it, and let me see how to apply it to my life.
- He would use what I can only call intuition - an inner sense of knowing without having been told.
- He would speak through the agency of another believer, sometimes in a prophetic message, sometimes through a mental picture that had a particular interpretation, and sometimes in the way that the person would pray over me.
- I found that he could also speak through me into someone else's life. To me, that was an exhilarating and very rewarding experience, especially when the other person would acknowledge that it must have been God speaking through me, for only God could have known the things that I spoke about.
- I was no longer just a crazy mixed-up kid trying to grope my way blindly into some sort of meaningful existence. I was now a child of God, a disciple of Jesus Christ, a Christian, a saint, on my way to an eternal destiny that was more wonderful and marvellous than any human words could declare; and I was a part of the greatest movement that the world has ever known, walking in fellowship with the greatest leader the world has ever known.
My quest for truth had become not a matter of finding but a matter of fulfilling - fulfilling a destiny that had been carved out for me in the eternal purposes of a loving Father God.