Something Greater is Here

What does a man do when he arrives at a place in his career where he is doing what he always wanted to do, only to find that he really wanted something more? In his mid-thirties Kenneth Howell was teaching in a Protestant seminary after nine years of Presbyterian ministry. After receiving the highest degree possible in his field, he was exactly where he wanted to be. The future looked very bright. But two nagging questions wouldn't let him alone. Is what he believes really true? Does he really understand what it means to be a Christian? And the second: is this all there is to being a Christian? Could there be a deeper spirituality out there that he had not yet encountered?Those questions kept Kenneth Howell up at night. He tried to avoid, ignore, and suppress them, but they wouldn't go away. He was faced with a tough choice. Either pursue the truth and the God of all truth with integrity and zeal, or sit back into a comfortable life of familiar places and familiar faces. He decided that he really had no choice. It was all or nothing. As he tried to answer these questions, Kenneth Howell began to find life more difficult, not easier. His pursuit of truth, goodness, and love gradually led him into a world he had only vaguely glimpsed from afar. It was a world filled with things he had always longed for. It was the fullness of truth.

What does a man do when he arrives at a place in his career where he is doing what he always wanted to do, only to find that he really wanted something more? In his mid-thirties Kenneth Howell was teaching in a Protestant seminary after nine years of Presbyterian ministry. After receiving the highest degree possible in his field, he was exactly where he wanted to be. The future looked very bright. But two nagging questions wouldn't let him alone. Is what he believes really true? Does he really understand what it means to be a Christian? And the second: is this all there is to being a Christian? Could there be a deeper spirituality out there that he had not yet encountered?Those questions kept Kenneth Howell up at night. He tried to avoid, ignore, and suppress them, but they wouldn't go away. He was faced with a tough choice. Either pursue the truth and the God of all truth with integrity and zeal, or sit back into a comfortable life of familiar places and familiar faces. He decided that he really had no choice. It was all or nothing. As he tried to answer these questions, Kenneth Howell began to find life more difficult, not easier. His pursuit of truth, goodness, and love gradually led him into a world he had only vaguely glimpsed from afar. It was a world filled with things he had always longed for. It was the fullness of truth.