Senior Philip Jennings overcame significant depression and an addiction to drugs while in high school en route to a faith supported by personal inquiry.
Dealing with that separation has a lot to do with faith. For me, faith has been a small part of what I believe in the sense that I looked into what I believe about Christianity, and I've seen scientific evidence and from other people and scholars and experts (especially that first year I became a Christian), but Christianity says without faith it's impossible to praise God. It's as if you have a friendship, but if you never tell that person anything important, it doesn't really mean anything. You can spend a lot of time together, but without leaning on that relationship it doesn't mean anything, and the same is true of God. If God is a chair, and I never sit it in it, but I say I believe in the chair's ability to hold me, what does that matter?
God has blown me away. I have looked up to different people as I was growing up. They originally were people who were so far beyond the person I could ever be. They were incredible guys. And now I see myself, not necessarily walk in their footsteps but approach them. I've been able to get involved with a couple of the freshmen that live in Hillcrest Hall, and it's a joy to see how God is working in their lives.
A lot of people who meet me are surprised to hear my background. People know God when they see God work. And you only see God work when something is done that only God could do. Only God could do the things that He did. Only God could bridge the gap.
It's really frustrating when I go home because I have to pick up my dad from the bar. I can see the hurt as he comes home. I don't know what it is that drives him particularly, but it isn't for the good time anymore. It's consuming him. So being able to draw back on my own experience, I can love him more so in that state than I could before.
My joy comes from getting to know God and getting to share God with friends and not in a way that is about selling something, but in a way that has changed my life and revolutionized everything I've known.
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