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All These Have I Kept From My Youth

I can speak with confidence that I am one who has obtained mercy. There is no doubt in my mind and I believe that there will be none in yours when you are done reading these excerpts. This is my story. It is a testimony of a spiritual seeker for absolute truth in a world that denies the existence of such.

My spiritual "experience" began at an early age- but I had no idea how many twists and turns it would take.

My parents, being Christians, took me to church and read to me about God from an early age. One of my very first memories was not only spiritual, but also had an immense effect on me in later years. I was sitting in church holding a little ceramic monkey that I really loved, and the preacher was talking about salvation and the eternal significance of rejecting it. I could not comprehend being lost for eternity, with no hope of being saved, and I started to cry. I remember my monkey glistening with tears.

As I grew older, I had dreams of being a doctor. During the same time, I felt that I would postpone my decision for Christ until I was many decades older. Then, I thought, I would start being religious.

However, I faithfully read a chapter or two out of my Bible each day. I now believe that that was a sign of a longing for spiritual life, but at the time I thought that it was spiritual life.

As I made the transition from home school to private school, I made friends who didn't share my spiritual tendencies at all. They were computer hackers, pornography addicts, and sitcom fans. Sports became a big thing in my life as well. Although I was small, my character was competitive and this made up a little for my lack of dexterity and size. The influence of my friends also probably helped to change my reading habits. I began to read fiction that put lies into my mind about life and about morals. I found that these stories were not only incredibly exciting, but the variety and number of them was almost endless. I progressed from the violent and exciting to the immoral as I grew desensitized to all the sin.

I felt however, that I was just "acting my age" and felt assured that I was still an "OK" person. I could have almost echoed the words of another young man, who when questioned about whether he kept the commandments, answered, "All these have I kept from my youth up."

A Great Change and A Friend Who Sticks

Something possessed me that summer. Maybe there was change in the air, but I think that God was working in my life. I was 16 and headed for college in the Fall. The private school where I had been attending only went to the 10th grade, and my parents didn't want to send me to a boarding school. So I went to college.

But during the summer, I picked up a book that would forever change my life. It wasn't an exciting fiction read though. It was called, The Great Controversy. It had always looked boring to me when I had seen it on the shelf, but now this almost a hundred-year-old book held a seeming supernatural spell over me as I began to read its pages. It spoke in graphic detail of the destruction of an ancient city who had gone past its probation. It spoke of centuries of spiritual apostasy and bold men who dared question the mainstream thought. On the edge of my seat, I kept reading and learned of another nation, one who laughed in the face of God- and seemed to "reap the whirlwind" in a deluge of blood. It finally closed with clear explanations of ancient prophecies and the unmasking of the greatest conspiracy plot on a scale to make Hitler's "Final Solution" look minuscule.

Odd as it seemed to me, this Truth seemed stranger and more exciting than fiction. It stirred in my heart a powerful rush, a burning desire, to live the lives and ideals of the brave men portrayed. The book was saturated with over a thousand Bible verses, and although I had almost lost my interest in the Bible, I could now see that it contained a grand destiny and spoke of a final conflict that could possibly soon involve even myself.

Two things truly struck me like a load of bricks. Jesus, whom I had heard about all my life, could come in a very short time. And second, I wasn't ready.

I set out to discover more about Christ and Christianity. I had seen that the great majority of Christians had gradually come to accept errors and fables down through the centuries, and so I realized that I couldn't just depend on the words of some pastor or tele-evangelist. I began to read the Bible with new eyes. I started with 1 John and discovered that, "He who loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is Love." (1 John 4:8) This made sense. Those Christians in my life that seemed to have no love for their fellow men, or God for that matter, didn't really know God. Up to this point in my life, almost everyone I knew claimed to be a Christian, but no one I could think of really seemed (to me) to have a passion for Christ. Now I understood that true Christianity wasn't one-and-the-same with how I had seen it portrayed.

