Burrill’s Life Thus Far, or
“It Took Me Twenty-Some Odd Years to See I’d Been Born Blind”
I feel like a Christian cliche.

No, really. I do. It seems like I’ve heard numerous testimonies start with “I was raised in a Christian home, but...” However, I don’t mean to disparage such testimonies, because then I’d be disparaging my own. And were I to disparage my own testimony, then I would be disparaging the work of God’s own hands. And what right or reason would I have to do that? After all, while this sort of story may not have the cinematic drama of the story of a mass-murdering Buddhist who did heroin, talked on his cell phone while he was driving, and, worst of all, consumed too many carbohydrates, and then found God (and subsequently found rehab, a hands-free kit, and Dr. Atkins), it is equally meaningful and even dramatic, though in a less external fashion.

As you might have guessed, I was indeed raised in a Christian home. And while growing up with God at the top of the family has innumerable benefits, it can also be problematic for some people. For me, the major problem was that I very quickly jumped onto the holy coattails. I seem to remember praying to receive Christ at an early age, but looking back, I don’t remember it ever being a deep conviction or commitment. I don’t remember it being meaningful to me. Rather, I think it was something I did simply because it was something that all the important people in my life did. And since I grew up in the church, it really didn’t seem all that difficult just to say the right things and ride along with everyone else. Like I said, I rode the holy coattails.

And for a long time, I plodded along just like that. I can’t say I ever overtly denied God or His existence, but I also can’t say I ever really gave Him more than a passing hello, like you might give to a stranger you pass on the street. And now I’m not so very sure that there is that big of a difference between denying and ignoring when it comes to the King and Creator of all that exists. I also can’t say that I ever was particularly pleased with that state of being. Like a song played by a second-rate banjo player, in my life there were always discordant twangs that said something wasn’t quite right. But isn’t it easier in the short term to push those aside and keep your eyes closed rather than to look God straight in the face and realize exactly how deeply and entirely wrong you’ve been and how deeply and entirely right He is? For me it certainly was. And at that time my social circle was almost nonexistent, so I spent plenty of time at home, just keeping to myself. I’m not really sure if my spiritual apathy was just deepened by so much time spent apart from other people or if that spiritual apathy drove my social apathy. In either case, spending so much time at home on my own only made it that much easier for me to push all those discordant twangs aside.

But God still works, whether or not you ask Him to do so; in fact, I think that the less inclined you are to ask Him to work in your life, the more likely it is that someone else is praying for Him to do just that. This was ever so clearly demonstrated to me when one of my few good friends (who we will call Annette, for that is her name) started inviting me to spend time with this crazy group called Christian Challenge. Boy, oh boy, did that ever change things.

I was initially quite reluctant to accept her invitations, but I was starting to become weary of keeping to myself. So despite my fear of such a new social situation, and because of her prodding – which I have no doubt was God’s idea – I started to spend some time around the group. I surprised myself, and probably her as well, when I joined the summer book study. And wouldn’t you know it, at a time when it was becoming clear to me that I lacked any real purpose, they just so happened to be studying The Purpose-Driven Life. It is said that God moves in mysterious ways, and at times that certainly is true. But when I look back at the past year or so of my life, it seems to me that God has been downright obvious to me more than once.

That summer wasn’t what I would consider the major turning point. It was building a foundation for that turning point. In a sense, it was showing me where the steering wheel was located. I got to know people in the group, and I got to go through an excellent book with those people, but I was still holding back. And then came the fall, and with it, all the other people I hadn’t met.

When the school year started and all the students from out of town came back, I was still a little nervous in the group. I had gotten to know some people, and I was showing up quite regularly at Challenge functions, but it was still a largely unfamiliar situation to me. So when it came time for Challenge’s fall retreat, my first reaction was not to go. But several people asked me if I would be there, and as the retreat drew closer, I began to feel more and more strongly that I should go. And though to say the least, I was far, far out of my comfort zone, I did go. And I am profoundly glad I did.

