A Change of Direction

Was there more to life than rock and roll? This young band member's search led to a wonderful answer.

By: David Andersen

Although God was not an important part of my life while I was growing up, He still found me. When I was a child, my grandmother took me to Sunday school. Then, at thirteen years of age, I told my mother that I no longer wanted to go. I thought that I was too old for that. I had a different desire in my heart—I wanted to be a rock-and-roll star. I had seen the Beatles playing on the Ed Sullivan show on television, and I wanted to be just like they were. I got a guitar and, over the years, taught myself how to play. By the time I was in high school, I was playing in a band.

After finishing high school, I went to a community college for a year, but I was a horrible student. All I wanted to do was play my guitar, so I never studied. The result was a 1.67 grade point average. My parents were so disgusted with my lack of effort that they pulled the school funding from me. That was okay with me because then I could concentrate full time on playing rock and roll.

The first couple of years I played with the band, I thought it was great. We traveled around the Northwest having a blast playing at clubs and colleges. We played music and partied all night, and I thought life could not be better for me. However, I started to recognize that I was not in control anymore. It seemed I had to keep going further in order to remain satisfied with life: a bigger stage, more equipment, and more power. From the time I got up in the morning until the time I went to bed at night, I did drugs. We called it partying, but in fact, I was trapped in sin and could not stop myself.

Then our drummer's father passed away, and those of us in the band began to discuss whether or not there was life after death. I said, “No, it's all over when you die; you are done.” I told people that I was an atheist and didn't believe in an eternity.

A vacuum cleaner salesman came to our house one day, and eventually, he moved in with us for a time. He was practicing an eastern religion, and around the table at night, usually after we had taken drugs, we started discussing whether or not God was real. I kept attesting, “There is no God.”

One night, after playing at a dance, we took some drugs, and then, as we drove home, we talked among ourselves about whether or not there was a God. In my heart, I started to question: God, I need to know. Are You really there? Do You really exist? In an instant of time, God revealed to me that He does exist. It was such an amazing thing that I immediately sobered up. I went into our house where a wild party was raging and excitedly announced to everyone, “God is real! God is real! God is good, and He is alive!” The people partying could not believe I was saying this, and they were so afraid that they all ran out of the house.

That should have turned me to Jesus Christ right then, but somehow I still could not believe that Jesus was who I was looking for. In my mind, Jesus was for Sunday school children. I was older and thought that God had to be more sophisticated than that, so I began reading about Hinduism and other eastern religions. They told me how to live a decent life, but I did not have the willpower to live it. I could not stop myself from doing drugs and the things that were associated with the rock-and-roll lifestyle.

Then one day, after I had read several books on eastern religions, I picked up a book that I had moved with me from house to house—the Bible that my grandmother had given me. I did not know there was an Old and a New Testament, so I just started reading at the beginning. By the time I read my way through to the New Testament and began to read about Jesus, God had started talking to my heart. As I read that Jesus died on the Cross to save us from sin, I could relate. I certainly was a sinner! God began speaking to my soul in a big way and also to the keyboard player in our band. He and I would go back and forth about whether Jesus or the Hindu religion was right. We prayed and asked God to show us, and the hand holding the Bible went up. We took that as a sign from God.

One night, after we took some drugs, the keyboard player was in his room meditating, and I was doing the same in my room. What I did not know was that he was thinking about killing himself. He was so confused and tired of our lifestyle that he thought he would just end it all. Right at that instant, a scene played through his mind that had happened seven years earlier in Spokane, Washington. He had been walking down a street where a man was handing out religious tracts, and my buddy had crossed to the other side to get away. The man had seen him and yelled across the street, “Just remember, Jesus saves!” When he recalled that incident, my friend got on his knees and said, “Jesus, if You are real, save me.” Jesus saved him at that moment! He walked down the hallway to my bedroom and said, “Dave, Jesus is the way! Jesus is the One we've been looking for.” That night, it clicked that Jesus is the most important part of the Bible. My friend prayed with me, and I was saved also.

The next morning, I got up just as I always did and sat down at the kitchen table. The drugs were passed around as usual, but when they came to me, I did not take any. I wondered what was wrong with me because I had always wanted the drugs before. God was showing me that He had something different and that there was more to life than rock and roll. All of the sins dropped off my life—the swearing, the cheating, the lying, the drugs, the wrong things that I was doing that I could never control. God changed my behavior immediately, and I didn't want that life anymore.

Some time after that, we were driving back to our band house and took a series of wrong turns in an unfamiliar neighborhood. We drove by a church that had a big sign on the outside of it, which read, “Jesus the Light of the World.” My buddy said, “Anybody who has a sign that big has to have something.” So the next Sunday, we took our girlfriends to that church. We had long hair and wore clothes that went with our lifestyle, but no one at the church acted put off by our appearance. There, we heard a sermon that witnessed to our hearts. I understood what had happened to me that night when I prayed—God had forgiven my sins. He had saved me.

In the days and weeks following, God taught us how to follow Him. He helped me to make restitutions. Once, when I had run into a parked car, I had put my car in reverse and taken off, but after I was saved, I went back to that home. The man was working in his garden, and I asked, “Did you ever have a yellow Volvo?” He said that he had. “And did someone run into it and wreck it?” He answered, “Yes.” I confessed that I was the one who did it. He asked me into his house, and I had the opportunity to tell him how I had been saved, and I made it right with him about the car.

Soon after I started attending church, I asked a minister if it was okay for Christians to play rock and roll. He said, “You just keep praying and ask God what you should do with your life. God will be faithful to show you.” And God did. One night as we were playing in a club, God made it clear that I should not be playing rock and roll, so during our break, I told my band mates that I had to quit the band.

Playing music had been how I made a living. Now I was without a job, and had no talents other than playing music. Yet, God was faithful and led me back into college. My first year, I was afraid that I would not be able to make the necessary grades since I had done so poorly before. I did not think I was smart enough to go to school, but God helped me. I ended with a 3.99 grade point average my first year. A year later, I married my girlfriend, who had also been saved, and we moved to Corvallis, Oregon, for the rest of my college years. I ended up graduating with high honors—not because of what I did, but because God was blessing me.

He continues to bless me. One Sunday in 1979, I went to a church service at the Oregon State Correctional Institute, and an inmate recognized me. He used to hang out with the band every once in a while. He looked at me and saw that I had changed. He said, “You are a Christian? I thought you would be playing in a rock-and-roll band. You really flipped around, didn't you?” It made me so thankful that God looked for me and truly saw my heart.

God has blessed my wife and me with three beautiful children, two of whom are now married to Christian spouses, and all of them are in the Gospel. Life is so different with God in control. We trust Him for everything. I know that I cannot do things on my own—I spent years trying, but I always messed up. I would not want to live my life without God. I am so thankful that He came into my heart and soul.