As my insatiable appetite for Truth led me to read many books of the Bible over and over again, I realized that Christ wanted to be my friend. "And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." (John 17:3) I also found that religion wasn't a curse, nor was it meant to be some "burden" to be carried around. Christ had said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." (John 10:10)

As I talked in prayer with God, Christ soon became my best and only true friend, and it was fulfilled that, "...There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother." (Proverbs 18:24)

And It Was Good (For a While)

After I found Christ as my best Friend, He led me to other young people who were on fire for Him. One of the first things I remember them telling me was that, "When you start working for God, the Devil intensifies his attack on you because he knows what God can do through you." This has proved true in my experience, and you will be able to see this principle in the rest of my testimony.

I had always been, and still was, a very shy and introverted person. I wasn't good at making friends and I was scared to death of talking to a crowd of larger than one person. In fact, I remember a time when I tried to pay or coerce my younger sister to make a phone call for me because I was too scared to do so myself :)

This fact made it very hard to share my new-found faith. I couldn't describe my experience to those around me, and became even more of a recluse. I almost laughed out loud when I signed up to join a summer "colporteur" group. This "summer job" consisted of going door-to-door, meeting new and strange people- eight hours a day! In fact, the only reason I ever even considered the notion, was because it involved the sharing of religious books with the people we met. And not just any books...one of them was The Great Controversy.

I was exhausted. I was rejected. And I hadn't sold a thing! After two days of this work, I was at my wit's end. My leaders could see that my social skills were at record-breaking low levels, and my sales matched unmistakably. However, my Friend in heaven heard my prayers, and on the third day I met a woman who was so overjoyed to find a book by her favorite author, that she bought The Great Controversy from me for fifty dollars! This started my love of colporteuring, and the rest of the summer not only improved my relationship and faith in Christ, but also my people skills.

After attending two different community colleges for a year and a half, I decided that I wanted to go to a school that would give me not only skills for this earth, but for eternity as well. So I enrolled in the Amazing Facts Center of Evangelism (AFCOE). Of course this was unlike any school I had ever been to, and it was like a dream come true. We not only had spell-binding Bible classes on Daniel and the Revelation, but learned better ways to reach out to others through Bible studies and community events.

My "Bible-work partner" and I were given a section of town in south Sacramento, California to begin taking surveys in preparation for giving Bible studies. Allow me to describe one amazing story about how I "obtained mercy."

It was about 9 pm- too late to be taking surveys door-to-door, but we had had too many good experiences that day and we didn't want to quit. Kevin, my Bible-work partner, was across the street and many doors down. I approached a house surrounded by a very tall chain-link fence and opened the gate. I can't remember if I rattled the fence to check for dogs, but I should have. Before I could reach out my hand to knock on the door, four of the largest and meanest dogs I could imagine had slunk out of a dog house in single file formation. I took several steps back from the door, and in the light from the single bare bulb on the porch I could see the mutts arranged in a circle around me. I could hear their intense breathing, and could feel their hot breath through my polyester dress pants. All I had to defend myself was a little clip board with my surveys it it. I might as well have had a paperclip.

My breathing changed to Bible verses as I remembered the many times that God had promised to protect those that loved and honored Him. Soon, to my utmost joy, the door opened and a woman's head emerged. The woman, however, did not share my same felicity. "We have these dogs here for a reason!," she exclaimed as I tried to convince her that I was not a robber or a villain. I tried to show her my harmless clipboard and surveys as proof that I was on a benign mission. But before I could finish a few short sentences, "Bang," the door closed...and the porch light went extinct.

Here I was with these monster dogs, a merciless owner, no light, and no one nearby. My Friend was nearby though. One of the dogs reached out and put his mouth around my leg. It didn't hurt, but a moment later he did the same thing, but harder. The third time, it hurt like crazy and left some deep bruises. I could "sense the trend," and I did what you are not supposed to do. I turned and ran for the gate- any moment expecting to feel four powerful sets of jaws on my body, tearing me limb from limb. 15 feet later and lifting the latch to the gate, I looked back and saw the dogs motionless where I had stood only a second before. However, as I rocketed through the gate and in one swift motion closed the latch, it seemed as if Hell broke loose and the dogs hit the fence at eye level. I believe that it was a divine intervention by God Himself that allowed me to live through this and several other life-threatening situations during those four months in "south Sac."

