The Christian Broadcasting Network
Watch Pat, Terry, and Gordon on your iPod as they bring you amazing stories and celebrity interviews.
Have you experienced the presence of God?
Ron DiCianni: Painting the Resurrection?
Become a CBN partner and receive The Transforming Word: Verses to Overcome Fear and Experience Peace, our special DVD/CD gift to you.
CBN Partners are making a difference sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Find out how.
CBN.com – "Hey, my name is David, and I grew up in a small town in Lousiana."
David Stine was a typical kid who loved life and was part of a family that was very successful at whatever they did.
"It was almost an unspoken, 'We’re all going to be the best at something, so you’d better find out what you’re going to be the best at.' And I think I found that in tennis growning up," remembers David.
He traveled the state playing tournaments, and as a top competitor he landed a tennis scholarship to Louisiana State University.
"My first year in college tennis, I blew out my ACL in my knee and very much felt like God had taken away my knee and my ability to play tennis -- something I’d looked forward to for so long," says David. "I didn’t have another thing to become the best at at this time, and so automatically I think that led me to this party lifestyle and kinda being popular and things like that."
But the party lifestyle didn’t fill the void of his lost tennis career. It only brought more questions...
"I woke up after a night of heavy partying and everything, just feeling awful about myself and I remember thinking, you know, there has to be more to this exsistence than I have. I felt like I needed to get away from this party scene…"
A student exchange program took him to Utah for a semester.
"Of course, as soon as I got there I re-affiliated with my fraternity out there and of course got into the exact same situation -- just literally overnight. I realized that I brought the one thing with me that I was trying to get away from, and that was me."
When he realized that he couldn’t run from himself, he set out to find the answer in self help books and new age philosophies. But a book his grandmother gave him years before caught his attention...
"I picked up this one book in particular called The Power of Positive Thinking. And I remember at the end, it talked about having a relationship with Jesus Christ. I just remember thinking, 'Man, that’s a new concept. I’ve never heard of that .. have a personal relationship with Christ?' "
On his trip back to LSU, a stranger gave him an orange Gideon Bible.
"So I cracked open this Bible and started reading Proverbs first. And I just remember being blown away with all these wise things that were said in the book of Proverbs and even comparing it to all these new age books that I’d gotten into at that time," says David.
When he got back to school, he took a job as a courier at a law firm. The secretary there saw him reading his Bible. She happened to be a Christian and she said, 'You know, there’s a bunch of young people that all read their Bible.' "
"And I remember thinking, 'That is so weird. Don’t only old people read the Bible?' I think I just equated that with my grandfather. He was the only other person I saw reading a Bible."
So David went to the college Bible study in hopes of finding more answers to his questions.
"I’ll never forget walking in the back and immediately just thinking, man these people are weird. They all had their hands up, and there was clapping going on. They seemed to be enjoying themselves, but I’d just never seen anything like this," he remembers.
"That night, I heard a message aboud Jesus Christ and the life, the abundant life He had for me to live. I left there, and I prayed right there in this garden to receive Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, and it’s really from that point forward that my life has just completely changed."
"I don’t know how many times I heard from different fraternity brothers that they wanted the old David back, and I don’t know how many times I had to tell them that the old David was not coming back, and this was the new me. And in fact, a few of them did end up accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior as well and experiencing having a new them also."
Since then, David has begun a new journey with his wife, Taryn.
"My wife and I have been praying for so long now really about starting a church in Washington DC. Our vision, our full vision is to build a God-first culture in the DC Metro area. God does have a plan for your life. He has a plan, and He has a great purpose for your life. I love how Ephesians 3:20 says that 'He can do immeasurabely more than all that you can ask or imagine.' I love it whenever people step into that, the purpose and calling that God has equipped and packaged just for them."
Can God change your life?God has made it possible for you to know Him and experience an amazing change in your own life. Discover how you can find peace with God.
A caring friend will be there to pray with you in your time of need.
