There I stood, atop a breathtaking snow-covered mountain peak. The world below me glistened in the sunlight of a perfect day. A breeze swept across my face and sent a stream of energy through every fiber of my being. I mentally charted the route of my descent, positioned my goggles over my eyes, dug my ski poles into the snow, and flew forward. Could life get any better than this? The American dream was achievable! There I was, a self-made millionaire, able to do anything, travel anywhere, be anything...

Beep! Beep! Beep! My alarm clock. Reality set in.

By day I was an exhausted, overworked 18-year-old taking six courses in college and working 45 hours a week as a sauce-and-fry cook in the local Mexican restaurant. By night I relived in nightmares my daytime life. Dreams of ski adventures were rare.

One day in the university library someone handed me a fluorescent orange business card that read: "I am looking for people who want to escape the rat race forever." I stared at the words "rat race." Deeply in debt with tuition, monthly car payments, insurance payments, rent, and other bills, I had no trouble picturing myself with fur and a tail, working frantically but getting nowhere for the rest of my life.

I contacted the man who had given me the card, and at our first meeting Jeremy laid out a multilevel marketing scheme for a telecommunications company. "Do anything. Go anywhere. Have anything your heart desires. This plan can make that dream a reality!" It sounded too good to be true, but I was tired of being me--tired of seeing the same failure stare back at me whenever I looked in a mirror--so I bought into it.

I was attending a seminar given by the company's millionaire director when he picked me out of a crowd of 200 and asked, "What kind of car do you want, son?"

"A Toyota," I answered. The crowd moaned in disappointment at my inexpensive choice, but erupted in a cheer when I added, "Supra--a fully loaded Toyota Supra!"

"Then go down to the Toyota dealership and tell them you want to test drive that car. You need to feel your dream!"

Immediately after the seminar, I did. That day greed started to poison my soul.

Over the next couple of months I became increasingly pushy and arrogant. I went to malls, passed out my business card, and got the telephone number of anyone I could. I even pressured my family to buy in to my scheme. Quotes like "If you want it, get it" inspired me to chase that dollar bill a little harder each day, but the harder I tried the more elusive it proved to be. Discouragement gave way to disillusionment.

My lack of success prompted an early morning call from my mentor, whose income depended in part on my own. "Why aren't you out making money?" Jeremy wanted to know. "You can't stop until you get enough money to have whatever you want. You need to constantly think and live and breathe your dream!"

When I look back on my life before I found Jesus, it all seems so empty, so two dimensional. My two lives happened on the same planet, but that's about all they have in common.

"Yeah, whatever!" I said as I hung up.

I spent the next few days wondering if I really wanted to keep going down this road. Would riches really bring me happiness? For the first time in a long time I cried out to God and asked Him to show me the way.

A few days later I spotted a young man in his early 20s pushing his broken-down motorbike along the side of the road. Thinking I might be able to recruit him into my business, I pulled over and offered him a ride. Grateful, he put his motorbike in the back of my pickup truck and jumped in. When we arrived at his house, I gave Peter a sales pitch on the company I worked for. He was polite but not interested.

Once that was out of the way, he showed me pictures of his work with a Christian volunteer group called The Family, and asked me if I wanted to go for a cup of coffee later that evening. I wasn't any more interested in religion or missionary work than he was in multilevel moneymaking schemes, but for some reason I said yes.

That evening I told him all about my troubles with my family, my work, and school.

"Do you want to go to Heaven?" Peter asked. It wasn't a question I heard every day, but somehow it didn't seem out of place.

"Yes!" I quickly replied.

"Do you know if you're going there?"

"I don't think so," I answered.

"Well, you can know for sure that you are," Peter said matter-of-factly. "Just ask Jesus into your heart."

I gave him a look of disbelief.

"It's not some dead religion," he said, "and it's not some Utopian pipe dream either. It's just Jesus!"

"Just Jesus?--Okay."

When I look back on my life before I found Jesus, it all seems so empty, so two dimensional. My two lives happened on the same planet, but that's about all they have in common.

Since I joined The Family as a full-time missionary five years ago, I have traveled from West to East (the U.S. to Vietnam) and South to North (South Africa to the Middle East). The Lord has never failed to supply all my needs or give me joy and fulfillment in whatever corner of the world I found myself.

Along the way I also learned that while most roads lead to the same destination--momentary happiness through self-gratification--it's a long, lonesome, miserable journey and few, if any, of the folks who actually make it there are truly happy. The second destination is much easier to arrive at and vastly more satisfying: simple truths, eternal values, and genuine accomplishment through Jesus! It's not some dead religion or Utopian pipe dream, either. It's just Jesus!

Joe Nicholson is a full-time volunteer with The Family in the Middle East.