What a blessing AFCOE was! I gave Bible studies to everyone from drug addicts, housewives, pastors, and many others as I gained knowledge and experience in the faith of the Bible. It was soon at an end though, and I went back home for a short time.

Before I went to AFCOE, I also experienced many amazing events which convinced me that Providence was leading me to also embark on a one year training and missions program that would take me to another school called the College of Health Evangelism (CHE). It consisted of not only similar Bible classes that I had already taken at AFCOE, but practical classes in Massage, Hydrotherapy, Natural Health, and many more. As I studied there, the rapid assimilation of new truth and concepts challenged my mind, and I began to carry some things to extremes. I became very strict in my diet, and began to lose weight. Although most people don't mind losing weight, I certainly didn't need to. This, I am sure, was just another step in the Devil's plan to start getting me discouraged.

Because I had volunteered to be a part of the Mission Extreme program, which consisted of the six month's training I had received at the College of Health Evangelism, I also was scheduled to perform a six month period of overseas mission service. I had decided to go the country of Zambia in southern central Africa to do a combination of Bible studies and simple medical work.

The Bible says of the work of creation, "And God saw...that it was good." (Gen 1:4). But just like God's perfect work, there loomed in the horizon something very sinister.

The Valley of the Shadow

To set the stage for this segment of my story, I must re-create not only the location and setting in your mind, but I must also tell you a little of my ideology. The location was rural Zambia. Zambia is rural enough already, but myself and the four other missionaries were at what is called an"outpost center" in the bush. The native people are very poor and die at an average age of about 35. They die of diseases that are practically foreign to coroners in the US: malaria, schistosomiasis, kwashiorkor, and more. Regarding my ideology, it was as black and white as the picture of my little friend Emmanuel above. One of the points I was very strict on was taking pharmaceutical drugs. I didn't believe in ever, under any circumstances taking any for even serious diseases [NOTE: while the pharmaceutical industry is killing millions by the use of drugs(http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/drugReactions/default.htm), there are certain times where it would be much better to use a drug that you know would work, then to allow someone to die of a disease.]

So my fanatical ideas about drugs and food made a trying situation into a terrible one. The leaders at the main mission station were afraid of someone dying of malaria, the main deadly disease, when thier life could have been spared by the use of anti-malarial drugs. They told us that if we wouldn't consent to take the drugs if we got sick, we would have to board the next plane back home. I eventually told them, "Yes, I'll take the drugs if I get sick." Soon afterward, however, I started having doubts about whether I was really following God by my decision to use drugs if I became sick. However, our team moved out into the bush and we began giving hut to hut Bible studies and health lectures in churches and to smaller groups. This was a very good experience and we saw many miraculous things happen. One instance was where a young girl named Luyando (translated means "love" in English) had a huge cut right on the bottom of her heel. Since she had no shoes, and walked around where chickens and goats walked, it soon became deeply infected. I had been looking for a situation where we could use some of the simple remedies that we had learned, and so we tied a charcoal pack over the wound. We prayed for her many times and visited her often.

Charcoal works to debride and cleanse a wound by it's powerful microscopic structure. When looked at through a microscope, the activated charcoal speck becomes a type of crystal with a thousand facets. The facets, or sides, have ridges and the whole speck works to trap bacteria, toxins, and dirt.

After one or two treatments, our translator squeezed out a huge amount of terrible-looking pus, and after a few weeks, the wound was almost completely healed. We praised God that this simple treatment was so effective.

Satan wasn't asleep, and I soon again started doubting whether I even had a saving relationship with Christ. In the early period when I had come to Christ, I had twice experienced this same type of dark experience, but had always "recovered" quickly when I would pray for a while. This time I couldn't seem to shake it. I started fasting from food, which not only didn't help, but made me weak as well. I believe this also started altering my thinking to the point that I felt that I just couldn't get out of this trap.

Soon, the people who were in charge of my team told me that I had to go back to the main mission station to get better. I didn't object.

