My Story: Part II

Every aspect of my life was changing and I didn’t even realize it. The group of friends I hung out with was changing without me even thinking about it. The activities I was participating in were completely different, and I didn’t care much that I was giving up the things from before. I’ve realized through time that I often separate myself from things when I know I’m going to have to leave them, and that’s exactly what happened as I went into my senior year of high school. This is a story about relationships.

Around the beginning of my senior year I got invited to go to a Bible study by a friend of mine. I knew of a few guys who went, but hadn’t hung out with them or really talked to them before. I had been involved in a co-ed Bible study before this, but this wasn’t just a Bible study. It was a support group. It was a group of guys who all wanted to do whatever we could to help the other guys understand God better and grow in a deeper relationship with Him.

I’ve realized that there are a lot of people in life who are going to be temporary friends. They’re people who you enjoy hanging out with and spending time with, but time apart leads to more and more separation until you no longer have anything in common. There are other people, who due to the amount of time you spend with them or the common interests that you have, who will stand the test of time and always be friends. They know you well enough and understand where you’re going enough that even in 20 years, they’ll still be a friend even if not currently present in your life. These are the kind of friendships I began to put my time into.

The friends I met through the Bible study are friends I’ll have for the rest of my life. They’re guys who wouldn’t let me mess up. Trying to hide things wasn’t an option. I fell into conviction every week. Every time I opened the Bible I was reading about the way God was hoping I would live my life. I began to want to live in a new way in order to honor Him for the sacrifice He made. I’ve recently heard some preaching about how heart-broken Jesus must’ve been about dying on the cross for Him to have started sweating blood while praying days before. He knowingly let people torture and kill Him. For the first time in His life, His Father couldn’t look at Him and turned His face away. He knew all that was coming, but still allowed Himself to be crucified because of His love for us and His love for God. The more I realized this, the more I wanted to repay Him with obedience.

I quickly learned and understood that “bad company corrupts good character” as 1 Corinthians 15:33 teaches. I was continually being held to a higher standard, and it helped me to escape areas of sin in my life that I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge previously. I was changing, and because of it, I was losing friends very quickly. Although, I was gaining friends that I’d have for a lifetime.

The time came for me to pick a college to attend. I didn’t want to go on college visits. It seemed like a huge waste of time. I just started praying about where God would lead me and that my mind would just be free to follow His will. I had gone to the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse to visit a friend once before and as the decision came to pick a school, La Crosse seemed like the only option. I had heard from multiple people that they had a really great Campus Crusade for Christ movement. They were also being labeled as a tougher school to get into than Madison, and I’ve always enjoyed a challenge. I hadn’t been too sure what I wanted to go to school for yet, but there was a passage of the Bible that was in my mind the entire time. In Matthew 19:16-30, a rich young man comes to Jesus and asks Him what he needs to do to go to Heaven. Jesus tells him some of the commandments and the man tells Jesus that he has followed those commandments. Then, Jesus tells him to sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor. At this point the man went away.

I’ve always gotten fairly good grades, and I have a mathematical mind that I knew could take me into professional fields where I would make a lot of money. But, I was scared. I didn’t want to gain the amount of possessions or have the kind of money that would keep me from fully following God, so I initially got scared away from scientific fields. I knew I wanted to spend my life telling people about Jesus, so I decided to go to La Crosse and get a Communication degree in preparation for going into full-time ministry.

I continued to get closer and closer to the guys in Bible study. I never would’ve become who I am without them. I had started getting really close with my friend Nick who ended up going to La Crosse with me the next year. I also was surprised at how much I could learn from two guys my own age: Mark and Chris. Both of these guys were teaching me something new every time I was with them. They were challenging me to be a new person and teaching me how to honor God with all of my actions. All of my life I thought if you were a Christian, you were good to go. The more I learned, the more I realized that the Christian life is an ever-growing relationship with God. A great analogy I was taught in Bible study was that the Christian faith is similar to walking up a down escalator. If we keep working hard and moving forward, we get closer and closer in our relationship with God, but as soon as we stop walking up, we start to go back down to where we came from. There is no stagnant area that I had previously believed in. My faith was becoming one of love and obedience.

I left high school with quite a few friends. Guys and girls I had met and hung out with through church and Bible study and a few guys and girls from high school. I don’t know what I would’ve done without any of these relationships. It taught me something that I think a lot of young Christians overlook; friendships outside of your church group are just as important as the friendships within the group. So many young people I’ve encountered leave all their friends behind when they start hanging out with young people involved in their church activities. Jesus taught us something different. Although the disciples were His closest group of friends, He often spent time with those people outside his group of disciples. He had dinner with them and spent time with them, even when His disciples weren’t present. I’m glad that my life has always left room for friends from all areas of my life, because I’ve learned a lot from all of them.