But I don’t consider the fall retreat to be the major turning point, either. I think that retreat was just what put my hands on the steering wheel. What stuck with me the most from the fall retreat was a question from one of the guys in my room (who we will call Joshua, for that is his name): “So, where are you with all this?” He caught me by surprise – and scared me quite a lot – with that question, and quite frankly, I had no answer for him. Despite all the time I’d been spending with the group, I was still plodding. So I flapped my jaw and made some sounds and wound up saying absolutely nothing. But, as I found out later, that question had its intended effect.

After the fall retreat, I started to spend more and more time with the group. Having a lot of people frequently asking me to do things with them was still a little bit new, and, I must say, very welcome. And I started to make some good friends. But in the back of my mind I was always thinking that so many of these people were following God and loving Jesus and full of the Spirit and whatever else you want to throw in the mix, and though I was building relationships with them, I knew I wasn’t where they were. And I knew that I would rather be somewhere other than where I was.

Right now you might be thinking “Okay, so that was the turning point?”; but no, I’m sorry to say that still wasn’t it. I’m a little bit more thickheaded than that. I was realizing that I really wanted to turn the wheel, but I still wasn’t quite to the point where I would actually move. However, I was starting to see where I wanted to go.

Several months later, after having developed several very good friendships, I was presented with the opportunity to attend Challenge’s men’s retreat. And, as with the fall retreat, my first reaction was not to go. But again, as with the fall retreat, several people asked me if I would be there. One person in particular described his experience at a previous men’s retreat. And again, as the retreat drew closer, I began to feel more and more strongly that I should go – and with even more certainty than I had felt about the fall retreat. So I went. And, as you might have guessed, that was the weekend that God used to turn me around to look right into His own face.

To that point, though I thought I remembered praying to receive Christ, I had never really been sure. I had been trying to convince myself that I was a Christian, but my nagging doubts had only been getting stronger. When I hadn’t been particularly concerned with God one way or another, those doubts were easy to disregard. But as I spent more and more time with the group – and even more time with individuals – I had to start looking closely at just where I was “with all this.” Before long, it became clear that I didn’t have any idea where I was with any of it.

And then I went to the men’s retreat.

God didn’t even wait long after the start of the retreat to work His wonder. At the end of the very first evening, I came to a very definite realization that I knew precisely where I was. I was nowhere. And I knew precisely where I needed to be. I needed to be in the arms of my Savior. It was that evening that I gave up, and gave myself over to God. That was my turning point. But that wasn’t when I turned the wheel. Instead, that was when I took my hands off the wheel and asked God to put His hands on it. That was when I knew where I wanted to go, and that was when I knew that I couldn’t get there on my own. The rest of the retreat was an intensely powerful experience for various reasons, but all of those reasons grew out of that very first evening.

Not long after that weekend, I was prompted to visit Living Water. Aside from God’s own hand on my shoulder, there were several reasons that I think prompted me to visit; one was the fact that several of my good friends had been attending Living Water, and another was the church’s support of Christian Challenge. But no matter the reason, I did visit, and I felt an immediate connection. Even that first week, I felt like I was in the right place.

Along with that sense of belonging came something else: a very strong sense that God was telling me that it was time to be baptized. I immediately wanted to push that aside for no other reason than that I typically do my best to avoid being directly in the spotlight. So the thought of getting up in front of any group of people and giving the story of my life – which I now know fits on two pages – was certainly not appealing to me. But God wasn’t about to give up. In fact, He once again decided to be downright obvious. Very shortly after I began attending Living Water, there was a baptism. And not only was it a baptism, but it was the baptism of one of those good friends I’d made (who we will call Mara, for – you guessed it – that is her name). At that point it became clear that God was plainly asking me to take that next step and proclaim my faith publicly. It also became clear that my own feelings of comfort have no relevance to God’s commands. Because in the end, this shouldn’t be about me. This shouldn’t point to me, or what I’ve done, or what I can do. This should point ultimately and only to God, and what He has done, and what He can do.

The Lord is my strength and song,
And He has become my salvation;
This is my God, and I will praise Him;
My father’s God, and I will extol Him.
Exodus 15:2