In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John‬ ‭1‬:‭1‬-‭5‬ ‭NIV

This is my firm foundation. The darkness has not and will not overcome the light.

While I am not usually a fan of statistics, I know this one holds to be true in my personal experience: after high school, the vast majority of young people leave the church.

This was a statistic I witnessed firsthand as a young person in university in the United States. It seemed that some of my most faithful Christian friends from high school were the very ones who stopped attending church during our first years at university. It was a crazy phenomenon. Even if I had wanted to stop attending church, my family would not have given me an option. I would have had to try hard to actually leave the church. You see, my parents were and are incredibly faithful members of my home church. My mother has been our children’s director at this church for over 20 years now. I attended the same church with the same pastor for my entire life. I loved church and my greatest friendships have come out of the church. I was a faithful teenager attending all of the church events that I could and serving where I was asked. I was by no means perfect, but I was trying to live my life for Jesus Christ.

I graduated high school and my first year at university was a new kind of culture shock. I was blown away by the sheer amount of alcohol, drugs, sexual encounters, and overall promiscuity that I saw among my peers. In high school, all of these things were present, but they were not on full display like they were at university. In every single university class, I encountered people who had different and seemingly opposite worldviews than me. This included peers and professors alike. My faith, my firm foundation, was under fire.

I think of the passage in the Bible where Joshua is speaking to the Israelites before they enter the Promised Land and he declares, “choose this day whom you will serve” (excerpt from Joshua 24:14-15). Have you already encountered situations where you have had to ask yourself this question? This very decision is the reality of choosing to be a Christian in the world that we live in. There will come a moment (truly, there will be more than one moment) in your walk with Christ where you have to decide if you will truly stand on your firm foundation. It will no longer be on the foundation that your family and church helped you build. It will have to be on the foundation of your personal relationship with Jesus Christ. My question to you is have you made your faith your own? Or is it still based on your family and church’s relationship with Jesus Christ?

Here is the reality: your foundation will not stand if you have not made your faith about your own personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

When I was 13 years old, I made my faith my own. I chose to follow Jesus. However, permit me to be candid with you, my faith truly became my own when I walked on the university campus in 2015. I quickly learned that my family and my church had given me a beautiful starting place in my relationship with God, but I could no longer be passive in how I walked out my relationship with Jesus Christ. It was in this season of my life where I chose who I would serve.

Before my years in university, I was like the foolish builders in the parable Jesus told in Matthew 7. All of my life, I heard good instruction and I knew the Word of God, but I was not putting them into practice. If I would have continued on that path of hearing the Word and not doing, when difficulties and trials came, my life that I had been building on this flimsy sand would have come crashing down. I thank God that He opened my eyes just in time. He saved me from continuing to build my life on a foundation that I thought was okay.

Today, I know that the firm foundation I have built my life on is the Word of God. I know that His Word is true. I know that the darkness of this world cannot and will not ever overcome the light of the world, who is Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my question to you: whose is the faith that you claim to have?