I first started seeking reality during my last two years of high school. I was a fairly accomplished soccer player all through my youth and as a result was popular and received a great deal of fan appreciation throughout high school. In my senior year I began to expand my horizons into the visual arts, and actually became quite accomplished in my artistic endeavors as well. However, despite all the soccer medals and trophies I had accumulated, despite all of my creative masterpieces, despite my wonderful friends, I had a feeling deep within that all of these things were vain and counted for little.

So when I left home to go away to college, this yearning for something deeper that had begun in high school spurred me to really explore and investigate different philosophies and systems of thought and belief. Four questions in particular directed my seeking. First: "What is truth?" In my inner being stirred the desire to know whether, with religions like Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, all of which offered what they considered to be the truth, an absolute truth actually existed in this universe. Second, I asked myself, "What is the meaning of my human life? What is the purpose for my being here on earth?" Third: "Who or what is God? Does God really exist?" Finally, I wondered: "If God exists, how can I experience God?"

In my freshman year at Bowling Green University, I had friends who were hippies, others who were artists, some who were musicians, and others who were jocks. I was investigating, wanting to know what all these different people believed in, what they were all about, and if any of these lifestyles, these beliefs, were for me. Because my best friend in high school was a Muslim, I began to read the Koran and even wrote my first major English paper on Islam. I looked into Judaism. I read a book on Rastafarianism. But the more I investigated these various lifestyles, philosophies, and avenues of belief, the more it seemed that they were nothing but vanity and dead religion. Nothing seemed able to satisfy me.

I played for my university soccer team and had soccer practice every afternoon during the first semester of my freshman year. To get to practice, I had a long walk from my dorm room all the way to the stadium locker room. On the walkway, somebody had spray-painted in bold blue letters the words "Trust Jesus." Every day on the way to practice and back I read those words: "Trust Jesus." Day after day as I read that name "Jesus," something was going on inside me. One day as I was walking to practice, I came up to those big blue letters and stopped. Seeing that no one was around, I cried out, "Trust Jesus!" I was beside myself. I didn't know why I did it at the time. I thought I was crazy, but deep within I had a joy and a peace that I had never before experienced. I repeated this cry maybe one or two other times during my freshman year. I didn't know what had gotten into me. But now I realize that on that day when I first cried out to Jesus, God in Christ as the Spirit came into me. When I cried out, "Trust Jesus," I was speaking to myself. I was speaking to myself and saying, "Do you want to know what truth is? Truth is Jesus. Do you want to know what the meaning of your human life is? It is Jesus. Do you want to know who God is? God is this living Person. Do you want to know how to contact God, how to receive God, experience God, and enjoy God? It is through this Jesus." Calling on that name Jesus changed my life. Although I didn't realize it at the time, Jesus had come into me when I called on Him.

In my sophomore year, I transferred to Wright State University, and my seeking for truth, for reality, and for satisfaction grew. One evening, after a friend and I had been studying in the library, we went to the circulation desk and started to talk with the student behind the desk. He began to tell me about Jesus. He looked at me right in the eyes and he said, "I enjoy Christ." Those words, though they were so simple, penetrated my innermost being. From then on, I was hooked; I was caught. I had never before heard anybody say that they enjoy Christ. I had heard that we need to fear God, worship God, and serve God, but no one ever had told me that we could enjoy Christ. I went into the library a number of times after that incident, and each time, that student behind the desk would find me and would share with me something about the meaning of human life, about God and His eternal plan, and about enjoying the unsearchable riches of Christ. All of my questions were at last being answered.

After a few weeks he invited me over to his home for a small Christian gathering of about five people. We sang some spiritual songs, read the Bible, and then the others in the meeting shared the gospel with me. They asked me if I would like to pray to receive the Lord Jesus. I was so open, so ready, so willing, and so eager to experience God. So I said simply, "Yes, sure." They led me to pray and I followed them in prayer repeating what they had said in a genuine way to the Lord. It was a very sweet experience. Everyone there, including myself, was happy and beaming. In my whole life, I had never seen people so shining, so bright, so full of God. Eagerly, we all called on the name of the Lord, and as we did, I experienced, for the first time, rivers of living water flowing out of my innermost being! At that very moment I had the deep conviction that at last, I had found reality. From that time on, I have never been the same. Everything in the world that is available for us to experience, whether good or bad, and every avenue of human life that we can explore are just vanity of vanities. Only the Lord Jesus Christ is reality. Since that day, my life has been full of reality because I have been experiencing, loving, and pursuing the one reality of all, Jesus Christ.

C.A.
Atlanta, Georgia

Mankind in general is unprepared for the return of Jesus Christ to the earth. The way we begin to ready ourselves to meet Him is by turning to Him and praying the following with a repentant heart:

O Lord Jesus, thank You for waking me up to my real condition. I am a sinner who needs You. Thank You that You shed Your blood on the cross for my sins. Thank You that You resurrected from the dead to fill me with Your eternal life. Lord Jesus, save me from the world's stupor. Fill me with Your life every day so I can be prepared to meet You when You return. O Lord Jesus, thank You for saving me!