I got to UWL and got involved with Campus Crusade as quickly as possible. I didn’t want to leave any room for temptation and mistakes. I quickly met some great people and began to get involved with as many activities as I could. The greatest friendships were formed with the people who I knew would be around when I needed to escape. I always knew I could stop in my friend Nick’s room and hang out for a little while. It was also a much easier place to meet people due to his prime location near the exit door. I also had some friends I would hang out with off campus. I realized that there are times when the best way to think and listen to God is to remove yourself from everything you need to hear from God about. This is something I was able to begin learning during my time in high school with friends like Kristy, Elyse, Rem, and Dan, but I hadn’t completely understood it until I started hanging out by the exit door of Nick’s dorm room.

At the end of my freshman year I found out about an opportunity to go on a trip called a summer project. I ended up applying for a couple locations and praying that God would open the doors if He wanted me to go. Everything ended up working out. I wrote support letters and raised the necessary money to go on the trip, and ended up going to San Diego for three months and working at Sea World. I met a ton of awesome people during my time there, and learned a lot about different ways to share my faith with the people around me. It was an awesome experience.

Relationships continued to grow as I moved off campus sophomore year. I wouldn’t say that I was growing very much at this point. There were a lot of new people in my life, and I was so busy hanging out with them and getting to know them that I wasn’t spending time on my relationship with God. I’ve learned that even if I’m doing good things with my time, I still need to make time for my relationship with God. Our relationship with God is very similar to our relationship with each other. Time apart causes the relationship to dwindle. God wants to spend time with us just the same as we hope to spend time with our closest friends and family.

Midway through sophomore year I was challenged to pray about going on another summer project. I hadn’t had much desire to go again, but I thought it may be worth going if I were to go on an international one. I talked to my friend Will, who I had met in San Diego, about going to Australia, and we decided we would apply, pray about it, and see what happened. We both ended up getting accepted, but a couple months before the trip Will found out he had the opportunity to go to Airborne school and decided to go that route. I was excited for him and excited for Australia, even though he wasn’t able to come. Sometimes the only way to get us where God wants us to go is for Him to arrange things in a way that we see attractive, even if that’s not the way He eventually desires things to work out.

In Australia I was able to use all the things I had learned in San Diego. I met some great students from Australia and some students from India who had come to Brisbane for Uni (University). I was having a good time and forming some great relationships when Nick sent me an e-mail letting me know one of my really good friends from UWL had gotten in a car accident and passed away. It felt so surreal, and I felt completely helpless. It’s something I will never understand. It taught me more than I’ll ever be able to explain. I learned that God’s plan is bigger than mine and that I need to trust Him when I can’t make sense of things. There is a reason Sarah passed away at the age that she did, and all I can do is trust that God is in complete control and will use her death to further His kingdom. It also became very real to me that any moment can be my last, or the last of any of my friends. I want to cherish every moment I have with people, and never leave a word unsaid. I want everyone I encounter to know my story and how Jesus became the only way for me.

My last two years at La Crosse were awesome. I got to live with Mark and Joel, two guys I knew from Bible study and church in Racine, along with Andy who I had yet to get to know. We all enjoyed playing sports and doing things outside, so we stayed very active together. This also allowed us to find things to do with other guys on campus. We were also able to host Bible study in our house for some time and had an open door policy for whatever friends wanted to come and hang out. It will definitely be two of the most memorable years of my life. We had a ton of fun together and built into each other based on what God was teaching us individually. I was also able to form close relationships with Taryn, Kelsey, and Jamie (Mark’s wife now!); three girls who, through their friendships, began to teach me the difference between the way guys and girls think and act on things. Fortunately, all six of these people will be in my life for a long time and I’m sure will continue to teach me new things every time we talk.

As graduation was coming, I needed to decide what to do when school was over. Two friends from high school had a serious conversation with me one night after a couple hours of video games. Dan and Rem told me that they had always felt I was ignoring some of my God-given gifts by pursuing the degree that I did. They knew I had strengths in math and science and brainstormed with me about different paths I could’ve taken. I remember Dan telling me that God gives us gifts to use for Him, and that God will give certain people the mission of going to tell others about Jesus, while giving others the mission of sending those people. Dan helped me realize that I have the gifts to be a sender. I can still talk to others about Jesus and share my faith with everyone around me, but with the gifts I have I can help send multiple people into their “mission field”.

I don’t know why I chose MSOE over any other engineering schools. I guess I didn’t want to give God very many options. I hadn’t enjoyed college very much and wasn’t very excited about the idea of going back. But, I decided to apply to Milwaukee School of Engineering and see what God would do with it. I prayed and told God that I would be happy to attend if I got accepted, otherwise I would pursue a career utilizing my communication degree. I ended up finding out a few months later that I was accepted into the architectural engineering program at MSOE, and enrolled to start school the following fall, when I quickly realized how unique it was to have the core group of friends that I had established.

I’ve decided to stop here for the day. I hope to keep these short enough that you can finish them without getting too bored or distracted. I’m hoping that Part III will finish it off with a little bit about my time at MSOE and the way God has been teaching me through the separation from all the friends that built into my so much through the last 10 years.