As a high school student, I had gone through the pattern of a lot church kids: spiritual highs followed quickly by spiritual lows: repentance, compromise, guilt, and then another trip to the altar. I hated it. But to be honest, my commitment to Christ was focused mainly on not sinning. When I was 16, I got honest with Jesus and said, “I am going to try following you one last time, but this time I will follow you all the time, everywhere. I will be a Christian even at school and do everything I can to serve and obey you. But if this doesn’t work, I’m quitting.” I see the arrogance of this kind of prayer, but God was quick to honor my “no compromise” approach.
I began leading a Bible study at my high school and led someone to Christ for the first time. That year some adults and teens worked together to start a Christian coffee house that ministered to teens and people hitchhiking through town on Highway 42. God did good stuff through us.
After becoming spiritually alive in graduate school, I first told God how deeply I loved Him. Next, I asked, “How can I serve you?” I have not had many times when God has directly or clearly spoken to my heart, but I immediately knew God wanted me to lead a Bible study for graduate students. I shared this with my Christian roommate who agreed to help me lead the study. That summer I completed my M.A. in English, married Teckla, and then returned to college ready to begin a graduate Bible study. God blessed the Bible study which Daniel (former roommate) and I took turns leading. Sometimes we packed over thirty graduate students into our one-bedroom apartment. We eventually moved it to a house rented by some graduate students. I don’t know if it was true, but a leader of Intervarsity said it was the largest graduate student Intervarsity Bible study in the country.
Obedience may seem a backward or wrong-headed reason for being a Christian. But obedience taught me two things that have kept me Christian. First, much of the disillusionment of people who have “tried Jesus” is a result of their compromise, not God’s unreality. Every boat is a lousy boat when you keep one foot on the dock. One foot in self-centeredness and one foot in serving Christ will always end in disillusionment and cynicism. One can examine the boat from many angles and listen to many people who have traveled in the boat, but eventually one must get in and trust their life to the boat.
Like those cliff divers in Mexico, we should watch other divers, study the cliffs carefully, and look at the jump from every angle. Christian faith is a leap in the light, not the dark. Nor does it require a suspension of rational thought. But just like cliff divers, a Christian must eventually totally commit to taking the plunge. Any half-hearted leap will land the diver and the Christian on the rocks. Every time I have decided to completely trust and obey Jesus, my walk with God has become an adventure rather than a duty—a joy rather than a job.
