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There almost certainly is no God, so live life to the fullest and treat each other with dignity. Don’t waste your years on superstitious nonsense. That was an actual Facebook status that I posted in August of 2009 as an 11th grader in high school. Two months later, I would find myself on the other end of a suicide attempt, doing all that I could to find meaning, purpose, and value in my nihilistic life. Today, people in Lebanon, Missouri, know me as a senior pastor at First Baptist Church. Across the state of Missouri, I have had the opportunity to speak at countless churches about the Christian faith and why we can both intellectually and spiritually argue that Jesus is Lord. However, for the first half of my life, people in Lebanon knew me for one thing: atheism. Me with two of my debate opponents during the 2009 Speech and Debate State Tournament at the University of Missouri.          Entering Lebanon High School in 2007, I realized I wasn’t good at many things. My brother Jesse excelled at baseball and my sister Abby would later excel in cheerleading, but athleticism is something that missed me in the family. Trying to find anything I was good at was a journey, but I found my calling during the second semester of my freshman year. I tried out for the speech and debate team and immediately realized that I had an ability to debate. By the beginning of my junior year, I was the captain for the speech and debate team and found myself succeeding in multiple different forms of debate. At the conclusion of my junior year, I was debating in Columbia, Missouri, during the state championship rounds. A lost, insecure kid yearning for purpose in life had finally found something that made him feel important          As I continued to use my newfound debate abilities for good by representing my school, I also used my debate tactics on those I philosophically disagreed with in life. When I entered high school, I would have described myself as an “apathetic agnostic” who didn’t know if there was a God and quite frankly didn’t care. I would have diagnosed myself with spiritual lethargy. By the time I turned 16, my indifferent view towards religion turned into a form of anti-theism. In 2008, I purchased God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything  by the late Christopher Hitchens and The God Delusion  by Richard Dawkins. I read each of these in a matter of days, only to use the little bit of money I had to purchase more books from these rockstar atheists I had begun to look up to. From Dawkins to Hitchens to Dennett to Harris to Shermer to Penn Jillette, I couldn’t get enough of this idea of atheism. By the time my junior year officially hit, I was doing all that I could to talk my fellow high schoolers out of their faith. One vivid conversation I remember having was with the FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) president before school. This girl was a senior, and someone that many people in our school saw as a “model Christian.” With a crowd gathering at the cafeteria table, I knew this would be an opportunity to try and debunk her Christian faith. I set my backpack down and said, “Since you’re so confident that Christianity is a religion of good, why does your God allow slavery?” Angry, she took a deep breath and replied, “Christianity does not endorse slavery Roger. Jesus came to bring peace.” I smiled because I knew I had her exactly  where I wanted her. I grabbed the Bible sitting on the table and turned to Exodus 21:20. I shoved it in front of her and asked her to read it out loud. She started to read, “Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.” As she said the words from the page, her tone changed with each passing word. She had realized that her house of cards had come crumbling down, and I was victorious. This is merely one of many interactions I had with Christians where my atheism prevailed. In one unfortunate case, I led a friend of mine away from his Christian faith and towards atheism. To this day, he still does not believe in God. Even though I was espousing confidence and intelligence outwardly, inwardly I was struggling. It was during this period of my life that I was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder and Acute Anxiety Disorder. When my mind was telling me I wasn’t enough and life wasn’t worth living, I would compensate by focusing on debate and doing my best to be as intellectual as possible. This mirage came crashing down on October 31st, 2009, when I decided I was going to finally follow through with suicide. I wrote my suicide note, empty the pill cabinet, and made my plan. In my suicide note, I said goodbye to my parents, my siblings, and even my teachers and principals who I apologized to for being so hard-headed. By the grace of God, my suicide attempt was unsuccessful and instead of dying, I passed out only to wake up the next morning. Still sad, lonely, and wanting to cling onto any hope I could. I didn’t know what I wanted in life, but I knew in that moment I didn’t want to be alone. I went outside and started walking, only to run into a church with a parking lot of people. The name of the church was “FBC Lebanon”, which is now the church I have the privilege of pastoring. Not wanting to be seen, I snuck into the church and sat in the top left balcony. I don’t remember much of what the pastor preached on, but I remember his invitation. He told the congregation, “If you lack meaning, value, or purpose, there is a God above who wants you to know Him.” It was as if he had read my suicide note and knew exactly what I was seeking. On November 1st, 2009, shortly before the noon hour, I bowed my head and asked the Lord Jesus Christ to rescue me. In a moment, it felt like I was about to collapse in my seat. It was as if I was floating in midair, and the only thing I could whisper was “rescue me Lord.” I didn’t know what all was going on and to this day I cannot explain it vividly, but I knew I had been born again. That morning, I had walked into the church hopeless and on the brink of giving up. An hour later, I left with all the hope my heart could muster. As I later told my congregation, “I could have skipped to Pittsburgh I was so happy.” At this point, you may be asking, “What does this have to do with apologetics?” Admittedly, in a field that deals largely with intellectual arguments for the existence of God, my experience had very little intellect involved. However, can this still validate God’s existence? Professor William Lane Craig would say yes, even citing it in the majority of his academic debates. What he calls the argument that “God can be personally known and experienced”, Craig states that experiences can certainly be a rational basis for belief. He writes, “These beliefs are grounded in the sense that they’re formed in the context of certain experiences. In the experiential context of seeing and feeling things, I naturally form the belief that there are certain physical objects which I am sensing.” [1]  Thus, Craig concludes this belief is not arbitrary but grounded in experience. He summarizes this argument deductively as follows: 1.     Beliefs which are appropriately grounded may be rationally accepted as basic beliefs, not grounded on argument. 2.     Belief that God exists is appropriately grounded 3.     Therefore, belief that God exists can be rationally accepted as a basic belief, not grounded on argument. [2] Given that my testimony is personal to me and thus not experienced by you, I cannot claim that my experience is solid evidence for you to consider when examining the Christian faith. However, I can promise you that my experience is not exclusive to me but an experience that countless humans have similarly found. Whether it be the best day of your life or the worst day, the Holy Spirit does not discriminate when one calls on the name of Jesus Christ. I have frequently compared myself to the Apostle Paul of Scripture. Like me, Paul went from persecuting Christians to becoming a leader in the Christian faith. On his road to Damascus, Paul experienced the same risen savior that I experienced in the fall of 2009. Following his personal experience, Luke writes in Acts 9:18, “Something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized.” From here, Paul went on to plant churches, preach, and write over half of the New Testament. Me today as a pastor, baptizing a girl named Bristol after she accepted Jesus earlier this year. If you are a Christian, hopefully this can be a reminder that as important as arguments are for the Christian faith, nothing can trump the power of what the Holy Spirit can do in our lives. If we rely on merely intellectual arguments to build up our relationship with Christ, we will ultimately crash and burn. However, finding a way to balance loving God with all our mind  as well as our heart, soul, and strength is the goal. Just as the name of this blog is Rational Faith , it is crucial that we embrace the Christian faith both rationally but with a childlike faith. If you are not a Christian but are considering the Christian faith, let me be the first to tell you that God loves you incomprehensibly. Just like my pastor told me 15 years ago, “If you lack meaning, value, or purpose, there is a God above who wants you to know Him.” Perhaps today is the day you start your journey with Jesus! [1]  “Is There Evidence for God? The Craig-Scharp Debate | Reasonable Faith.” 2016. Reasonablefaith.org . 2016. https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/debates/is-there-evidence-for-god . [2]  Ibid.