Justin Bahaj
Before I became a Christian, I wouldn’t really have considered myself as a bad person. In fact, I probably would have said that I was better than most: I never got grounded, I always got good grades in school, and in general I tried to be a decent guy to the people around me. I had a little bit of a hard time forming meaningful, lasting friendships though, because my family moved around a lot when I was a kid.
I think that I took some pride in my intelligence, which is something I still struggle with.
Obviously this was not fulfilling, because when I took pride in my intelligence, in some way it made me look down on the people around me, which isn’t a good way to form relationships.
So, like I said before, my family moved around a lot when I was younger, and so I didn’t grow up going to church very often. My mom had kind of raised my sister and I as Christians, and I knew that there was a God, and there was some guy named Jesus, but I didn’t really know anything beyond that. I actually even got to the point where I started to look down on people who believed in God because I saw it as a crutch that they used to get themselves through the day, or as something to try to derive meaning from life.
However, when my family moved to Illinois, I started going to this school that was sponsored by a church, and families would get a discount on tuition if they attended the church, so my mom, my sister, and I started going to church. Through the church and also through religion classes that were mandatory at the school, I was able to learn more about what Christians believe, about Jesus and the sacrifice He made for us, and how we can have a relationship with God through faith in Him.
So I decided to pray to receive Jesus and get baptized when I was in 8th grade, and I started my relationship with God. I like to think of this as the point where I loved God, but I still wasn’t \”in love\” with Him yet. I started reading my Bible more often, but there wasn’t really any radical change in my actions or my attitude.
So after I received Christ in 8th grade, I started going to high school, which was a difficult time for me spiritually, followed by my freshman year in college, which was also tough since at that point I was still new in my faith and I didn’t really know what it meant to walk with God. But during my sophomore year of college some of my friends were involved with Campus Crusade for Christ, and they invited me to one of their Bible studies. When I started going to those Bible studies, I saw Christians who were radically different than anything I had seen before. They loved God passionately, but they weren’t the boring stereotypes of Christians that you sometimes see in movies. You know, like people who go to church every morning at 5 am and think that Harry Potter is from the devil. But the Christians I met weren’t like that; they played ultimate frisbee and played practical jokes on each other, and they made me feel welcome. And they were also different from the other people around me because they had joy, and peace in the face of hardship that other people didn’t have, and the reason was because they walked with God and had an active relationship with Jesus. I decided that I wanted to have that, and it was then that I would say that I \”fell in love\” with Christ.
Obviously I didn’t make that decision and immediately become some super-holy guy. But it’s been a gradual process and a transformation, and I think that I’m a very different person than I was before I made that decision my sophomore year. I’ve been able to see just how much I needed God and still need Him, and I’ve also seen that He is good and that His love is amazing. The best thing about it is that it’s not boring. Two summers ago I went to Australia on a mission trip, which is certainly not something I would have done before walking with God. I’ve also been able to form some really great friendships and relationships that I probably wouldn’t have if I didn’t have God in my life. For example, my best friend from college, the guy who invited me to those Bible studies, is in East Asia right now as a missionary, and I still talk to him every now and then and share what’s going on in our lives.
My motivations have also changed now. Before, I was always striving to please the people around me: my parents by getting good grades and staying out of trouble, and my friends by acting ridiculous. But now I’m motivated by a desire to grow closer to God, which has caused me to frustrate my parents a little bit by applying for a job in campus ministry, and I’ve also adjusted the way I act around my friends so that my actions would more clearly display God’s work in my life.
