(inspirational music)
- Everyone has a story.
My story started back when I was a child,
I lived in a farm.
I'd go out to the barn and I'd see my mother,
who I loved very much,
lying in the manure in the gutter behind the cows,
where my dad had yanked off the air hoses of the milk pipes
and literally beat my mother to a bloody pulp
until she was so weak and bloody,
she couldn't stand up.
And at eight, nine, 10 years old,
I'd be beating my dad and kicking him saying,
"When I'm strong enough out, I'll kill you."
And growin' up,
my father was the town drunk.
I hardly ever knew him sober.
Anyone that has an alcoholic parent carries shame
with them every day of their life.
I'd go to school and my friends would make jokes
about my dad downtown in the gutter,
making a fool of himself.
And you know,
they didn't think it bothered me.
Because I would laugh on the outside.
When I was cryin' on the inside.
Every time they told a joke about my dad,
it hurt.
But I never, ever let anyone know.
And so before friends would arrive,
I'd go out to the barn
and he'd either be passed out or halfway there.
I'd lift him and I'd pull him in to the pen
where the cows would have their calves.
I just dropped him on the straw and then tell friends,
"Well, he had to go away to an important call."
Just to keep from bein' shamed.
In case woke up before he left,
I'd go back out there and it would take me a while
'cause I was just a little kid.
But I'd get him up against the boards.
I'd put his arms to the board and tie a rope
from one arm to the other arm.
Then I'd take another rope
and I would put it around his neck like a hangman's noose
and put the other end behind him around his feet
as tight as I could pull that rope.
I would pull it until his head would go
completely over that top board.
You know, the first time I did that,
I left him there probably about six o'clock at night,
went out about 5:30 the next morning,
and I was so discouraged.
I was so disappointed.
He was still alive.
All I ever wanted as a kid was for my dad
to quit hurting my mother and I couldn't stop him.
When I was 11 years old,
my oldest brother, Wilmette,
I was one of five kids.
He was the oldest.
I was the baby,
took my parents to a court of law
and sued them for everything they had.
One of the things my brother got in the settlement
was a new home my parents had built
in the farm for workers.
He had announced to my parents he was gonna move it downtown
into Union City, Michigan.
Well, come on.
When they announced the day
that they were gonna move that house,
I could hardly sleep.
I mean,
my adrenaline was pumping everything.
And that Saturday morning came,
got up extra early.
Did my chores,
took a good shower,
put on my best work clothes,
ran out of the house and as a little 11 year old kid,
I ran up that knoll,
and I think sometimes my feet didn't even touch the ground.
I was so excited.
I got to the top and my world came crashing down.
I heard these farmers, these merchants,
these parents of my friends yelling the dirtiest,
filthiest names at my parents and I couldn't handle it.
And I snapped.
The only conscious thought I have,
and whoa, was it conscious.
I can remember running down the other side of that knoll
in front of everyone,
as a 11-year-old kid crying and screaming.
One of the most shameful things
that could happen to 11-year-old.
I ran to the end of the barn where there was a room.
Not very big,
but it had three stalls or bins in it
for wheat, oats, and shelled corn
to grind up for cattle feed.
So I ran up the six steps, turned around,
slid that big door closed,
put the iron latch down on it
until it was absolutely pitch black.
And then at 11 years old,
I turned around and I climbed up into that shelled corn bin
and I buried myself in that corn up to my neck.
That's when I prayed to die.
I didn't want it anymore.
I felt such shame.
I was there for three hours and I still can't believe it.
My parents never, ever came looking for me.
You ever felt lonely?
Ever felt abandoned?
Ever felt like, you know,
it wouldn't matter to anyone If I lived or died.
That's exactly how I felt at 11-years-old.
I just wanted to die.
I dug myself out of the corn,
which took a while,
and I jumped out of the bin.
I went over and took the big iron latch off the door.
When I slid it open,
that sunlight hit me in the face.
it shocked me into reality.
At that moment,
I slammed the door and my father,
I damned him and I cursed him.
I slammed the door on God and I damned him and I cursed him
for abandoning me in that corn bin.
I slammed that door for about six, seven years.
Two months before I graduated from high school,
I came home on a Saturday night,
probably about midnight from a date.
