Daniel’s Story
I have considered myself a Christian since I was a young teen – but looking back now I realize that was just the first step of my journey.
My father was a mechanic and a master woodworker, seemingly able to fix anything except his marriage. After my parent’s divorce, my sister and I lived with our mother, who struggled every day to make ends meet. The division in my family made me want to be part of a ‘normal’ family and be friends with other kids with ‘normal’ lives, so I joined a church despite not knowing anything about God. I went to church twice a week and listened to the sermons. They made me curious to know more, but I was too embarrassed and prideful to ask questions. Although I didn’t realize it, my spiritual transformation had begun.
My true journey began when I was a helicopter pilot in the military. Over a series of deployments overseas, I always found myself praying to the Lord. Being away from my family I had ample time to think about my life and do some soul searching. I could feel God humbling my heart and hear the Holy Spirit speaking to me, but still had many theological questions that were roadblocks on my path to fully knowing Christ. Having witnessed true acts of evil during my military career, questions about free will and the balance of good and evil weighed heavily on my heart. I had a desire to get baptized, but felt I wasn’t good enough for Him.
One morning I woke up to my boss shaking me awake. The previous night I had been flying some lengthy missions and had not been able to respond to my wife’s text messages telling me to call my sister. My boss told me that my father, who had been battling lung cancer for two years, had passed away.
I returned home, packed up my wife and daughter, and we traveled to my father’s memorial service. During the journey I began to think about where he was now. I had the feeling that he was in a good place – I knew he had started to read the Bible and had even been baptized. For the first time in my life, I was envious of him.
The pastor who led the memorial service impressed me. He spoke the truth of the gospel in such a direct way that made me realize he was not afraid to tell people about it. He made me aware that I was accountable for the way I live my life here on earth. I can’t expect to just be let into heaven no matter what. The only way I could get to heaven was through faith in Jesus.
After the service I had the honor of taking a walk with this man, and as we walked I asked him the questions that had been weighing on my heart. His answers were all genuine and undisputable, and each came with an embarrassing reality. I had so many questions about God, but despite having owned a Bible for over 20 years I had never read it from cover to cover. I decided to change that, so I picked up my Bible and began to read.
Two days after my father’s memorial service I arrived on my next deployment. I had tried to get baptized before my departure, but was unable to get it arranged. Despite being very frustrated by this, I decided that there must have been a reason for the delay, and I would try to strengthen my relationship with God in other ways. I wasn’t sure how to go about this, as in the military it’s difficult to proclaim your faith without seeming to admit it as a weakness – something hardened warriors fear – and therefore I didn’t know of any other believers around me. With this at the forefront of my mind, I decided I wouldn’t let that hold me back in my quest to know Christ. I wanted to learn to pray with conviction, so I decided to fast from specific types of food – a very hard decision for me, as I love to eat! When I was tempted to eat those foods, it would be a reminder to pray. The idea was to have a constant conversation with the Lord.
On the first night of the deployment, we went out to the camp dining facility. As I sat there wondering how I was going to be able to study the Bible on my own, our chaplain walked in. I asked him why he was there, and he responded he had signed himself up for the deployment because he felt called to spend a couple of months with the boys. I shared my story with him and he was fascinated, telling me that the Holy Spirit was at work in my life. He also told me that another person I would be working with was working on a Masters in Theological Studies. This made me realize that there were other believers around me!
I felt a strong urge to reach out to the war-hardened military men around me and tell them about my faith. But how? These men had been at war for over 13 years. How could I ask them to balance the violence of war with the tenderness and compassion of faith?
As I continued to read my Bible, the conversations I was having with the Lord answered more questions than I could ever have imagined. I tried to casually discuss what I was learning at every opportunity with my peers, and I often found that people who were afraid to speak openly about Christ were “closet believers” when we talked one-on-one.
One time during my redeployment I was rooming with a man I didn’t know well. We had engaged in idle chitchat at work every day, but never exchanged any meaningful dialogue. As we talked, I brought up my experiences over the past few months. He grew quiet, and I thought I had offended him. Then he explained that he had been extremely troubled by the distance growing between himself and God. As a result, he and his wife were starting to drift apart. He told me how his marriage had been at its strongest when he and his wife went to church together and prayed as a family. After our conversation that night, we felt like it hadn’t been a coincidence that we had been put in a room together.
I returned home from the deployment feeling very spiritually encouraged. My wife and I were baptized one week after my return, and my hunger to keep reading and learning continues. My best friend’s wife was baptized a few days after we were. I’ve heard from my temporary roommate, and he and his wife have returned to church and are doing well!
I know that God touched people every day. God speaks to us all – but it isn’t until we tune our ears to Him that we realize He has been reaching out to us all along. I am learning that trusting in faith will keep me in step with God. Today, I am running with a renewed emphasis on prayer and my relationship with my personal Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
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