Family Background

One of the greatest influences on my life was my grandfather, Rev. James A. Miller (1914—2001). At his recent memo rial service, several men recalled how his greatest love in life was the Word of God. I knew him for nearly 30 years and this was certainly true. It was this love that had the most negative influence on my life!

My father was a PK (preacher’s kid) and because of this he positively did not like church. As he grew up, going to church for him was probably a tot like going to the dentist: you know you have to go and deep clown you also know it’s good for you, but these facts do little to change dread into eagerness (especially when the dentist is your own father!). So my father didn’t like church; and he didn’t like it because my grandfather loved church more than he loved him. The implications would follow—both for my father and for me.

Our family grew up going to church— once a week, every week, for one or two hours on Sunday. Mom and Dad, my older sister Kim, and I lived in rural northwest New jersey. We regularly at tended the Evangelical Free Church and later on a PCA church, which meant regular exposure to the true gospel. We went to the “right” church and we knew the truth—what else was there to do and to know? for this, we considered our selves a model family of Christian piety. a family immune to the ills of the world.

By the end of my sophomore year of high school in 1987, however, our family was in a complete shambles. My father was well on his way to giving his life over to vodka and tonic; my sister was living it up as a “mate rial girl” in the material world; I was indulging in the growing neo-hip pie movement of the late ‘$0s and my mother was at wits end wondering how she could keep this sinking ship afloat.

High School (Part 1)

Long before the cracks in our hull were even noticeable my parents sent me off to a Christian summer camp. I was about 12 years old. As with many evangelical camps, these camp counselors were steeped in the art of extracting a confession of faith from all their little campers. Sure enough, by the end of the week I had “asked Jesus into my heart” and I was now a full-fledged Christian. I had done this with full sincerity, so I didn’t understand why I felt like I had to keep asking Him into my heart over and over again.

High school was preeminently a time to be cool; a time when I’d do almost anything to ensure the acceptance of my peers. In the summer before ninth grade I learned that acceptance equaled alcohol. Most of the time we’d swipe a few bottles from our folks or ask older sib lings to buy it for us. If you didn’t drink, and drink hard, you couldn’t really be one of the boys.

Despite going to parties nearly every Saturday night, I managed to keep my parents in the dark by maintaining perfect Sunday morning attendance (even if I could hardly walk) My perfect attendance at a true church along with my camp ‘conversion” experience convinced me that I was in the light, but really I was kept in the dark.

The “cool” party lifestyle intensified throughout my sophomore year with one new ingredient: Diane. She was an older woman—a senior at the snooty private school in town called Blair Academy. We had an 18-month relationship which, when over, would leave two indelible impacts on my life: a gross misunderstanding of love and an obsession for the hippie rock band, The Grateful Dead.

By the end of my sophomore year my parents tried to take steps to reform my wild ways. The best strategy they could come up with (because by now the “family ship” was taking on water fast) was to send me hack to a different Christian summer camp! Naturally I complied, for to rebel against my parents’ wishes was to shoot my self (and my lifestyle) in the foot. My motto was, “When the parents stay happy, Derek stays happy.”

The week at camp was a joke. I was oblivious to any and all messages about Christ. However, one preacher actually found a crack in the door of my heart. The only thing I heard him say was, “I challenge you to read through the entire Bible in one year!” He said we would have to read four chapters a day, every day. For some reason I was resolute. Nothing was going to get in the way of completing this goal.

With Diane soon heading off to college, she and I needed to take steps to ensure the survival of our (unhealthy) relationship. Remarkably, we reasoned that I too would have to experience a life-changing event, like college. What would be comparable for a junior in high school but to become a foreign exchange student! My entire junior year of high school would he spent in Ham burg, Germany.

Hamburg, Germany

Germany was a teenager’s dream come true: an entire year without parents and school responsibilities. Looking back, it was unquestionably the worst year of my life. With such unbridled “freedom” my life plummeted even further in the depths.

Germany was where I finally met some real “hippies.” By the end of the year my clothes were in tatters, my hair was below my shoulders, and I was a professional marijuana smoker. The clean-cut “preppy” boy who left his parents with tears would soon come home a new man, to their shock.

God didn’t forget me while I was in Germany. Remember the Bible reading? Remarkably, as my life became more libertine, my zeal for reading the Bible intensified. I had to read my four chapters a day, every day, regardless of my sobriety (or lack thereof), As my knowledge of the Word increased, I felt closer to God than ever before. I finished reading through the Bible after just nine months while utterly lost in the Black Forest. A double-minded man would return from a 12-month vacation for his senior year—which mind would prevail?

High School (Part 2)

As my plane descended on JFK Airport in New York, little did I know that the countercultural revolution of the ‘60s had ironically resurfaced as pop culture. I would become its top spokesman for my high school. If high school was all about being cool, now I was certainly it. I had more than a full year’s practice before anyone else even started! Many looked up to me. I couldn’t let them down. Who else was going to teach them the glorious freedom and fun of being a hippie? What fun and popularity was there in reading the Bible and going to church? None, I thought, so I graduated from high school as the class freak, loving every minute of it.

Montclair State College

My parents thought it best that I go to a large state school only minutes from downtown Manhattan, New York. I couldn’t have agreed more. Montclair was a concrete jungle of a school with about 15,000 students. After a few months I exuberantly and confidently declared my major: Fine Arts. I had talent—real talent and great creativity. I knew it and my professors knew it. They were excited to have me, and I was excited to learn from them. I was going to he a famous artist—a sculptor in metal, and the marijuana and the acid would catapult me to the top. Or so I thought.