I walked into the farmhouse and I heard my mother crying
and it scared me.
I ran into her bedroom yelling,
"Mom, what's wrong, what's wrong?"
She sat up in bed and she said,
"Son, your father has broken my heart."
Then she reached out and put her arms around me
and pulled me toward and oh,
I still remember what she said.
She said, son,
"I've lost the will to live.
All I want to do is live until you graduate,
then I just want to die."
Oh, that was hard to hear.
And the irony is,
two months later, actually 61 days later,
I graduated from high school
and the next Friday, the 13th,
my mother just up and died.
Don't tell me you can't die of a broken heart
because my mother did and my father broke it,
and I hated him for it.
I enrolled in college and after a couple of weeks there,
I saw a small group of people who seemed
to have a,
would you call it contentment or joy
that wasn't dependent on outward circumstances.
It was in spite of it and that kind of puzzled me.
But probably the biggest thing I saw was here was a group
of students and professors who seemed to have,
appeared to have a genuine love
and concern for each other.
No, you'll find that everywhere.
But the difference that I saw was this.
They also seemed to that same love and concern
for those outside their group.
The way I was raised,
that was weird.
And I wanted it.
So I made friends with them.
After several weeks,
we're sitting around the table in the student union
and I really wanted what they had.
But I didn't want them to know that I wanted what they had.
So I leaned back in my chair
and just kind of in a very hackneyed, flippant way.
I said, "Hey, tell me what changed your lives?"
Trying to act totally disinterested.
"Why are you so different than other students?"
This young lady looked at me with a little smile
and she just said two words,
two words I never, ever dreamed I'd hear
in the context of the university on the solution.
She just looked at me and said,
"Jesus Christ."
I said, "Oh, for God's sakes, don't give me hat garbage."
I figured if you couldn't make anywhere else in life,
you'd become a Christian.
Kinda like a loser.
And I lit into him.
I said, "I'm fed up with religion,
the Bible, with Christianity,
and the church, and Christians.
I want nothing to do with it."
You know what?
They held their space.
They didn't back off.
This young lady shot right back at me.
She didn't smile this time.
She said, "Mister, I didn't tell you religion.
I didn't tell you the church,
or the Bible, or Christians, or Christianity.
I told you the person of Jesus Christ."
I said, Whoa.
I apologized to 'em.
Because my mother had not raised me to be rude
and I'd really been rude.
I mean, I nailed those Christians.
And so I apologize.
But then I attached a disclaimer to my apology.
I said, "I want you to understand some.
Just cause I've apologized,
I still don't want anything to do with Christianity."
When I walked out of that corn bin
and stuffed that anger down into my life,
when they mentioned Jesus Christ,
all that anger came out.
I was the problem.
So they made me so mad.
I said, "Okay, I'll refute you."
And so I set out, left college,
traveled throughout the United States,
England, Germany, France, Switzerland,
gathering the evidence,
looking at the manuscripts,
checking out people,
interacting great thinkers
who had either examined Christianity,
rejected or examined Christianity,
and accepted it.
I'd returned to London, England.
It was a Friday night, about 6:30.
And I'll never forget.
I leaned back in my chair and I cupped
my hands behind my head and right in front of everyone,
I said, which was probably three people
in that little museum library.
I said, "It's true.
It's true.
It's true."
What I concluded by that was that I could hold
"The New Testament" in my hand and say,
what I have is what was written down.
It has not been changed.
And second I concluded that what was written down was true.
That Jesus said it and he had done it.
And so that December the 19th,
about 8:30 at night,
God alone with a friend of mine,
and I established a relationship
with a God who became man and his name was Jesus,
and he was passionate about a relationship with me.
I just said, "Lord Jesus,
thank you for dying on the cross for me."
The most humbling thought I've ever had
when I realized if I were the only person alive,
Jesus still would've died for me.
I still get chills thinking of that.
So I said thank you.
Second, I knew the Bible was true.
I knew the Bible said,
"If we confess our sins,
he is faithful and just to forgive us
and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
So I said, "Right now I confess my sins.
I accept your forgiveness.
Not based on anything that I have done,
but based upon what Jesus Christ did in the cross
and died for the sins of the world and my sins.
