The years went on, and I moved. After ten years of living in the same town, with all the same friends at the same school and the same church, my parents decided to move. I didn’t like that. I was almost eleven years old, and I didn’t want to leave my friends going into fifth grade. But I adjusted. The summer before seventh grade, I went with my brother and my friend Jimmy to a Christian camp. I would say it was life-changing, and it was because my life probably would have been very different if I hadn’t gone, but it wasn’t life-changing in the monumental way that made me who I am today as opposed to who I was just over a year ago. The camp taught me some good things about the Bible, and as far as I can remember, the guest speaker was great, delivering messages that, if given to mature adults, would have sparked a miniature revival. But I was a rising seventh grader. If I was as inattentive then as today’s seventh graders, it’s a wonder I remember anything at all from that week.
A year passed, and I attended another Christian camp. I know I had fun, but I remember very little from that camp. I do remember launching water balloons at a rock climbing wall with a giant slingshot though.
Anyway, I moved again the next year, the summer before my freshman year of high school. That fall, I got baptized. (I guess that’s a story for another day, so I’ll leave out the details for now.) I went on a church retreat that spring, and that’s when the changes really started to happen. I started reading devotionals; my parents had been reading devotionals with me and my brother throughout my middle school years, but they stopped when I got to high school, so I started reading on my own. I would also occasionally open my Bible and read a couple verses. On a weekday! I wasn’t just a Sunday Christian anymore! Well, I had never really been what you would call a “bad kid” anyway, but I’m not talking about actions right now; I’m just talking about getting into the Word.
The next year was pretty uneventful when it came to my Christian walk. But then junior year came along. My brother, then a freshman in high school, started attending a youth group at a church close to our school. Some of my friends from my sophomore Chemistry class were involved in the group, so when they found out who my brother was, they started asking him every week, “Where’s Michael?” Unfortunately, I had marching band practice at the same time as the youth group during the fall, so I fell back on that as my excuse for not going. To be honest, I didn’t really want to go. I knew there was more to being a Christian than what I was giving God, but I didn’t want to give any more than I already was (which wasn’t much). So when football/marching band season ended, I reluctantly let my brother drag me along. And the funny thing is that I actually enjoyed it. Everyone was so welcoming: my friends from my Chemistry class, the leaders, and a few other students who I never would have imagined being friends with before. The youth pastor, Steve, was awesome, and he’s still there, being a blessing to incoming students every year, as well as returning students.
What came next was what triggered the biggest turn my life has taken so far. My brother, who had been wanting to go on a winter retreat with the group, talked with Steve and got me a permission form for the retreat. I signed up, went, and… well, I couldn’t wait to go back the next year. After the church retreat my freshman year, I started reading my Bible sporadically; after this retreat, I started reading every day. I met a bunch of new people and made a lot of great, new friends, including some of the leaders, and strengthened older friendships that had really only been acquaintances before.
Now, I know I keep saying that each of these retreats changed my life, but this time is for real. My senior year, I went on the same winter retreat. But it wasn’t the same. That September, my grandfather passed away. My dad’s father was a retired pastor. Two days earlier, I had read a certain passage in 2 Kings about Elijah and Elisha, so when my grandfather went home to be with his Savior, I repeated Elisha’s request in prayer form, “God, grant me a double-portion of the Holy Spirit that you gave my grandpa.” God’s timing is always perfect: He answered my prayer at the winter retreat. Two nights in a row, instead of leaving worship in a hurry to get to evening activities before going to bed, the Spirit held 120 of us students captive in that room, praising Him from 10pm until past 1am the first night, and until 4am the next.
I don’t really know how to describe what happened next except that God answered my prayer. I was in the Word every day, reading devotionals consistently and eagerly, developing my own Bible reading plan, etc. In a matter of weeks, I had read the entire New Testament. I was hungry for the Word like I had never been before. I started sharing my faith with people, which I never would have done before. That spring I did something called Spiritual Preparation And Meditation (SPAM, for short), when I gave up unnecessary use of secular technology for 46 days (Lent, including Sundays) in favor of spending time studying the Bible, praying, and just listening to God. I did a 30-day version of SPAM my sophomore year, but the result was pretty insignificant compared to my 46-day experience. I actually liked giving up my computer, TV, my phone, video games, etc. to read the Bible! And I even told people what I was doing, and some joined me in SPAMing, which encouraged me to keep going strong.
A lot of the same went on for the rest of the school year. Summer came, and staying in the Word every day became more of a challenge. But it was nothing like when I got to my first semester of college. I just couldn’t bring myself to get up early enough or stay up late enough to read. I got involved with great campus ministries, and I’ve made a lot of Christian friends who are always encouraging each other in their spiritual growth. But I had broken my habit of reading the Bible daily. I started having Bible studies with small groups of friends, and even one-on-one studies, and the habit started to come back. Now, after my first semester of college (well, my first official semester; I did joint enrollment my senior year of high school), I have broken the habit again. But it has been broken for the better: rather than reading the Bible out of habit, I am once again reading because I want to, like I did after the winter retreat last year. And instead of just reading the Bible, I’m actually studying it in depth, verse-by-verse, an idea given to me by one of the leaders at a camp I went to last summer called Snowbird.
Now I’m staying in the Word daily, working on memorizing James, reading through the Old Testament, and preparing for my first mission trip, which will be in Jamaica during spring break. I am convinced that missions is my purpose, whether it’s as a full-time career overseas or as a ministry through my job here at home. Before Christ, I was lost in a world of pride and self-edification; now, thanks to Christ, my greatest desire (I wish I could say it was my only desire, but God is still working on that in me) is to bring God glory.
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” ~ Galatians 2:20
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