Dan had achieved his dream of working at a blue chip company as a mechatronics engineer, making good money, yet still felt empty. Faith was for him only feel-good make-believe. When Dan meets some Christians, he treats them with hostility. How would his atheism stand up to the deep questions of life?

<p>Dan had achieved his dream of working at a blue chip company as a mechatronics engineer, making good money, yet still felt empty. Faith was for him only feel-good make-believe. When Dan meets some Christians, he treats them with hostility. How would his atheism stand up to the deep questions of life?</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Adverum Productions

Journeys Season 1

Christopher Laubscher

Should Christians Have Ecstatic Experiences?: Christopher’s Journey

Dan Millares

Searching for the Meaning of Life: Dan’s Journey

Cacyne Hernehult

Searching for True Love: Cacyne’s Journey

Maj Oblak

Can Faith Be Rational?: Maj’s Journey

Miikael Volkonski

I Would Never Become a Christian: Miikael’s Journey

Jan Haugg

Finding Hope for the Environment: Jan’s Journey

Conrad Whitaker

Beyond Rituals and Crucifixes: Conrad’s Journey

Samuel Jacobsen

Escape From New Age and the Paranormal: Samuel’s Journey

Grace Rose

Finding Peace at Last: A Miraculous Journey

Jonas Nygard

Hungry for More: Jonas’ Journey

Albert Jurgens

Learning to Trust the Bible: Albert’s Journey

Chris Berger

Existential U-turn: Chris’s Journey


I was struggling with questions like what is the meaning of life and how do I find true fulfillment and happiness in my existence. My experience is that I found unexpected answers in unexpected places at an inconvenient time. My name is Dan Mejares and my childhood was a happy 1, despite many conflicts that came up in our family. Although I was brought up alone by my father, I felt very loved by him and had much fun with my siblings. We had a lot of freedom and we were allowed to just be children.

My first 15 years of life felt like 1 glorious summer vacation. Growing up we never talked about God in our home. At the most I got some critical comments from my parents concerning religion. As I matured I started viewing Christianity more like a preference. Some people like spaghetti and others like rice and or potatoes and I was kind of pathetic towards Christianity, but was very tolerant of others having religious views.

I thought of faith as something that 1 imagines, as something that you make yourself believe even though you know it's it's not true. People may want to believe that the sun is blue and if that makes them feel better, no problem. But it's not something for me. I went to Gothenburg to study at the university and my brother had already moved there to study in the city so I moved in with him and meanwhile he had become a Christian and This was kind of my first serious encounter with the Christian faith. My brother was very different.

I soon noticed that he was reading the Bible a lot and praying. And since we lived in a small apartment of 17 square meters, I didn't miss much of what he was up to. Friday nights, instead of going out, he was spending time with God. He seemed very sincere in his belief, but I felt that it was boring. I studied mechatronics at Chalmers University of Technology which is Sweden's best technical university.

Mechatronics is a mix between 3 traditional branches of engineering and it's the mechanical engineering, it's electronic engineering and computer engineering. The program was very popular and there was big demand on graduates from this type of program so companies like Volvo and Scania and SQF, they were hunting for people to work on the side of their studies and during the summer vacations. I got picked up by Volvo to do a summer job. And when I was 6 months away from graduating, I was off the permanent job. And all along, the dream of my life had been to work at a company like Volvo.

So yeah, now my dream was about to be fulfilled. I was working a lot. I didn't have much time for my friends and I was absolutely sure that pursuing my dream career I would reach happiness. My father's encouragement have meant a lot for me to get a proper education start a good career to get an opportunity that he never got has meant a lot for me and to respect my father's wishes and to make him proud and happy. So here I was, putting all of my energy into my work, but slowly a huge disappointment started to creep over me.

I thought that, Well, my work was fun. I made a lot of money, but I was not fulfilled. I had climbed the mountain of what I thought was success, but I was finding at the top that it was barren and empty. And yeah, was this the meaning of life? I wondered if my father had been wrong in preparing us for a successful career as a means of finding happiness.

But at this point, I also started to consider some of the bigger questions in life. I realized that there must be something else that I had not yet found, something that would make my life have meaning. Well, it was natural for me to start my search into what my brother and my Christian friends had found. I began attending youth meetings with a Christian group Wednesday nights. They were very friendly and they were good at socializing and I felt very welcome.

They were really great people. Not after long though I started to become hostile towards them and challenged them in their faith. I treated them very badly. They didn't know that the reason for my hostility was that I was actually searching. I thought that here are these young, intelligent Swedes, these students, how can they be so sincere in their faith and believe something that they have to know is not true.

They approached the Bible in a way that they approach other branches of knowledge with using logic, reasoning and critical thinking. We discussed creation a lot and just faith in general. And they were able to open their Bibles and find answers. They started to share media resources with me. And I was very fascinated by the content in some of this material that they shared with me, you know, the prophecies of the Bible.

And I wondered, why have no 1 told me about this before? I almost felt angry at my friends, my Christian friends, that they hadn't shared this with me. I started to read the Bible for myself. My brother was away sometimes and I made sure that I took his Bible. I read it and I made sure to put it back exactly where I found it so he didn't see that I had touched it, that I had read it.

