Looking Back

In a conversation with a family member, I was asked this week regarding my Christian conversion experience: "How do you view that now?"

My response:

I view that experience as an important step for me in becoming a better person. I think the surrounding personal circumstances played a big part, not just the Christianity. While I wouldn't recommend my path to others as the way to get from one point to another, I don't reject those choices and experiences as illegitimate or bad.

I recently encountered an interesting exercise: writing a letter to yourself at a certain point in your past. Apparently, this helps you identify things that you now think about past experiences that might not otherwise occur to you. If I were writing a letter to myself that I could somehow go back and receive in the fall of 1998, I think it would include this note..."In your effort to figure out what life is about, you will encounter Christians who are ready and willing to share interesting thoughts and confident answers from their worldview. Pay attention to their input and familiarize yourself with what the Christian worldview is all about. But, as 1 Thessalonians 5:21 says, "Test everything, hold fast to what is good." Don't lock yourself into accepting everything that one worldview presents to you as truth. Keep an open mind. Seek to gain the "benefit" or the "good" from various systems of thought. Be just as willing to lend an ear to the naturalist as the supernaturalist, to the atheist and the theist, to the evolutionist and the creationist. When something seems absurd, try to figure out why some people don't see the absurdity of it at all. Be humble."