Why Are You a Christian?

My name is Clint. I am 47 and an engineer. For this, I have divided my life into 3 epochs, labeling them “Do It Yourself,” “Wandering in the Wilderness,” and “The Return Home.” It is a chronological account of what lead me to Jesus, a 40-year journey of testing faith.

My journey started off well. My grandfather who was a lay minister introduced me to church and Jesus Christ at an early age. We attended two community churches until I was 7 or 8. I am not sure why we quit going, perhaps my parents took a hands-off approach to my spiritual growth. They had a “go if you want to” attitude, and at 8 years old, I was more interested in playing in the woods with friends on Sunday morning. I slipped away from going to church.

When high school arrived, I had become an insecure teenager. I used dark sarcasm and class clowning to deal with my fears. Life became hard to navigate with a fragile psyche, and I began drinking and partying to fit in. In part due to my sinful-nature, I acquired negative feelings toward religion, Christianity in particular. I harassed Christian friends, always claiming it was a foolish and outdated fairytale. I remember being extremely bothered by their claim that “we are all sinners.” I suppose my ego could not handle such truths at the time.

During senior year, I enrolled at America’s number 1 party school, Ohio University, to pursue a major in Biology. For me, it was the perfect marriage between party life and secular academia – amazing Halloween bash and secular science. By Spring quarter, I’d become a staunch believer in the Theory of Evolution, finding myself in intense debates with my Christian friends. Through all of this, I began relying on my own way of navigating life, a Do-It-Yourself lifestyle.

While I was a Sophomore, I could not envision myself as a career Biologist, so I switched majors to Industrial Technology. Despite all the partying, I was able to do well academically. After graduation I landed a job as an automotive engineer in Columbus, Ohio and moved there in 2003. It was far more difficult than anything I had done up to that point. In hindsight, I believe having masked insecurities while carrying a professional facade was a mismatch. I painfully learned that I was not who I thought I was and my ego completely collapsed.

The psych world calls this collapse Bipolar Mania. Bipolar disorder can be accompanied by bouts of acute manic behavior if left untreated. If this goes too far, it leads to irrational behavior and disjointed thoughts. My experience was surreal and frightening, but it also came with moments of clarity and religious elements, which somehow magically informed me about someone I had forgotten about, Jesus Christ. In that moment of mania, I felt Him calling me.

Having spent time in the hospital after my manic episode, I was introduced only to the science of my diagnosis. A common phrase by my doctors was, “it’s all just chemistry.” The hypothesis is that chemical imbalances in the brain can trigger such occurrences. As an engineer, I understand science and caution against discounting its importance in medicine. However, the spiritual nature of my breakdown was too real to ignore, so I wandered in the wilderness over the next 17 years, looking for non-medical, spiritual answers.

What was this religious feeling I had during my episode? I had no idea. I began to surf the internet for information. I ended up finding a guy named Sean Blackwell on YouTube. He had a similar experience to mine and dedicated his life to trying to understand the spiritual side of his episode. I bought his book called “Bipolar or Waking Up?” which discussed topics like transpersonal psychology and teachings like those of New Age gurus Eckhart Tolle and Deepak Chopra. The overarching theme was “being One with the Universe.”

Also, during this time, I investigated other world religions like Judaism and Buddhism, but all seemed incomplete. To me it seemed like there was a lot of “keeping score” with God in Judaism. It seemed terrifying thinking that someday I would be laying on my deathbed with a checklist negotiating with God about my good and bad deeds. Buddhism was more on par with the New Age guys I researched but like them seemed incomplete because of a lack of emphasis on morality.

At this time, I was also reading bits and pieces of the Bible. My favorites were Job and Ecclesiastes. With the struggles of both my job and my Bipolar diagnosis, these two books resonated with me. Job’s themes of suffering reminded me of the struggles with my diagnosis and Ecclesiastes themes of meaningless toil resonated with problems I was having at work. I also began slowly walking through the New Testament, reintroduced to Jesus.

Unfortunately, my DIY lifestyle still had a stranglehold on me through all this studying, in short, all this research was not moving the needle in my spiritual growth. The further I fell into the void, the more I started drinking and smoking in my man cave alone. Work had grown ever more stressful, and life in general more dynamic and complicated, since now I had a family and a lot of bills. Eventually, I began to feel that Jesus would never accept somebody like me, that I was unworthy of His love, and for a while gave up on Him. It would take a major life experience to move me back in His direction.