I didn't want him to know because I was afraid that he would be right, or that he had been right, about his faith and especially about our lifestyle. As I learned about the prophetic content in the Bible, I was amazed by all the fulfillments throughout history but also in present time. So I was forced into considering whether God exists or not. I also turned to an older person in the church by the name of Ruben Engdahl. We started having Bible studies.

He gave me a book called The Great Controversy by Ellen G. White. Up until this time, I had enjoyed the intellectual stimulation of faith, I would say that I agreed intellectually with the existence of a creator. I used to call it a supernatural intellect that was kind of the origin of the universe. But as I'm reading this book I meet the person Jesus and I realize that everything in the Bible, in the prophecies revolves around him.

So with this question I come to Ruben and he gives me another book by the same author called The Desire of Ages. And as I read that book in the first few chapters everything starts to make sense for me. I learned about the fall of man, God's plan to save man and that Jesus actually is this, well the creator of the universe. He put aside his divine power and came down to earth to save mankind, to save me. I was crushed to the core and I had lived my life for 22 years and ignored God, ignored my creator and ignored Jesus.

And yet Jesus was willing to die for me. Still he says, I'm willing to give everything to you. Your value and My love for you doesn't come from what you can produce and what you can do, but that you're good at your work, good-looking friends, and your car and your apartment. Everything that I can produce is not what gives me meaning and value, but simply what He has done for me, what Jesus did for me. I had tried to pray before, the God of the universe type of prayers, may the universe lead me.

I had read a lot of books on metaphysics and kind of new age spirituality and yin and yang. I remember 1 title of a book called The Tao of Physics. But at this point I started to pray. When I understood who Jesus was and what he has done for me, I started to pray personal prayers to God. Forgive me for my insufficiency and for everything that I've done.

From then on, I started to identify myself as a Christian. I'm now fired up and I go back to the youth group and I start leading out in Bible studies. I tell them that people need to know who God is, they need to see the content in the Bible. And at the same time I wonder for myself, what is God's will for my life? So I started to travel to other Christian gatherings and just to associate with the faith and people living the faith of the Bible.

So during this time, I start to hear this voice. It says something to the effect of spend time with me and study my word. I do just that. I stay up all night and study. During that time I'm watching a pre-recorded series by an evangelist called Mark Finley and in 1 of the meetings there he makes an appeal for baptism and I'm all by myself in my apartment and sitting in my living room there in front of my computer and as he makes that appeal, it's for the local audience there, But I stand up all by myself and walk in front of my computer and decide that day that I want to be baptized.

I want to show the world that I belong to Jesus. So on February 2006, I was baptized. My friends were there with me and they had walked with me all the way. They said that they never thought that I would be converted. I was so cold and unresponsive as they tried to reach out to me.

Next I made 1 of the hardest decisions in my life. I left my work at Volvo because of my, this sense that I had to spend more time figuring out what God wanted in my life. And it was hard because I felt that I was letting down my father. And when I shared with him, he was very disappointed at me for leaving the career that he had encouraged me to pursue all my life. So I prayed to God to use me and the pastor in Gothenburg started to involve me in helping out there.

So I visited people in Gothenburg and started to study the Bible with them. I helped out with some of the things that the pastor did there. And started to reach out to my friends and my colleagues and my classmates from the university, and we started to study the Bible together. And I invited 6 of them to a conference, a Christian conference in Malmö, and they come together with me, and during 1 of the morning meetings the preacher, he makes an appeal for people to surrender their life to Jesus if they have heard his voice and understood what he has done for them. And at that point I believe that I'm quite unique, that no 1 else can be affected by the word of God in the same way that I have been.

So I bow down and I pray to God for my friends and I pray, God if it's possible, speak to my friends in the same way that you have spoken to me. That's my prayer. And I and as towards the end of the appeal I look up I open my eyes and I see that 4 of my friends they answered this appeal. They gave their life to Jesus that morning and I understand that this this is what I'm supposed to do. This is the answer to my prayer.

This is what gives me true fulfillment and true happiness. Simply to help others to see who God is. Since then I've never looked back. You

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Series

Journeys Season 1

Searching for the Meaning of Life: Dan’s Journey

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Parent Series

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Other Teachings in Series

Should Christians Have Ecstatic Experiences?: Christopher’s Journey

14m

Searching for the Meaning of Life: Dan’s Journey

14m

Searching for True Love: Cacyne’s Journey

14m

Can Faith Be Rational?: Maj’s Journey

14m

I Would Never Become a Christian: Miikael’s Journey

14m

Finding Hope for the Environment: Jan’s Journey

14m

Beyond Rituals and Crucifixes: Conrad’s Journey

14m

Escape From New Age and the Paranormal: Samuel’s Journey

14m

Finding Peace at Last: A Miraculous Journey

14m

Hungry for More: Jonas’ Journey

14m

Learning to Trust the Bible: Albert’s Journey

14m

Existential U-turn: Chris’s Journey

14m

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