Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
MY STORY: FROM ATHEISM TO FAITH
To view Michael's introductory video for Chapter 1, please go to www.michaelminot.com/thebeckoning.
Shakespeare wrote in As You Like It, "All the world is a stage and all the men and women merely players." For a good chunk of my early life I lived by this philosophy. Refusing to waste my time entertaining absurd impossibilities, I firmly rejected Christianity. Instead, I focused on becoming a top tier "player" and claiming my share of what the world offered.
But several years after graduating from law school, my freethinking, anti-religious convictions collapsed. After more than three months of reading books, articles, and the Scriptures and engaging in some very serious introspection, the truth I discovered devastated my skepticism. I came to realize that my atheistic philosophy failed miserably against the strength of God's truth. Humbled to my core, I told God I wanted everything He offered. I further indicated my desire to say "yes" to anything He wanted me to do.
Of course, this dramatic shift in my beliefs didn't occur instantly.
I remember a time early in life when my curiosity seemed limitless. I always wanted to know more. Most of all, nature fascinated me. I asked questions of my parents and teachers like: "How do bees make their hives?" "Why do caterpillars turn into butterflies?" "Where do all the colors on flowers come from?" Something about the beauty of nature and my ability to look up and see the moon and the stars amazed me.
One of the more memorable moments of my childhood occurred as I was walking outside just before bedtime on a humid, Florida summer night when I was nine years old. My upward gaze was fixed with wonder on the bright light coming from the moon. A few days earlier, I'd witnessed three astronauts blaze a trail into the atmosphere on what looked like a pillar of fire coming from nearby Kennedy Space Center. But despite knowing their mission, I wasn't prepared for the utter amazement of the moment. Just before walking outside, I heard Neil Armstrong utter these profound words on television, "One small step for man. One giant leap for mankind." Stepping outside, I wondered, How can a man walk on the moon? How can someone be standing on what I was staring at in the nighttime sky?
Exploring Success
Somewhere on the way to adulthood, however, I lost my wide-eyed fascination with nature and the stars. My newly-acquired desire for success and a craving for what the world offered began suffocating my curiosity and choking out my childlike wonder.
As I entered adolescence, I began seeing the world as a place where the strongest prosper. Success seemed to follow those who committed themselves to becoming the best at something. I ended up choosing tennis as my first venture at becoming one of the best. Throughout my teenage years, I trained for and attended state and national junior tennis tournaments year-round. As I suspected, the payoffs made the hard work well worth it. My passion for tennis brought me notoriety, the ability to travel, and the opportunity to attend college on an athletic scholarship.
During my time in college, whether preparing for a test, training for tennis competitions, or eventually earning a law degree, life for me consisted of a consuming series of short-term goals. I was intent on staying busy and focused. But all my goal-oriented activities consumed me so completely that I neglected to pause and ponder life's most important questions.
Throughout my teenage and early adult years, my "go-getter" attitude stood in stark contrast to how I addressed the issues surrounding the purpose of living. With little questioning, I accepted what my professors and peers suggested was the meaning of life. I held the opinion that humans live without guidance from any outside source. To me, life was whatever I made it and nothing else. As a consequence, I made it my business every day to get all I could while I could.
But as I reflect back on that time of my life, I realize that although believing myself to be wise, I was foolish. My atheistic convictions had blinded me to any competing views of life. Even when people around me described the truth, I didn't listen. Filled with a closed-minded attitude, I failed to realize how desperately I needed help.
A New Discovery
After wrapping up law school, I set out to reap the rewards of all my hard work. Soon, I was living the American dream — money in my pocket, the keys to a new convertible, and a keen desire to socialize.
But a few years later while vigorously pursuing the fruits that came from my professional abilities, I received a call from a friend I'd met years earlier while studying for the Florida bar exam. Seeing where my life was heading, he suggested that this might be a good time for me to take a step back and reevaluate the meaning of my life. He went on to explain how at one point he reviewed the Scriptures and how they became of an important part of his life. He went on to say that I might benefit from listening to a highly respected Christian pastor he knew in my area.
After the conversation ended, I was startled that my friend would even make these suggestions. The trajectory of my life was going up at a steep angle. To me, life was great — beyond my dreams — and getting better all the time. Why should I spend time considering anything else? What could be the benefit of seeking answers to questions I wasn't asking?
But with the time pressures of formal education behind me and living alone, I recognized my friend's invitation came at a unique period in my life. Possibly unlike any other time, I could do as my friend suggested and reevaluate the big picture of my life. The most likely outcome, I thought, was that I would confirm my disbelief while gaining ammunition to support my views. With these thoughts in mind I called my friend back and accepted his challenge.
