Lee Strobel’s Crisis of Faith

Lee Strobel is a world-famous apologist who has presented arguments for the Christian faith in a variety of popular venues and has debated the sharpest secular minds. But what happened when he had his own personal crisis of faith, when a sudden illness brought him close to death? In a new and unusually personal book, Strobel talks about a fresh understanding of grace. I asked him about this in an interview for Leadership Journal:

Most of your books are a journalist’s search for the truth, but this one seems shaped more by your experience with a sudden and serious illness. How did this change the way you think about God?

My wife found me unconscious one evening. I woke in the emergency room, where the physician said, “You’re one step away from a coma; two steps away from dying.” An odd set of medical circumstances had caused my blood sodium level to plummet, leading to confusion, hallucinations, and threatening my life.

In the midst of that muddled mental state, I became convinced that everyone had abandoned me and that I had lost everything, including my reputation, my finances, and my house. Worse yet, I imagined God had walked away from me. It was my son, Kyle, a professor of theology, who walked me through an extraordinary prayer experience to reconnect me with Jesus. I came to realize that even if I did lose everything in this world, it was okay—because I would never lose Christ. I’m grateful God restored my health and that this condition will never recur, but I’m even more thankful for the lessons learned from being at the gate of death.

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