Interactions with God #18

My friend Doug VanPelt was really into Christian rock music. Actually most of my friends were, but it was Doug who took it upon himself to introduce me to it. He was an endless supply of tapes for my portable cassette player. Doug would later go on to start a magazine called Heaven’s Metal or HM. Paul and Carey would also go on to start a Christian Punk band called One Bad Pig. I was surrounded by Christian Music Fans…and I mean fans.

After school started back up in 1985, I found myself walking around the UT campus between classes, “plugged in”. I like music, like most people, but I was starting to find that I had becoming fairly disconnected from those around me. So after class one day, while heading to my bus stop, I stopped for a minute and looked around at everyone. Still connected to a Christian song, I realized that I was just like them a few months ago…without any real understanding of Jesus Christ. I watched the faces of the students, the lostness, of which I now thought I understood. I then had a sudden realization that I had forgotten what it was like to walk without Him. So I did what I thought seemed like a good idea. I asked God to remind me of what it felt like. 

Though God had been really active those first few months, I still did not think He would do anything…but He did. While standing there, listening to my Christian music, a huge wave of loneliness swept over me. Lostness is not just a state of being; there are feelings, and thoughts, that are part of it as well. When we get “saved” we are delivered from them. That doesn’t mean we are free from bad feelings, but we always have the Spirit of God within us to dampen, or even help us dismiss, them through our faith in God. The lost have no such advantage, and I now felt lost. It was overwhelming.

Here I am a male student at the age of 23 in the middle of a mass of people all about my age. I really did not want to break down and cry in front of them, so I did my best to fend off those feelings, and head to my bus. Once in the bus, I had hoped the wave of lostness would go away, but it didn’t. In fact in was growing worse. The bus was not full, but was filling. I was getting really close to losing it, and busting out in a huge cry…NOT something I wanted to do. Near the bus stop, was a small shopping mall, with a Christian bookstore. My circle of friends, and I knew the owner. I figured it was a safe place to lose it, as that was now inevitable. I left the bus, and quickly made my way toward the bookstore. 

It just so happened (coincidence? I think not) that the girl who was part of our group of friends, the one I called Cindy, was there. She saw me coming toward the store from the main hallway. Clearly, I was about to blow. Without a word, she quickly took me to a small room in the back of the book store where we sat down at a table just in time for me to burst into tears. 

Yes, it was embarrassing, but the flood of feelings was just too strong to avoid. I sat there crying, in front of Cindy, for a good 20 minutes as the feelings slowly changed from lostness to an appreciation for what Christ had done for me. I also had a new realization of the importance of reaching those who do not understand. 

Cindy, after I stopped crying, asked me what happened, so I told her. Oddly enough, she said she was glad to see evidence of my sincerity. I got the feeling that she didn’t think I was really a Christian. After that day, I began to realize she had always looked at me with some sort of suspicion. I didn’t understand why this was at the time, and wouldn’t for many years, but it was the beginning of something else God would do as part of my wilderness training… the wilderness training, of which I am still in the middle of.