Finding peace in Christ
By Patti Smith | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Luke DeVries walked through the wilderness after turning his back on everything good in his life.
“I had the best family, the best examples,” he said. “But I didn’t care. I was throwing it away.”
His parents, Brad and Jennifer DeVries, felt their son slipping through their hands.
They did not know who he was becoming, who his friends were or where he was most of the time when he was away from home and not at school or
work.
They butted heads at every turn, and angry outbursts from both sides filled their once-peaceful home.
“If you went left, he wanted to turn right,” Brad said. “It was an issue of his heart and good old-fashioned rebellion.”
At age 16, Luke remembers going through the motions. He went to church with his family, but his heart was hard. His life was changing, and he didn’t
look to God to help him through it. In part, he faced discouragement over having to quit the football team because a spinal condition made it dangerous
for him to play.
He used drugs and ran around with a mischievous crowd.
“I didn’t walk by faith,” Luke said. “I didn’t have faith.”
The summer after his junior year in high school was a turning point for Luke.
“I told my dad I couldn’t keep doing what I was doing,” he said. “I wanted to go somewhere where there were no distractions.”
Not being able to help his son left Brad, the head and spiritual leader of his household and an elder in the church, feeling frustrated and helpless.
“This is the one area where I was really broken. I felt at some level like a failure,” he said. “I desperately wanted to be successful in helping my son be a
godly man, and that wasn’t happening.”
Luke and his parents considered Narrow Gate, an intensive Christian discipleship experience for young men ages 18 to 25, as an option.
The wilderness life discovery experience helps participants find the answer to two of life’s most difficult questions: “Who am I?” and “Why am I here?”
Luke, his twin sister, Lizzie, and Brad made the drive to Narrow Gate, which is located in Williamsport, Tenn.
Brad said that the moment he stepped out of the car, he felt the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Luke remembers experiencing an overwhelming peace.
“God put Narrow Gate in Luke’s path. If he had gone to any high school his senior year, it would have been one pothole after another,” Brad said. “Narrow
Gate was exactly what God had in mind. God changed his heart through some other godly, imperfect men who shared what Luke was finally ready to
hear.”
Luke entered the program in January 2010. Just as the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the desert after His baptism, the program sent Luke and some other
young men into the wilderness for their own experience in the cold mountains of Tennessee. With a tent, a Bible and some food, Luke spent 35 days
learning to be content with the basics of life.
He engaged in Bible study and let his heart explore for the first time who God is, how to live in a personal relationship with Him and how to know that the
Bible is His authoritative Word.
He decided that he wanted to give God a chance after figuratively seeing people "raised from the dead, who had done a lot worse things than I had
done."
"If that can happen for them, what can the Lord do for me?” Luke wondered.
The next several months were spent in group study, outdoor adventures, working around Narrow Gate and learning to transition back into the world as he
prepared to graduate.
During his time at Narrow Gate, Luke became a follower of Christ and his life was transformed.
Now, more than a year later, Luke’s goal is to serve the Lord daily.
When Luke left the program, he felt called to move to Scottsboro, Ala., where his uncle, Greg DeVries, is pastor of The Rock Family Worship Center. Greg
runs an internship program for students who believe God is calling them into a preaching ministry.
Luke spent the latter part of 2010 and the first half of 2011 studying under his uncle’s direction and traveling around North America sharing the Gospel.
While he is home this summer, Luke is working as a lifeguard and groundskeeper at Country Lake Christian Retreat in Underwood, Ind.
He will head back to Alabama this fall for another nine-month internship in his uncle’s ministry, and he will study and seek what God has next for his life.
“Our son had made a profession of faith, but there was not a lot of evidence that he was following Jesus Christ,” Brad said. “All the way from January
2010 to today, the Lucas that we know is madly in love with Jesus Christ and longs to do nothing more than to serve Him.”
Luke went to Narrow Gate confused, doubting and rebellious, but he now wears a ring with a cross engraved to remind him of his covenant with Christ.
Jesus is not only his Savior, but his Lord.
“The Lord is not dead. He is not in a distant, far off land,” Luke said. “It’s such an awesome thing to see His work in the land of the living. This past
year-and-a-half has been the most crazy, unexpected, adventurous time in my life. This is everything that I want to do, and that only continues to
increase.”