“I had to admit that Jesus Christ was more than a carpenter. He was all He claimed to be.”

When I was a teenager, I wanted to be happy. I wanted my life to have meaning. I became hounded by three basic questions: Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? I started searching for answers.

Where I was brought up, everyone seemed to be into religion, so I thought I might find my answers in being religious. I got into church 150 percent. I went every time the doors opened – morning, afternoon, or evening. But I must have picked the wrong church, because I felt worse inside it than I did outside. From my upbringing on a farm in Michigan I inherited a rural practicality that says when something doesn’t work, get rid of it. So I chucked religion.

Then I thought that education might have the answers to my questions, so I enrolled in a university. Faculty members and my fellow students had just as many problems, frustrations and unanswered questions as I did. Education, I decided, was not the answer.

I began to think maybe I could find happiness and meaning in prestige. But the thrill of prestige wore off like everything else I had tried. I endured Monday through Friday, living only for the partying nights of the weekend. Then, on Monday, the meaningless cycle would begin all over again.

I didn’t let on that my life was meaningless; I was too proud for that. Everyone thought I was the happiest man on campus. They never suspected that my happiness was a sham. It depended on my circumstances. If things were going great for me, I felt great. When things were going lousy, I felt lousy. I just didn’t let it show.