Personal Afterword

My personal quest for evidence and truth started in the early Summer of 1999.

I had planned to read a few books and move on. But as I began to read I also started to make astounding discoveries. I remember that as I went through the different books and subjects, one by one the foundations of my comfortable life began to change. Earth appeared to be a very unique planet; life could not have started by chance; we did not evolve from apes nor are we evolving today; the Genesis creation account is not as silly as it had seemed after all; the texts of the Bible had not been changed over the centuries; the gospels bear the marks of honest eye-witness testimony; Jesus did perform miracles; those millennia old prophecies about the Messiah did fit Jesus’ profile very well; the resurrection cannot be explained away and so on. My reading and research continued. There was so much to learn and discover. It soon became a fulltime activity.

After about six months I had reached a point that I felt I had researched and studied all the major questions I had when I started and even many of the additional questions I encountered during my reading. I had expected that at this point I would be sitting in front of pages of notes split into two piles. One pile with all the evidence in support of Christianity and one arguing against it. Well, indeed I had lots of notes and piles of paper. But the against pile was missing. I honestly had not found any solid fact that would go against the Christian claims. Well, perhaps one, the one of “I am not sure whether I want to be a Christian” was still bugging me. Intellectually I had reached a point that I was confronted with the truth and could not logically deny it. Spiritually and emotionally I was not ready to accept Christ. I did not want to become the next guy “who found religion.” I did not want to become a Jesus freak. I did not really want to change my life. I did not want to have a new boss. I had worked all my life to be without any bosses. Frankly, that was one of the reasons we moved to the USA . Working for a company that was headquartered 9 time zones and 6,000+ miles away gave me a lot of freedom. And in my mind, being retired was even the best thing possible. So, I was happy where I was and had (I thought) no need for Jesus.

Have you ever noticed that you can fool everyone around you, but yourself? That is where I was. I could not fool myself. I knew Christianity was the truth, so reluctantly I accepted this truth, was baptized, and asked Jesus to forgive my sins and to show me where to go from here.

Well, He did. Not immediately, no major landslides overnight, but gradually. He showed me step by step how to change myself, my life, and even my family, and how to walk His path. It was (and still is) not always easy, but I know now, talking from having been “on the other side,” that following Him is ultimately the only thing that matters.

Thank you Jesus, for saving a wretch like me.

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