The return home started with my father’s cancer diagnosis. I spent several days making trips from Columbus to stay with him at Cleveland Clinic during his treatments. Dad and I were very close; he was my hero. We had a strong father-son relationship and did a lot of things together over the years – completing home projects, working on the same construction crew, and sharing laughs over a few beers. He taught me a lot of what I know about engineering through tinkering with engines and lawnmowers in the garage. When he passed away, it left a great void in my life. It was also when it fully hit me that heroes are mortal too, and throughout this time I began questioning my own mortality.

He died in February of 2024. In some ways, his passing was a relief because his suffering had come to an end, but I was left with concerns. I had contemplated having a pastor visit during his whole ordeal but was unsure of what dad wanted. I never worked up the courage to ask him, as it can be an uncomfortable reminder to the reality of death. What I do believe is that walking with Jesus is personal and that suffering can bring us closer to Him. I also feel dad was a silent believer and liked to keep such matters to himself. I can only hope that he sorted everything out before his final rest.
This unknown, coupled with thoughts of my own mortality, left me with a lot of unanswered questions, most notably, where will I spend eternity? At dad’s celebration of life, we invited pastor Chuck from Kipton Church to speak. He incorporated Matthew 7:7~11 into his speech – ask, seek, knock. These verses got me seriously thinking about Jesus and lead me to embark on an in-depth study of the Gospel. Pastor Chuck also discussed Romans 10:8~10 which would impact me later in my journey.

While reading through the Gospel after dad’s death, I also thought a lot about father-son relationships. This led me to schedule a retreat with my two sons at Beulah Beach in Vermilion. We spent a lot of quality time together tubing, playing basketball, and going to a variety of sermons. On that Saturday evening, we sat down on a bench to watch the most beautiful sunset over Lake Erie. Reflecting on our weekend together, I started thinking about times I’d spent as a boy on our boat with my dad. I was sorely missing him and thought, “Who is my father now?” As I stared into the sunset, God replied saying, “I am.” I wept. This was the tipping point for me, as I had read that phrase multiple times in the Bible. This was the moment of my salvation, August 3, 2024.

A few days later I called Pastor Chuck to schedule my Baptism. He Baptized my oldest son Spencer and I later that month on August 31st in Whitney’s pond on the corner or 303 and 511. Pastor Chuck’s earlier Bible reference to Romans during dad’s celebration of life came back to light later that day when I first confessed out loud that Jesus is Lord. From that point, I started going to church more regularly. When I moved back home last July I started coming to Camden Baptist.

My spiritual quest has been long and my sin plentiful, but here I am today, full circle, my return home two-fold. After 22 years in Columbus, I have moved back to my hometown and am in the process of rebuilding my grandparents’ house. Second, after 40 years of doing it my own way, wandering around seeking answers, I have returned home to Jesus, who grandpa introduced me to at a young age. I am home and I thank God.

Originally, I was going to end on a poem I wrote about trying to “Do-It-Yourself,” but after I recited my testimony to my kids, my son Sawyer asked me,

“Dad, why are you a Christian.”

I was taken aback by that question because I could not clearly answer him at that moment, so I thought about it for a while. The “why” questions can sometimes be the most difficult to answer. I believe the answer is “Truth” with a capital T and here is why:

It is true that I have lived most of my life prideful, thinking I had all the answers and could figure out all complexities of life on my own, I have tried to be a god of my own, making up my own rules, sound familiar?

It is true that most aspects of my life story run parallel to stories of the Bible, the human experience – things like original sin, Israelites wandering in the wilderness, and stories of suffering.

It is true that I am a fallen man, a sinner, and will never be able to fulfill all of God’s commands or the Mosaic laws. For all fall short of the glory of God.

It is also true that this world is full of lies. On a large scale, those we are constantly bombarded by in the news and on TV. But also, the more personal lies we tell ourselves when we live in darkness, “it is accepted by the world so it’s okay,” “it is legal so it’s okay,” and “you are not worthy of Jesus’ love, so why try?”

Finally, it is true that most who really speak Truth do not fare well in the end. The Bible teaches about the fate of the prophets, the disciples, and Jesus himself – all who paid with their lives in the hands of fallen men. We can even see that today, in the assassination of modern-day truth-teller Charlie Kirk.
Well, because these things are true, I know the Bible is true. And I know Jesus Christ came to save us. And He is the way, the truth, and the life. He died for me, He forgives me, He cleanses me, He heals me, and He gives me Grace.

It is all right there, written in the Book of Life.

That is why I am a Christian.