My situation only got worse though, and my mind became so imbalanced that I could only think about 3 small thoughts each and every minute of the day. The first thought was, "I've got to repent of whatever I've done and come back to God." However, I couldn't really think of anything that I had done wrong, so I wasn't sure exactly what to do. The second thought was, "I'd better just give up on this missionary idea, and go home like a loser." This didn't really appeal to me either because of my pride, and also because Satan had convinced me that my family didn't love me. The third, and gravely more sinister was, "If you have lost your salvation, then there's no reason to keep on living, and you might as well kill yourself."

As time progressed, I couldn't think of anything BUT killing myself. I made a couple plans and a little attempt, but after I finally confessed to one of my friends, I was told that I could no longer stay in Africa any longer, but must go home to America. I had no intention of going home to my family and friends as such a loser, so I picked a flight that had a two day layover in London. This, I thought, would provide the perfect "vacation" to kill myself. [NOTE: I had always been a fairly optimistic person, and had never before read or watched any suicidal material, but it seemed at this moment that that was all I could think about.]

My two days in London were like a living hell. Heathrow airport doesn't allow people to sleep in the terminal unless they have a ticket showing that they're on a plane departing within the next 24 hours. Through my foggy, sleep-deprived eyes I could see guards waking up other sleeping travelers and checking their tickets. I would groggily get up and drag my bags to some quieter section of the airport. I didn't want to get a hotel because for some reason they were about 600 US dollars a night. I think this was due to some convention in London at the time. After about 24 hours in the airport with no real sleep, I thought, "Man, I'll just sleep as long as I can, and then I'll have enough energy to kill myself." I bought a room in a hostel for around $40. As I walked through town with the address, I realized how nice the roads were back in the States. I would come to a intersection of three roads and there would be no street signs. I would look at the businesses, and there would be no addresses. I never felt so lost in my life. I had no friends with me, no cell phone (I didn't want to talk to anyone anyways), and most of all I felt I had lost my best Friend. I had to bite my lip to keep from cursing or crying, and kept walking.

After long hours of searching, I finally found the hostel. To my disgust, I saw that it was more like what I thought a brothel would be like. There was demonic music playing, people drinking and smoking, and the rooms were full of both sexes sleeping in the dark.

I told the guy who checked me in that I might go in my room later. I set down my suitcase without even putting it in a safe place, and frantically looked about for some way to end my life. I couldn't imagine that I was in a place like this, with no future at all. I put on my backpack and walked back out into the freezing London cold. I had just come hurriedly from Africa, with no coat or winter clothes at all. I walked up and down the streets with no where to go. I was just looking for some high bridge or something to jump off, but finding none, I decided to try to find another place to sleep. I tried to get an all-night pass so I could sleep on the Subway, but someone told me that that wouldn't work. I tried to sleep in an Internet cafe, but the owner wouldn't let me. Finally I started walking back to the hostel. Remembering my canvassing days, I knocked on the door of a house. A man answered and I asked him if I could sleep in his house. He looked at me like I was crazy, and said "No." I think that he must have felt sorry though, because he went inside and brought out a long black leather jacket and gave it to me. I was grateful that at least I was warmer, but I had reached the point where I felt I couldn't wait any longer to end my life. I decided that it was either now or never. I went to the edge of sidewalk on a busy downtown street. I stood right next to where the lorries (big trucks) were driving past. I didn't want to be just injured, so I prepared myself to jump out at the perfect opportunity. I would tense myself at the perfect moment, but I could never seem to bring myself to jump out into harm's way.

It is a terrible thing to stand on the brink of eternity. I hope that you will never feel the utter sense of hopelessness that I felt, or the shear terror of realizing that this is the end of the end- that there will be no tomorrow. That you'd never see another sunrise or see your friends again. There are no words for such a time or feeling, in fact I don't even like remembering it and I long for heaven when there will be no more sorrow or pain of any kind.

I believed that I was eternally lost, and I knew that if I killed myself, the next thing I would know would be the judgment of God. As I look back, I can only say this was the biggest instance where I can see that I obtained mercy. This was certainly like walking through the "valley of the shadow of death" that David speaks of in Psalms 23:4.

