The evolution of an atheist.

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I have gone through all the things you once believed were true, and much much more. I grew in up a Christian home, attending a large Baptist church until I graduated from high school. At the age of 9, I made a profession of Jesus as my Savoir and was water baptized. In college I drifted far from my Christian roots, spending 5 years partying as a frat boy, but still graduated with a degree in Engineering Physics, and then went on to 45 year career in the nuclear energy business. I married the love of my life at 23, and made the commitment to get back to my Christian roots. From then until I was 29 I grew in knowledge of the Bible, but I cannot say Jesus as a person was very real to me. We moved to CA when I was 26, and joined a Baptist church. For 3 years I did everything I could "do" in the church; choir, taught SS class, visitation, revivals, etc. But nothing "I" did brought me into the intimate relationship with the Jesus of the Bible other Christians seemed to have. In fact, the more I tried to make Christianity real to me, the further away God seemed to be. Then I went through a month of what some call "the dark night of the soul" where God completely withdrew Himself from me. In despair I went to the pastor, explained my desperation to him, asked for prayer, but in truth he could offer me no relief for my soul in desperate need of a real God. But I did not give up and leave the church. Then one evening a short time later as I went out on visitation with another guy in the church to visit those who had recently visited the church, God did something totally unexpected or asked for. For 2 hours I/we witnessed to our faith in Jesus to the father of the two boys who had visited our church. He was somewhat familiar with Catholicism, but not familiar evangelical Christianity. When we got to the home, I was still the same person in desperate need of a real God of today, not just a historical God of the Bible. But the more we told the father about the God of the Bible, something began to happen inside of me. By the time we left 2 hours later, we felt like we were floating through the air on the way back to the church. When we got back to the church, we were jumping up and down and praising God for who "HE IS", not for who He was. We realized that God had just filled/baptized us with the gift of the Holy Spirit to be His witnesses as He said he would in Acts 1:5. Since that night 39 years ago, I have been on a life long quest to really know this God of the Bible who became real to me for the first time.

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My favorite Bible verse during this 39 year quest to know God is Phil 3:10,

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"That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death."

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This is my testimony in a nutshell.

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Blessings

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