Instead of providing mind expanding creativity, the drugs seared my brain. All creativity and memory was lost. Deep depression soon set in, but the only comfort and support I knew were drugs and The Grateful Dead. My despair grew worse. I hated Montclair and I hated life. After yet another call home to mom she wisely recommended that I drop out, come home and get a job, and try to get my life back together.

Cleaning and Conversion

When I left Montclair in February 1991 I knew the drugs and Dead shows were killing me, but I was powerless to do anything about it. It was all I knew. Coming home might have made matters even worse, for several old “drug buddies” still hung around town seemingly waiting for me. The job I found only served to facilitate my “dazed and confused” lifestyle. I worked for a small cleaning company that provided employment from 5p.m. till the offices were clean. The faster I cleaned, the sooner I could go home (and party), not having to wake up until 3 or 4 p.m.! The Dead shows continued. “Gus,” my Volkswagen microbus, took us to the shows. Basically everything remained as at Montclair, but now I was doing it right under my parents’ noses! Again, perfect church attendance proved my motto true.

Thankfully God would no longer allow me to be happy in my sins. I am reminded of the doctrine of God’s providence, wherein He “preserves and governs all his creatures and all their actions” (Westminster Shorter catechism, Q. 11). God would begin to demonstrate His remarkable providence in my life. These I will try to explain on ink and paper.

The Lord got my attention through good old-fashioned guilt. It wasn’t only my brain that had been seared as with a hot iron but my conscience as well. So whenever the opportunity arose to party I embraced it with open arms. This all changed in the summer of 1991. As I partied (either in groups or alone), powerful pangs of guilt would wash over me—the feeling and certainty that what I was doing was wrong.

At first these thoughts or feelings occurred only seldom and were quickly brushed aside. But over the course of time they increased in frequency and intensity. What made me wake up and take them to heart were the unusual events that accompanied my guilt. Each and every time this guilt swept over me, at that exact moment the current situation or circumstances in which I found myself changed. In other words, some kind of event would take place that coincided precisely with my flood of guilt for my sin. These events (or “signs” as I called them then) were usually just everyday occurrences with no special significance to anyone else, but over time they became very significant to me.

Here are several examples to help you understand: I’d be partying and feeling great, then suddenly feel major guilt; and at that exact moment the phone rang. Another time, at the moment of guilt the dog burst into the room harking at the cat. Still another time a car drove by and laid on the horn; or someone screamed out in laughter from down the hall. For three full months events like these continually coincided with tremendous bur dens of guilt when I partied.

The Lord certainly had my attention. There was no way I could write off these things as strange coincidences. Their frequency and consistency utterly precluded this as a reasonable option. The only explanation that made any sense was to look to God. I began shooting up “skeptic prayers,” wondering to God if He were, indeed, the One behind these strange occurrences. Eventually requests accompanied these prayers—requests for God to bring about a “sign” at the exact moment in which I asked. Often I would think to myself, “OK God, if you’re the One behind these things, do something— now! (By now I had already been broken; I knew the drugs were a dead end; and I used this “fleece’ in humble faith.) Every time I asked for a sign, God was there to give me one.

One time I was home alone sitting in utter silence. I told God I wasn’t going to move or even breathe, and then I said, “OK. God, I need to know that you’re behind all this. Please do something— now.” As soon as I said now I heard glass shatter from our living room. I burst up from my bed in amazement and ran into the living room to see a bottle of root beer shattered all over a table. It hadn’t fallen off; it was broken on top of the table! I knew the God whom I had learned about all my life was real and He still cared about me!

Church and the Bible began to take on a new light now. One Sunday after church a young woman who was a family friend said to me, “I can tell you’re searching right now. Why don’t you read this little booklet called Quiet Times For Christian Growth? She proceeded to explain more and I gladly took the booklet. Instead of sleeping till 2 or 3 in the afternoon, I now began to fill my days with the Word of God! This time it was not to simply gain knowledge or fulfill a personal goal—it was to find my very life. As I read (again) of Christ and His glorious sacrifice for sinners, of His sacrifice for me, the Holy Spirit exploded into my life. I received a new heart and a new mind, no longer even desiring the party life, but Christ alone. This is how God graciously called me to Himself through His remarkable providence.

Conclusion

It wasn’t long after my conversion that I felt the Lord’s call to serve Him as a shepherd of His sheep. I first needed to return to college to get my degree before I could go on to seminary. God led me to Westminster College where I graduated with a degree in religion. There also I fell in love with a beautiful young woman named Kelly, whom I married in July 1997. That was also my final year at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

Shortly before graduation God continued to direct our paths out of the PCA and into the RP Church. The blessings continued as God brought us to beautiful Sterling, Kansas, for an internship position with the RP congregation there. In March 2000 the internship turned into a call to be their associate pastor. In November of the same year God’s blessings became indescribable as He gave us our first daughter, Rachel Elizabeth.

My special purpose for writing is that this might encourage parents who may be struggling to keep their hope for their kids; and might show young people that the ways of this world do indeed lead to no hope at all. “The Lord, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithful ness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin” (Ex. 34:6-7).