Can These Bones Live?

I never was able to end my life. Praise God.

I went home to California, and my family welcomed me back. Of course everyone could see that something was terribly wrong, but I never told anyone exactly what happened until over a year later.

My mom invited me to work with her in her third grade classroom as kind of an aid. Now, this was hard for me, as a 19 year old young man to do. I have never liked crafty stuff, and it was hard to work with kids. Mom let me grade her math papers for her, but no matter how hard I seemed to try, I just couldn't concentrate. Sometimes it would take around three hours for me to complete two or three simple papers. And to make it worse, I had the "key" with all the answers. Physically I was a wreck as well. I would try to run on the track, but I couldn't even run a quarter mile. I used to be a good runner, but not any more.

I had lost all meaning in life. There was nothing I enjoyed, and I had absolutely no goals at all. I would laugh in my head as people would talk about what my future held. I was sure that I was too stupid to do any career, no matter how easy or menial.

I didn't want to go to church at first, but finally conceded to my family's wishes. I felt so hypocritical, and for good reasons. During those several months, I heard a couple sermons that kind of touched my heart. I fully realized that I longed to have my friendship with Christ back, but I thought that that was an impossibility. I thought that I had long ago and far away gone past the limit of my probation, and that there was no way that Christ could save me. I dismissed my longings with a clench of the teeth, and went on my way to Hell.

I started selling our family's mandarin oranges at open-air markets. I never enjoyed the foul language and the lazy crowd that seemed to gather there. The longer I spent around them, the more I seemed to be like them. This made my mind seem more debased and ruined than before.

I longed for friendship and security, so at the last minute I decided to join my sister's colporteuring group for the summer. I was quite the hypocrite, but what can I say? I obtained mercy even though I didn't deserve it. I sold an average number of books, but hardly had any good experiences to speak of.

One thing that I haven't mentioned is that before I went colporteuring, my parents had convinced me to go to Southern Adventist University. Inside I felt that I could never make it, but I decided to go because there was nothing I could really do at home.

Usually when you start on some venture thinking that you're going to fail, you do. But not so this time. I set my mind to be diligent, and I studied hard. After seeing my first semester grades as all straight As, I realized that somehow it had been a lie of Satan that I was so stupid.

I also started exercising like crazy. Completely gone were my fanatical health food ideas, and so I would often eat several dollars of vending machine chocolate a day! The extra calories and the intense exercise was definitely good for me. I ended up gaining 40 pounds in less than a year. Once I ran a 5 kilometer race and came in not far behind a marathon runner. I could see at least my physical and mental life was coming back.

I also did a lot of risky and sometimes foolish things for the adrenaline rush or popularity. I sky dived, hung off water towers, climbed a rope down a small cliff in the Grand Canyon, and other crazy things. I became pretty popular, but nothing I filled my life with seemed to satisfy. Every time I went to sleep, I knew that I was missing out on current peace and the prospect of eternity. I was already sick of the things that this world had to offer.

I'm sure that God posed the same rhetorical question to my guardian angel that He did to Ezekiel, "Can these [dead] bones live?" The answer: "O Lord God, Thou knowest." (Ezekiel 37:1-10)

A Brand Plucked Out of the Fire

Because of my religious background, I soon began to hang around with Christians. They didn't know that my heart wasn't with Christ, so to them it seemed like everything was fine with me. There was Change in the air though. In the spring of 2008, I was asked to be a colporteur leader. If you've ever been in a colporteur group, you know that it can be an enviable and respected position. I decided to do it.

The night before I begun my trip of flights to Georgia (where there was a leadership retreat), I called my employer to see if everything was OK. "Oh, they didn't tell you..." he said, "I don't need you as a leader anymore." I couldn't believe it. Here it is the night before I leave, and they tell me that they don't need me. Because I was in nursing school, I thought I should just give up the idea of being a 10 week hypocrite and just take a well-paid nurse tech job for the summer. However, the conference leaders realized that I had wanted to lead, and so they found another spot as a "Junior Leader" in Kentucky. I took the opportunity, but soon I found out that I would be a "Co-Leader" with only one other full time leader.

