Ankerberg: Yes.
This is not just academic for you.
You’ve actually experienced what you’re
talking about.
Take us back to the time when you were not
a Christian and you started thinking about
these things.
Craig: Yes.
I was not raised in a Christian family, though
it was a good and loving family.
But I experienced the despair and the blackness
that I’ve talked about and that I later
read in the French existentialist philosophers.
As I looked out at life and my own existence,
I thought, what is the meaning of my existence?
I was aware that everything was doomed ultimately
to extinction, and I could see no meaning
or purpose for my existence or the existence
of anything else.
And this filled me with a deep despair and
blackness.
And I don’t know if you understand what
this is like, but it makes every day miserable;
another day to get through.
And I remember one day I was feeling particularly
crummy.
I walked into my high school German class,
and I sat down behind a girl who was one of
these types that is always so happy it just
makes you sick.
And I tapped her on the shoulder and said,
“What are you always so happy about anyway?”
And she said, “It’s because I know Jesus
Christ as my personal Savior.”
And I said, “Well, I go to church.”
And she said, “That’s not enough, Bill.
You’ve got to have Him really living in
your heart.”
And I said, “Well, what would He want to
do a thing like that for?”
And she said, “Because He loves you, Bill.”
And that just hit me like a ton of bricks.
Here I was, so filled with despair and anger,
and she said there was someone who really
loved me.
And who was it but the God of the universe!
And that thought just staggered me.
To think that the God of the universe could
love me, that worm named Bill Craig down there
on that speck of dust called the planet earth.
And so I went home that night and picked up
a New Testament that had been given to me
in the 5th grade by the Gideons when they
visited our grade school, and I began to read
it.
And as I read the Gospels, I was absolutely
captivated by the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
There was wisdom about this man’s teaching
that I had never encountered before, and there
was an authenticity about His life that was
simply undeniable.
Well, to make a long story short, I went through
about six months of the most intense and agonizing
soul searching I’ve ever gone through, until
finally I just came to the end of my rope.
And one night I cried out to God, and I cried
out all the anger and the bitterness that
had been building up inside of me.
And as I did so I felt this tremendous infusion
of joy like a balloon being blown up until
it was ready to burst.
And I rushed outdoors.
It was a warm Midwestern summer evening, and
you could see the Milky Way from horizon to
horizon.
And as I looked up at the stars I thought,
“God!
I’ve come to know God!”
And that moment just changed my whole life.
I knew that I could not do anything less than
spend the rest of my entire life sharing this
good news with mankind.
Because if this is the truth, if it’s really
the truth, this is the greatest news ever
announced.
