Without Risk, There Is No Gain: Wyatt's Faith Journey- Part 2
Hi friends! Today we begin part 2 of Wyatt’s faith journey. I love how he is so authentic and real. It is amazing how the Lord would use that question, “Why do you believe what you believe?” to stir up a new path for Wyatt. Enjoy!
The combination of my disconnect from Jesus and a pornography addiction created turmoil in my life. Relative to the common substance abuses, pornography is the most addictive substance out there. For me, things finally came to a stopping point. God used a lot of my pain to shake me up, and I was so thankful for that.
After a chaotic, hurtful night inside my home, I was outside crying. I did not know where all that pent-up anger came from. It could have been hereditary or generational due to past abuse in my family tree, or a coping mechanism for me. I could have been acting out because inside I was so angry and frustrated with my own self at that time. Regardless, I had hurt some of my siblings and, through a window that was cracked open, I could hear my mom’s voice inside. She was screaming out loud, “He’s a monster, he’s a monster, he’s a monster.” That was an impactful moment. For the first time in my life, I was listening to my mom describe me, her son, as a monster. I did not like that. From that point, that thought stayed with me.
The summer after high school graduation, my youth pastor invited me to a youth conference in Wheaton, IL. It was there that the Lord really brought me to my knees. When I was there, it hit me how deeply I had messed up. I recognized that my sin was leading me on a road to destruction. There was nothing that I was going to be able to do myself. I needed a savior. I had a moment of confession and God brought light into the darkness. I was no longer stuck in secrecy, and I had been exposed to truth. It was the moment that I seriously committed my life to Christ.
So, if somebody asked me, “When were you saved? At age 10 or age 18?” I could not tell you. I don’t know. What I do know is that the Lord used both of those moments in my life, and I remember them both as being really impactful. This would be the end of what I would call the first scene of my life.
I was about a month away from getting ready to go to college at Tiffin University. It was a small little school in northwest Ohio where I had the opportunity to play baseball. Going in, I had two things on my mind that set the stage for scene two of my life. First, I asked the Lord to please begin to heal my family relationships with my mom, dad, and siblings because I knew I did a whole lot of damage. I won’t go into it, but I saw some really cool redemptive moments over those four years with my family. I saw restoration take place. It was beautiful.
The second thing on my mind was that I had to understand not just what I believed, but why I believed it. I fell in love with apologetics during college. Apologetics comes from the Greek word apologia, which refers to speaking in defense. Make a case or a defense. The popular verse comes out of 1 Peter 3:15.
… but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15 ESV)
I wanted to be ready to make that case for the hope within me. I was obsessed with wanting to understand why I believed Christianity and the Bible were true. It was not enough to only know what I believed, I needed to know the why. My mind was more analytical, so I was naturally drawn to more intellectual defense approaches. I just moved toward it.
I started reading work of well-known apologists. A lot of Josh McDowell, Sean McDowell, Lee Strobel, Ravi Zacharias, J.P. Moreland, William Lane Craig, and the list goes on. I ate the stuff up. I consumed as much as I could, and I became convinced that Christianity was true. From studying the impact that Christianity has had on the world since the time of Christ, through education, health care, women’s rights, and social justice, to the undeniable evidence for the person of Jesus and how he was historically real, it all lined up. There were over 15 first and second century non-Christian sources writing about the life of Christ. Furthermore, there was undeniable evidence for the resurrection itself.
Gary Habermas, a professor at Liberty, has studied the resurrection more than anyone else. He came up with what he called the minimum facts argument. There were four facts. Each of these had to pass two criteria, which he created, for him to call it a fact. Criteria #1 was that a fact had to have more than an adequate amount of evidence. This was not surprising since people would generally agree that for something to be a fact, we better have evidence for it. However, criteria #2 was the kicker. I really loved it because it trumped any skeptics.
Criteria #2 dictated that 90% of scholars had to agree that it was a fact. What was exceptional was this included progressive, liberal, atheist, agnostic, evangelical, and Christian scholars. All that were within a related field of study had to agree. It was not just Christians. Based on this, Habermas reduced things down to four minimum facts:
1. Jesus died by crucifixion.
2. Jesus’ disciples believed that he rose and appeared to them.
3. Paul, once an antagonist to Christianity, had a sudden change.
4. James, the brother of Jesus, also had a sudden change.
These were the four facts that fit both criteria for having sufficient evidence and being agreed upon by 90% of scholars. We could go 5 minutes or an hour on each of these, but at the end of the day Christianity is testable. It is built on the resurrection. In 1 Corinthians Paul says:
And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:14 ESV)
In John 14:6, Jesus claimed, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” If that was untrue, then what an arrogant statement. But what would prove that it was true? Well, Him rising from the dead would do that. There has been no other religion in the world that is built on one historical event that is testable. His resurrection proved Jesus to be the son of God.
Altogether, college was a beautiful time of restoration for my family and a time where I pursued an understanding of why I believed what I believed. Although I was getting ready to graduate with a marking degree, I thought, “Lord, I don’t feel this is necessarily the direction that you’re taking me in.” A career in marketing did not resonate with me.
My senior year I got invited to go to a Christian college conference in Indianapolis, IN. I wasn’t going to go, but that morning my mentor called and said, “I’ll pay for you. Get in the car and drive over.” I am so thankful that I did because that conference launched me into what I am doing today.