I wanted to go into musical theater.
I wanted to have a career in music.
And did contests, won ratings in all-state choir
and all of these things through high school.
And I got to my senior year and the Lord
simply took away my taste for it all.
I could not enjoy it, I had no motivation to practice,
so I didn't do solo contests that year.
And so, when I started getting invitations
from these private schools to audition
for their music program and their scholarships,
I had nothing to take to them in audition
and little motivation, and so I just didn't.
And I was ending my high school career,
not knowing who I was, what I wanted to do,
where to go next.
- I think the way you characterize that is important,
but I want to ask you why you chose that way of speaking.
Why would you say the Lord took that away from you?
Why wouldn't you just say, I got bored with it.
- Because of what He did through it.
I think I came to see that later
that He took it away and instead of...
And part of it was the realization
that I can't make myself love this.
I can't control my appetites, I can't control my delights.
And so, my best friends said, "hey,
where are you going to college?"
And I said, "I don't know." And he said, "you should come
to the University of Northern Iowa with me."
And that's where my two older step siblings had gone.
I said, "okay."
There was no campus visit, I hadn't applied yet.
There was nothing, so I applied.
And I get there and my best friend is, he's not a believer.
I just felt so incredibly lost.
He arrived early, he was a part
of their marching band for the football season
so they get there few weeks early for band camp.
So he has all these friends,
and I think we went to a party one time,
or they had a keg or something like that.
And I was just like, I hated the taste of beer.
I tried it, I hated it, set it down.
I didn't want to be in that room.
The whole place was just one of these party houses.
And you're like, I don't even want to be here.
I don't want to be around these people.
I don't want to do this, and didn't do that again.
But I would just sit in my dorm room so lonely.
And I just wept my first night there,
feeling like I don't know who I am.
I don't know where life's going.
And one of those first days standing
in line at the dining center for a meal,
there were folks from Campus Crusade
passing out surveys, fill out the survey,
you can win a mountain bike or something like that.
And a few guys stopped by my room and they walked
through the four spiritual laws, I think.
And they asked me questions about my faith.
And the leader told me later on, he said,
"all the answers you gave were the right answers."
I don't know when I started trusting Christ,
but they were just consistent in inviting me to church.
And that first semester I would accept
their invitation every time and then not show up
on Sunday morning to where they were going to pick me up.
And I didn't go, but they'd keep inviting me.
And they'd see me in the dining center and sit with me.
And they invited me to a Bible study which I went to
because I didn't have to wake up early for it.
It was in the evening, and we were going through James
and then they invited me to their Christmas conference
in Minneapolis over Christmas break.
And I said, "yeah, I want to go to that."
And so I went to that.
- I spoke at one of those in Minneapolis.
- Yeah, I wonder what year it was.
So I went.
And there was a part where they had us
take boxes of food out to hungry families,
Christmas dinners or something like this.
Well, it was after Christmas, but it was a box of food.
And so, the aim was that you
would share the gospel with this home.
And so, they had evangelism training going on.
And they had a evangelism training for folks
who'd never shared their faith before
which would classify me.
And they had evangelism training that was for people
who were well experienced in sharing their faith.
My friend said, Eric, come to this one,
for the people who were experienced, and okay.
And the man, I forget his name, who walked
through the gospel, did such a crystal clear job
of explaining God's holiness, our sinfulness.
And then that Jesus had lived this life
of perfect righteousness without sin on our behalf,
died on the cross because the penalty, the wages
for sin was death and rose from the dead
showing that he conquered sin, death and the devil,
and that it was a free gift of God
that we received by faith.
And it was like, everything became crystal clear.