More Than I Bargained For

In the fall of 1831 a young biologist went for a sail on a ship called The Beagle. Twenty-eight years later he published a book that would rock the world. The man was Charles Darwin, the book, The Origin of Species. The church reeled.

In 1929 Edwin Hubble observed that galaxies seemed to be racing away from one another, giving birth to the theory of the 'Big Bang'. And the church staggered.

In the '60s it was being taught to children in the public education system, that the twin facts of evolution and modern cosmology, dispel the myths of gods and of angels. The mainline churches were collapsing, the faith of many, shipwrecked.

In around the turn of the decade (late '60s early '70s) through one of the neighborhood KMB kids, I attended both Story Hour, and in summer, Vacation Bible School.

I remember regretting the transition to grade 7, as it meant that I was getting 'too old' for Story Hour. It was there I had been introduced to the concept of missions - something of that passion remains with me today.

I remember one year at VBS there was a special on Bibles. I admit, it was more out of the desire of getting a good deal, than hunger and thirst for the Word that motivated me to buy one called the 'Good News'. The Good News was modern paraphrase of the four gospels and the book of Acts.

As the years passed, my connections with any kind of church faded and became dim. I became a frustrated youngster as I headed for high school. The legacy of Darwin, of Hubble, and of Nietsche haunted me. I became convinced that man was master of his own destiny. He was, afterall, the pinnacle of evolution. And my world was becoming nihilistic.

One thing led to another. I was never a stellar student, being the eldest son of an immigrant family meant that my parents were more concerned with the economic realities of life, than optional things like education. Even when I had first entered school, I first needed to learn the English language. And later, I took pride in the fact that I never did homework, yet managed to squeak by.

The socially troubled adolescent years swept up. I found that skipping as much school as I could possibly get away with. In some of my courses I attended less than half the scheduled hours. I never had a problem with liquor, but I did have certain other rather expensive habits that I was developing.

The high priced habits became my identity. Seeing little point in suffering through high school without an identity, I was attracted by the money I could earn in a local machine shop, where I chose to work the night shift. One of the reasons I endured the graveyard shift, was that I finding the 4 AM lunches hugely rewarding. I would work quickly for the first part of the night then about half way through, calculate how far ahead in my production quota I was, then would read sometimes for up to an hour and a half, before scurrying to catch up for the 8 AM shift change.

Much of what I would read during that shift was science fiction. Science was modern man's salvation, and SciFi was its opium. Well, wouldn't you know it, after a few months as I was rushing out the door late at night, there I was face to face with a dilemma. I had already read every book on the shelf, several times over. Wait a minute, not every book. There's one that has been sitting there for a number of years unread. But, science has already discredited its mythology years ago, it seemed distasteful to waste time on something that seemed so obsolete. Yet, there were those whom I bumped into, now and again, all to often, who were trying to convince me that there really was gods and stuff. Well, what better source of material would there be to prove His non-existence than the Bible itself. I grabbed the Bible on the way to work, I was going to debunk this thing for once and for all.

So the next few weeks every night I would read a chunk. Soon I was looking forward to that time of the night when I would read as if nothing else ever mattered. Rather than finding facts that would help me refute christianity, rather than fuel for my next religion argument, I was finding that what this Jesus was saying, was resonating with the deepest part of my innermost being. At around this time, I would look at the sunrise at 5AM and I began to see in it, an awesome splendor that I had never seen before. God was awakening inside of me, as I trembled at the realization of His immenseness. Not just immense, but close.

By the time I got to the end of the four gospels and the Book of Acts, I realized that my life had changed over the course of these weeks. Even on my days off, I would take my motorcycle out before sunrise, to some distant hill, or farmer's field, and be reminded of His goodness, and to adore him for having brought the sun, the earth, and the life around me into existence, and for being its sustainer. My life had learned meaning and purpose. Those early days of exercising what little faith God had granted me, will remain cherished for all eternity.

The years that followed, saw God demonstrating to me, the reality of His existence in many, many ways. He not only enabled me to finish high school, but then later I graduated with Honours from the local university. I can not see that as something that I was able to do, but something that His grace enabled for me.

I now understood that God is very, very difficult to communicate. The churches since Darwin's day, by and large, have failed to do so. There are exceptions. Sometimes, the best communicator is a simple book purchased from a kids program from a local evangelical church. That is the reason we are here. KMB and the Canadian Bible Society, two of the instruments God used in my spiritual walk.