I’ve lived a very blessed life. I was born in Rochester, MN and raised by my loving parents and older sister. We were brought up attending a Baptist church and my parents insisted we attend a youth camp each summer. I remember fighting them on that and complaining each year, only to return a week later with a huge grin of joy on my face and a healthy dose of idealism. Returning home was always bittersweet; I was probably thinking ‘if only I could spend all my time surrounded by others with similar needs and gifts and desires, and together we could focus ourselves on uncovering and executing the will of God’ (those may not be the exact words that passed through my head when I was a kid).
I feel that experiences like summer camp are effective because they take us out of our comfort zone, making us a little softer and easier to mold. The difficulty for me has always been in sustaining that new form, despite how much I love the feeling of it. Over the years I’ve come to appreciate good company for the accountability and community it offers – when my feelings let me down, good friends provide me with the truth and encouragement I need. But…I’m falling a little behind on the story aspect of my story.
I really learned the meaning of good companionship in high school; there were three of us often attached at the hip. My two best friends helped me avoid some of the pitfalls we all face at that impressionable age, and more importantly, they set a benchmark in what to look for in a brother.
By the time I got to college, I was feeling pretty confident about my future. I recall even having a plan for the first ten years of my career – the companies I wanted to work for and on what continents (oh yeah, I was aiming big! :D). I was studying engineering, something I don’t recall having any interest in until my Senior year of high school. In fact, I remember thinking of engineers as boring nerds who fixed computer problems. It was during that final year, however, I realized I had been creating things and taking things apart my whole life, and I was already one of those nerds. I loved what I was now studying in college, and God quickly blessed me with some great friends in my new home.
For my second year of college, I became roommates with a friend I had bonded with the previous semester, and really experienced what I would characterize to-date as the most fruitful year of my life. I was involved with Campus Crusade for Christ, I was getting into some of my real engineering classes, and most significantly, I was actively sharing my heart with those around me. Whether it be a late-nite talk with a close friend, or a heart-to-heart with a new friend, I was experiencing community, and I knew myself and knew God better than ever before. That year, I attended the Twin Cities Experience in Minneapolis, a collection of Campus Crusade for Christ groups from several Midwest campuses. The event introduced me to group worship on a scale I had never experienced, and gave me a chance to participate in door-to-door food ministry around the city.
During the summer before my third year, I was blessed with a unique opportunity to live with a friend of the family in California and get some experience in engineering and business while working for his company. When I returned to school in the fall, I moved into a house with four of my friends. Looking back, these two experiences mark a turning point for me, a point at which I entered into a balance of building a ‘normal’, sustainable American career and living a spiritually-fulfilling life. I have met people who are able to execute this balance beautifully, by incorporating the two into one, and it has been my pleasure to observe and learn from them. In my own life, however, while I have earned my undergraduate degree and proved to myself I can succeed at a good job, I’ve allowed the joy and purpose I felt during my early college years to fade.
The time has come for me to turn off my own desires and open my ears to hear. Perhaps during this journey, God will share with me the needs of some of His children around the world, and will help me understand the one life I have to live. More on that in my next post, ‘How I was called to the mission field’.