As with anything else I took up in life, I didn't want my investigation to be a half-baked effort. So, I not only acquired a copy of the Scriptures and other related material, but I added another area of inquiry. To be thorough and fair, I knew the issues raised by science needed a fresh and fair investigation as well.
My Personal Reckoning
Unfortunately, when I began my research, I recognized a problem. I realized that my perception of how life worked was so ingrained it was preventing me from being objective. I was forced to concede that my thoughts were not being guided by what I was reading, but rather by my firm belief that everything has a natural explanation, not a supernatural one.
At this point, I remembered a promise I made to myself years earlier. I vowed never to turn away from a truth that was staring me in the face. No matter how uncomfortable, I pledged to incorporate and live by whatever truth I discovered. I didn't want to be the type of person who avoided the truth in favor of living some self-deluded, pretend life.
Considering this, I made up my mind rather easily about how to handle this dilemma. I knew that if I didn't adopt a neutral attitude, my investigation would be a waste of time. So, knowing that it might be easier said than done, I pledged to maintain an open mind and go wherever the evidence led. From that moment on, I did my best to critically examine everything I was reading.
Amazing Discoveries
With my resolve to maintain an objective attitude firmly in place, I resumed my reading of the Scriptures as well as various articles and books on science and philosophy. To my shock and amazement, it wasn't long before I began discovering statements so profound I couldn't continue reading without pausing to ponder their vast significance. One by one, newly discovered truths began hammering a wedge into the thick wall of my prejudices. Night after night, I continued to study, reevaluating the world around me as I went. After more than two months, I must have looked like an awestruck research scientist as I paced around my house muttering things like, "It just can't be!"
Towards the end of my investigation I found myself facing a massive mosaic of evidence that I'd never considered before. Despite my extreme cynicism, the evidence I'll be sharing with you in this book began to overwhelm me. A short time later, after more than three months of study and careful consideration of everything I'd learned, I did the unthinkable: I broke down and concluded it was more likely than not that I was a created being! And just like that, the pillars supporting how I viewed the world and myself began to collapse.
As I read and reread various books and articles on science, I began to recognize the amazing precision found in nature. From the material I read on modern-day astronomy, to the amazing world being unlocked by microbiology, I discovered an astonishing order that tied all things together. I found it difficult not to conclude that some Master Architect or Engineer was behind all the complementary systems I was reading about.
I was amazed to learn how the Scriptures read like a lengthy love letter from the Creator to the objects of His love. Sometimes they issued stern warnings. But their underlying message is one of deep, unconditional love. I could've easily defended against a series of do's and don'ts or a disconnected series of suggestions about how best to live life. But I had little defense for how the Bible integrates with such perfection and detail the description of who we are along with God's plan for our lives. I never read a more remarkable, comprehensive story. I began to realize that what God provides — including everything in our surroundings — invites us to a most wonderful life that only begins here on earth.
I arrived at the conclusion that not only is it possible for us to know, but in fact we are made to know, how God offers His ongoing love to each of us. Whether seen or unseen, understood fully or not, everything that exists serves to provoke mankind to the truth that He is our Creator. I learned that God delivers His invitation in a multitude of ways, each working in conjunction with the others. Through this, as we will see in the upcoming pages, He attempts to arouse within us a desire to investigate His immeasurable love.
The change in my perspective caused dramatic repercussions. Nothing was remotely the same even though the only thing that changed was me. I felt like I'd been awakened into a whole new existence.
Wrestling with Tough Questions
After I became a new Christian I wanted to learn more. I also desired to celebrate my beliefs with others who followed God. So, I joined a church. I assumed when I connected with others who believed the Scriptures that they would share the same joy I'd found. But ironically, I discovered that I was traveling a path opposite to many church goers. I learned that some in the church, especially teens and young adults, were confused by various aspects of their faith. More than a few were so frustrated that they were abandoning their childhood beliefs altogether.
I later discovered that young adults are leaving the church in unprecedented numbers. But why are they leaving? Some teenagers have told me that the information they receive from their parents and youth group leaders is too elementary and repetitive. They say the church offers messages that don't relate to their experiences in life. Some receive the discouraging response, "You simply need to have more faith!"
Without understanding how the Scriptures fit into everyday life, many adolescents and young adults label what they were taught as either not relevant to their lives — or worse, outright fairy tales. Because they cannot connect the dots between the church's message and everything they see and experience, their interest in faith wanes. After waiting for answers that never come, belief gives way to skepticism.