As I went to the training meeting for the soon-to-be-leaders, the realization of what I was doing hit me. I was going to be representing God to many impressionable young people, but I was a complete hypocrite myself. I knew that this was entirely unacceptable, even to human standards, let alone God's. I was convinced that even though I didn't think it was possible to have a relationship with God again, I needed to give up some things that I knew were wrong. Isaiah 59:2 says, "But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you that He will not hear." If we are doing things that we know to be wrong, and we don't make an effort to give them up, then God cannot hear us and give us what we wish in other matters.

So I gave some things up. I stopped listening to music that created an unholy atmosphere in my mind, and stopped doing other things that I knew were wrong. Suddenly, it was like a cloud lifted from my mind and I realized that God was giving me strength to not only give up these sins, but to change my heart and give my faith back! After more then a year of silence, I prayed my first prayer to God. Oh, how wonderful that was! I started reading the Bible again and re-discovered the truths that I had completely neglected. I felt the peace that passes understanding come back to my heart. I knew that God would lead my life and guide me in the way everlasting.

I now had an almost infinitely greater knowledge of the love and mercy of God because I had gone to Hell and back as "a brand plucked out of the fire." Zechariah 3:2

The Lord Shall Guide Thee Continually

[This is a picture of my sister and me at her school in Arizona]

There were too many good experiences that summer to share in this blog. The Bible says, "And they [the saints] overcame him [the devil] by the blood of the Lamb [Christ] and the word of their testimony..." (Revelation 12:11) Even though I was a leader, I had the privilege of going door-to-door myself for a couple weeks. It was a huge blessing to be able to share with others what God had done for me. It strengthened my faith, and I could see that now I could relate with people that I never could have related to before.

Before in my Christian experience, I had sometimes doubted the genuineness of my faith, or that God really loved me. Now, it was as if God shielded me from this and never allowed Satan to tempt me with doubts in any way. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God had delivered me from the destroyer, and I wanted to completely dedicate my life to God as Paul had done.

I read a quote that strengthened and challenged me. It read, "There is no evidence of genuine repentance unless it works reformation. If he restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, confess his sins, and love God and his fellow men, the sinner may be sure that he has passed from death unto life." (Steps to Christ, 59). This presented me with assurance and a test. I knew that I had stolen from one of my employers during the time that I had been away from God. Could I now confess that I had done this terrible thing? Furthermore, would I humble myself enough to repay what I "had robbed?" I knew what I must do, and for almost a semester, I worked in a most menial job to repay what I had taken. It turned out to be quite a blessing, because it gave me time to think about what I had done, and to reflect on the love of Christ for a sinner such as me.

God has since led my life in amazing and supernatural ways. In order to follow my convictions of truth, I knew I had to leave the school I was attending. But where should I go? Right when one door slammed shut, God immediately opened another door. This was a dream opportunity to work in a place called the Wildwood Health Retreat in the middle of Tennessee. It has been a blessing to work there for several months, and God has given me many opportunities to witness, learn truth, and to fully see fulfilled the promise that, "The Lord shall guide thee continually." (Isaiah 58:11)

As I look back over my life, I see two constant themes. First, Satan has lied to me continually. He told me that I would never amount to anything. He told me that I had gone past my irrevocable probation. [However, 1 John 1:9 says that, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness."] He also told me that the pleasures of this world would quiet my conscience and give me an exciting life. The second theme that I see is that I have been one who has obtained mercy. I deserve to die for my sins. I certainly don't deserve to have a friend like Christ. I deserve to have death and more, but all I can say is that there is incredible mercy at the foot of the cross for both YOU and ME. I have felt this love, and I pray that you would feel a burning in your heart for a Friend that sticks closer then a brother. A friend who literally went to Hell and back so that you wouldn't have to. I know that it's not God's will for you to have to go through what I did, but I know that in Heaven I will be able to see how "All things work together for good to them that love God." (Romans 8:28)