I invite you into my life as my personal Savior and Lord."
Nothin' happened.
No bolt of lightning,
I didn't rush out by a harp,
but something did happen.
I kinda felt like I was gonna vomit.
I thought I was gonna throw up.
I hear all these Christians say how they came to Jesus
and are overwhelmed with joy.
I came to Jesus and I felt sick to my stomach.
Immediately.
and after I trusted Christ as Savior and Lord
and invite him in my life,
I thought this was kinda like I had a dialogue with myself.
It went like this.
Josh, have you made an emotional decision to trust Christ?
You are going to regret intellectually later.
And you know, that scared me,
with the emphasis I put on truth and knowledge.
But in about six months to a year,
a year and a half, oh.
My entire life was changed.
Starting from the bottom up.
One of the first things that happened,
I hated my dad.
I despised him.
I grew up believing he killed my mother
and destroyed my family.
I tried to kill him two or three times.
Sometimes I put that rope around his neck in the barn,
I'd pull it so tight,
hoping he couldn't breathe.
I found myself after I trusted Christ the Savior and Lord,
I found myself looking at my daddy right in the eyes
and saying, "Daddy, I love you."
Whoa.
You know, that scared me.
You say what?
Yeah.
I did not want to love my father.
Even as a new Christian.
I wanted that energy,
that emotion that comes from hating someone,
and there is an energy.
It energizes you.
I wanted to hate the man who killed my mother
and destroyed my family.
I found myself saying to the man
I intellectually chose to hate,
saying, "I love you."
That is when I knew it was real.
I wasn't used to that.
I was used to loving those I wanted to love
and hating those I wanted to hate.
I never had that capacity to love those I chose to hate.
That's when I knew it was true.
I transferred from Kellogg College to Wheaton College.
I was in a very serious car accident.
In the hospital intensive care for several weeks
with severe injury to my neck and my lower back.
So I was strapped into this plight.
All I could do was move my eyes.
I heard the ambulance leave
and probably no more than five minutes,
my father walked into that.
Every muscle in my body strengthened,
tightened up,
because the man I'd hated most of my life walked into
that room and I couldn't do anything about it.
He stood in the door
and all I could do was kind of flash my eyes to see him.
I noticed two things.
One, he was sober.
I'd hardly ever seen my dad sober.
Second, he was crying.
The only emotion that I've ever seen in my father
when he was either mad at my oldest brother and my mother.
He walks into my bedroom where I'm strapped in bed.
He doesn't say anything.
He just paces back and forth.
And then he just stops about right here,
where I could just see him out of the corner of my eye.
You have to understand he was just bawling.
He leans right over my face.
And he looked at me and all he said was,
"Son, how can you love a father such as I?"
I said, "Dad, six months ago, I hated you.
I despised everything that you stood for.
What you did to mom and the family."
And I said, "Dad, I've come to know Jesus Christ
as Savior and Lord.
Intellectually, I've concluded that God became man
and his name is Jesus.
And he is passionate about a relationship with you."
Whew.
My dad stood up, and turned around, and walked out.
I was kinda thinking,
well, I guess I really blew that one.
In about maybe 45 minutes,
I don't know for sure.
He comes back in.
And he walks right up to the bed,
sits down on the edge of it,
leans over it and says,
"If God can do in my life
what I've seen him do in yours and forgive me,
then I want to know him personally."
Oh.
Right there, my father prayed with me.
You talk about joy.
Most people don't have this much joy in a lifetime
and I had it in one moment.
You know,
my life was changed in six months, year, year and a half.
And still areas being changed.
Life of my daddy was changed right before my eyes.
It was like somebody reached over
and turned on a light bulb.
He only touched alcohol once after that.
Got to his lips and he never touched it again.
I mean, you know, he died 14 months later.
But in that 14 month period,
scores of people in that little tiny town,
going out about 100 miles,
committed their lives to Jesus Christ.
Over 100 people.
Because of the changed life of the town drunk, my daddy.
So I guess I sum it up on my tombstone would be,
"And God became man,
and his name is Jesus,
and he is passionate about a relationship
with every one of his creations,
and he is passionate about a relationship with me."
(inspirational music)