Along the way, I've also found that some in the middle and later years of life find their once resilient faith weakening too. Why are some of God's followers not finishing life well?
A Few Personal Conclusions
These experiences along with my involvement in a jail ministry for fifteen years at the Brevard County Jail in Sharpes, Florida, and my communication with people on social media convince me that many Christians long for the explanations behind their faith that will make it real to them. Additionally, whether young or old, inside the church or not, people want a better understanding of who they are and where they're going. People can't get away from their deep rooted desire to make sense of the huge amount of information, various relationships, and innumerable opportunities they face in life. They long to know how to fit the puzzle pieces of life together.
My experience also tells me that those who fail to see the big picture of God's plan tend to stumble the most. Truths offered in a piecemeal, disconnected fashion don't bring the clarity people yearn for. It's like trying to understand a car by viewing the parts before they're assembled. It's hard to imagine how all the pieces scattered on a garage floor can go 70 mph down the road.
The Beckoning
People within these groups, as well as many atheists, have asked me countless times to explain what combination of truths was so powerful that they convinced a staunch, atheist attorney to abandon everything he previously thought true. This book answers their questions. Along the way, I'll be sharing some of my life's experiences as well as how I processed the information I encountered on my journey from atheism to faith.
One of the numerous things I discovered was how God uses various "messengers" to beckon us to a relationship with Him. I'll be using these messengers to guide us through what I learned. Even though they work together, I'll describe them separately. That way, we can also investigate the part of the story each messenger tells.
As we go forward together, here's the path I plan to lead us on:
• In Chapters 2–9, we'll examine the messengers that God sends to beckon us to His truth. First, we'll investigate nature as God's creation, how His love for us is revealed in Scripture, and how Jesus represents the sum of all God's efforts to offer us His gift of great love. We'll then look at the unique way God uses our pain to draw us to Him. We'll also explore how God calls us to be a part of something greater than ourselves in the body of believers known as the Christian Church. Then, we'll take a look at how the consciousness God gave us serves to help us find Him and to love and serve others. And finally, we'll see how God uses His promise of an eternal life to help draw us to Him.
• In Chapter 10, we'll explore the counterfeiters — false messengers that attempt to blind us to what the true messengers are saying.
• In the final chapters, we'll see how God's messengers work and join together to voice His plan for our lives, proclaiming His unending love for us, and preparing us for our eternal home with Him.
As you travel with me on this incredible journey, like the astronauts who ventured to the moon and back, we'll strive to reach out and discover all we can. The reason is simple: If we don't seek, we won't find. Only by engaging our deepest curiosities do we possess a heart and mind truly open to the mysteries of God's truths.
CHAPTER 2
GOD'S MESSENGER: THE WORLD OF WONDER
"The heavens proclaim his righteousness, and all peoples see his glory."
PSALM 97:6
To view Michael's introductory video for Chapter 2, please go to www.michaelminot.com/thebeckoning
A few years ago, I received a wake-up call while mountain biking and white water rafting with a friend in Canyonlands National Park. For months, I trained for the rigors of biking in a mountainous environment. So by the time my friend and I arrived in Utah, I felt ready to meet the physical demands of the trip. But within the first few moments of our trek across one of North America's most scenic landscapes, I quickly realized how emotionally unprepared I was for the awe-inspiring scenery. Breathless at times, I gazed out into what seemed to be surreal beauty — far more magnificent than brochures could possibly depict. Canyons carved by the slow motion of winding rivers drew my attention to one side, while towering red spires beckoned me on the other. When I looked up, occasionally I'd see an eagle drifting on the uplift generated from the canyon breezes. Mesmerized by the majestic views, many times I felt in danger of wrecking my bike as I tried to take in the scenery while negotiating the narrow paths along the sides of cliffs.
While I was caught off guard by this unexpected, overwhelming grandeur, what I observed after dousing the campfire each evening gave me even greater pleasure. With all traces of the sun absent from the sky, a brilliant panoramic show overhead replaced the landscape I admired below. During the darkest period of the moon's cycle in the darkest place in the continental United States, brilliant stars, more dazzling than any planetarium show, held me spell-bound. Appearing brighter than I had ever witnessed, the stars seemed so close, as if they were drawing me into their midst. I felt that I could almost, but not quite, reach out and touch the sky.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Beckoning"
by .
Copyright © 2015 Michael Minot.
Excerpted by permission of Morgan James Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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