While my blog is primarily for exploring ideas, I want to make a slight departure today. Today is Mardi Gras, and while this may not be a day of great consequence to most (other than an opportunity to have a big party), today is very important to me. It is not significant because it is Fat Tuesday, a day of indulgence and celebration before Lent begins tomorrow. For me the date is the crucial factor, not the day.
You see, many years ago I was a college student who seemed to have it all together. I was attending a quality private university in the Pacific Northwest. I was one of the top cadets in the Air Force ROTC detachment there. Of the many officer candidates in my class, I was one of three who won a pilot training slot. I had dreamed of becoming a fighter pilot and an astronaut since I was a young boy. Instead of being in the Boy Scouts, I was in Civil Air Patrol. I learned to drive a car when I was 16, and learned to fly a plane when I was 17. I spent that summer working on the flight line at the local airport in McMinnville, OR, and spent half of my paychecks on lessons. I was an alternate nominee to the Air Force Academy, but ended up going ROTC to pursue my dream. I had been selected twice as the Distinguished General Military Cadet, was a new member of the Arnold Air Society, and had been selected to command the university drill team the next year.
While I appeared to have everything going for me on the outside, on the inside my life was less than desirable. I didn’t find my achievements satisfying. I was empty on the inside, and even struggled with depression. The parties didn’t help and the alcohol didn’t soothe. Even weekend escapes into fantasy role-playing games, particularly Dungeons and Dragons, were no longer fun. Something was not right. Something was missing, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.
One Wednesday afternoon, I went down the hall in my dormitory to visit one of my ROTC friends, Mark, in his room. He was a good friend, and I often hung out in his room. After chatting about different topics and events of interest to college guys, Mark turned to me and asked me, “Dave, are you a Christian?” Mark had seen a bible that my parents gave me for Christmas my freshman year of high school sitting on my bookshelf in my dorm room. Well, from how I lived – the rough language I used, the centerfolds on my wall, the frat parties I attended – it was not obvious that I had any Christian background. I gave a lame, evasive answer to Mark that was designed to put him off the scent. He gave me a feeble, faltering reply, and invited me to come to church with him sometime. I thought I would file that away for future reference – when I was 70!
However, a series of unusual events occurred in my life over the next three days that brought up important and powerful spiritual issues for me such that I was prompted to call Mark that Saturday night. Mark often went home on weekends as he grew up just 10 miles across town. I sheepishly asked if I could come to church with him the next morning. On that Sunday in that church service, I realized that the hollowness in me was a spiritual emptiness that only God could fill. I had tried filling it with so many other things – achievement, parties, women, escapism, and independence. None of them were fulfilling at the deepest level. I realized that I it was the way I had been living that created the spiritual vacuum in me. I was immoral and self-reliant. This kept me far from God, and unless I was perfectly moral (which none of as) then I would remain separated from God. It is like the only way to get into the Baseball Hall of Fame is to bat 1.000 and play error-free ball for your entire career. No one would ever get in. It is like a gifted surgeon who has had both of his hands cut off. How does he sew his own hands back on?
God knew that none of us could be morally perfect, we all deserved to be separated from him, and that we are all born dead spiritually. There is literally nothing we can do about it. However, he could. Rather than let us leave us mired in our spiritual barrenness, he became a man himself and paid for our moral failings by dying for us. If I would just accept what God did for me, I could be forgiven of my past, given a relationship with him, hope for an eternal future with him, and power to live the way I should in between now and then. It’s one thing to know the right thing to do. It’s another to have the power to actually do it.
At the end of the service at Hope Evangelical Church in Lake Oswego, Oregon on Sunday, March 8, 1981, I told God I was tired of living the way I was, and did not want to ever go back to it. I told him that I wanted to have his forgiveness and to become the man he wanted me to be.
That was the turning point of my life, and I have never been the same. My life began changing. My language changed. The centerfolds disappeared. I didn’t need the parties. I had incredible peace and joy. I wanted to serve others rather than just myself. Within a few months I received a vision to begin a campus ministry through Campus Crusade for Christ on my campus. I lead the group for the remaining 3 years I was in college, and it has continued to this day through faithful students and local Campus Crusade staff.
Eventually, not only did my lifestyle change, but my career did, too. After completing my ROTC training, I realized that God may have other plans for me besides flying airplanes. Just months before finishing my fifth year of college I asked for a release from my Air Force contract to pursue full-time ministry. I did not know where the adventure would go once I received my honorable discharge, but I have not regretted a moment. I remember wistfully on February 1, 2003 what my future may have been. When the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated on reentry that fateful day, I read the crew biographies and realized that every astronaut on board was my age or within a couple years of my age. If I had stayed in the Air Force and made the astronaut corps like I planned, I may have been part of that crew. Instead, I have been in full-time ministry for over 26 years now, and the long term impact for things that will last long after this life are worth every moment. You can find a summary of these years on the “Experience” tab of my blog. May you find God’s peace and joy as I have found these last 30 years. For me, this Mardi Gras is a day for great celebration!