Eric has shared his testimony with me several times, but I will copy Eric's testimony as he told it to Max Davis in his book Desperate Dependence so that I will remember all of the details.
"Growing up,I naturally adopted my parents' beliefs," Eric said. "Their argument against God made sense to me. 'How could there be a good God with all the evil in the world?' And that's the attitude I picked up."
All through high school and college if people said they were Christian, Eric had a good time sparring with them. He would throw at them the same questions his parents used. In addition to the pain and suffering argument, he would ask them, "How can you say Christianity is true? What about Islam? What about the Indian gods? What about Buddhism? Are you saying that they are all wrong?" Eric enjoyed arguing. It was fun trying to convince someone that his faith was foolish.
While he was in his sophomore year of college, Eric began to develop a hunger for truth. He sensed something out there was called truth. He had no idea what it was. It still had nothing to do with God at the time. But he wanted to know what truth was. Eric spent some time considering it and came to the conclusion that "goodness" was truth. If you were a good person then you were living in the truth.
That lasted for a while, then it evolved into something more. He sensed that there was something deeper than "goodness." Then he came to the conclusion that "love" was truth. So he said he wanted to try to love people. Mind you, everything was still very atheistic. God was still not even a consideration. At the time, Eric had no idea that it was a God who was drawing him to Himself. So he continued for a while to believe that ""love" was truth. Yet he still hungered to make sure that he was living in truth and he still sensed deeply that he was missing something.
At this time, Eric had a friend whose girlfriend was a Christian. She asked him, "Eric, do you believe in God?"
Eric responded, "No, but I'll think about it." After that, he didn't see her again but the question sparked a desire in Eric to know if there really was a God. If that was the truth, he wanted to know.
He was going to college in upstate New York in a quaint little town and would take long walks. While walking he would ponder these questions. One night, he said, "God if You are there, I want to know." If He wasn't there, that was okay by Eric. His life was fine. This was not a crisis. In fact, it was probably one of the happiest times of his life. Nevertheless, Eric said, "God, if You are there, show me."
On another night, he had gone to a party and met his roommate from the previous year. Eric really looked forward to seeing him, but his former roommate was as cold as ice to him, and Eric couldn't understand it. This really hurt him, and he walked home that night, dejected. saying to himself, "There is no God. It is true. There is just too much evil and sadness in the world for God to be real. That's it, my search is over."
But then something rose up inside of him and he cried out, "God if You are really there, then show me now!" Instantly and surprisingly, there was an unexpected tingling in Eric's head, and it felt as if his brain were going to explode into a hundred pieces. Then, out of his gut--that's the only way he could describe it--came the words JESUS! GOD! At that moment, God revealed Himself to Eric. Eric says, "I had no bias or preconceived notions. If it had been Buddha or Allah, it would have been fine with me. Jesus as God was a complete surprise. I had no previous knowledge that the Bible referred to Jesus as God. My Bible knowledge was nil."
From that point on, Eric knew that Jesus was real--there was no doubt about it. Since then he had never doubted the the existence of God. Eric said that he believes that you must have a personal encounter with God to truly believe. This was more than thirty years ago, and Eric is still a committed Christian man.
How encouraging to know that our God desires to reveal Himself to any man who is willing to learn the truth!
