I was born into a large family in Los Angeles, California. My mother, an accomplished violinist, started us all on musical instruments when we were little. I played violin at four, piano at six, and finally fell in love with the cello at age eight. From there, my quick progress manifested that I had a talent for music, and my parents eagerly supported me as I entered competitions and played concerts. By the time I was thirteen years old, I had been aired on television and radio and had won many of the prestigious awards available to young musicians. At a very early age, my future was determined.

At the age of fourteen, I went to a boarding school in Northern Michigan called Interlochen Arts Academy. I was under a lot of pressure to make full use of my talent as a cellist. For anyone training in a specialized field, the demands are high, so to me practicing eight or nine hours a day was standard. Eventually, I auditioned for the Juilliard School in New York and went there to study music at age seventeen. I was young, fearless, and ready for the freedom to find out who I wanted to be. My first semester there I lived hard and fast. My friends were actors (some of whom had been in major motion pictures and were already famous), musicians bound for success, and artists in general. We all sought the full range of human experience, not wanting to miss out on anything. We wanted to suck the marrow out of life.

Of course, our fast-paced life had its drawbacks. A lot of my friends went off the deep end with drugs and alternative life-styles. I saw so many people who were starving for reality, but no one seemed to find it. I, too, was seeking desperately for the meaning of human life. I delved into Buddhism, Taoism, and Islam, read the Baghavad Gita, the Koran, and the writings of Confucius, and explored countless philosophies, most notably existentialism. I even did the exchange program with Columbia University so I could study psychology, hoping that it would explain the human condition. At best, all these religions and philosophies offered was mere intellectual stimulation. They were interesting and had many positive attributes, but I never felt like they answered the big questions. One night as I lay in my bed, I prayed an unforgettable prayer: "If there is a God in this universe, and You can hear me, one day I want to know the truth."

As my years in New York went on, I was under increasing pressure to make cello my "religion." If I was going to make it, I needed to eat, sleep, and breathe nothing but music. I really wanted to make my parents and teachers happy, but there was always something bothering me. No matter how well I played, there was a dissatisfaction, a struggle deep within. The better I played, the emptier I became. My teacher recognized that something was holding me back but could not figure out what. As for me, I just felt guilty because I couldn't seem to fully surrender myself to the cello, even though I desperately wanted to.

My senior year was the emptiest. Amidst performances in Carnegie Hall, in Avery Fisher, on board the Queen Elizabeth II, and in castles in Europe, the vanity of my existence increased. I would look out of my 23rd story window—the city looked like paper. Nothing was real. The people, the parties, the performances—everything seemed vain and pointless. The successful musicians I met weren't really that happy; it seemed like everyone was trying to fill themselves with something, but could never find peace or rest. I was no different. Through a series of hard and even scary experiences I came to realize that I didn't know how to live the human life and that I needed something. That's when I opened the Bible for the first time since my childhood. At first I was scared, thinking I would become a "Jesus freak" if I read it, but that night the Lord graciously met me. I had been in bondage to something for years and that night I knew I would never do it again. About that time, my sister who had been praying for me for ten years started calling me once a week to read the Bible with me. At first I felt weird about it, but every time I came away comforted and supplied to go on.

When it came time to graduate, an opportunity opened up for me to go to Stuttgart, Germany to continue my studies. I decided to take an intensive German course at The University of Texas at Austin where my sister and her husband lived. Little did I know that summer would change my life. As soon as I arrived in Austin, I started reading the Bible voraciously—the New Testament in the mornings and the Old Testament at night—along with many other spiritual books, biographies of famous Christians, and books on church history. Every question I had was getting answered. I fought hard though. I was skeptical and critical of everything I didn't agree with. But after I learned that I had a human spirit and that in my spirit I could fellowship with God, things all started making sense.

Then I got baptized. It was one of the toughest decisions I have ever made, but the result was enormous. As I came up from the water, I realized that everything I had ever done, my old life with all its failures and defeats, was buried forever. I was new in Christ!

When the Christians I was meeting with had a study of the Old Testament books of Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs, I saw that the author, Solomon, had written about my exact experience. He was a rich king who had it all, yet still deemed everything under the sun vanity of vanities. This matched everything I had been feeling in New York. But it didn't stop there. As we went on to the Song of Songs, I finally saw the purpose of the eternal God, Creator of heaven and the earth. The reason human beings want to know the meaning of their life is because there is one. In Ecclesiastes, it says that God put eternity in our heart, and nothing temporal can satisfy us, but only God Himself—not money, not fame, not human relationships. God wants to be joined to us, to have an intimate relationship with us, and eventually fill us with His life and nature for us to express Him. He takes fallen, helpless sinners and makes them His expression! God is full of purpose and desire, and knowing Him in this way explained all my years of restlessness and seeking.

T.W. Austin, TX

To satisfy the desire of God's heart and enter the purpose of human existence, please pray this prayer:

O Lord Jesus, my life of seeking has left me empty. I am purposeless without You. Lord Jesus, cleanse me of my sins and come into me. Bring me into Your purpose for the satisfaction of Your heart. O Lord Jesus, I give myself to You for Your eternal purpose.