Share this story. 
|
Best of the Best
This year's 'Outstanding' student is headed to med school
By Elissa K. Harvill
| |
| |
|
Always among the brightest of students, Herzog (of Freeburg, Ill.) excelled at practically everything with no struggle, was a talented athlete, scored high on the ACT, and was accepted by every university to which he applied.
A "very driven kid," Herzog decided at the age of five that he was going to become a missionary doctor. He was taken with the idea when he heard a medical missionary speak at a church that he and his family were visiting while vacationing in Hawaii.
So when the time came to choose a college, Herzog applied only to prestigious ones with direct-admit to their medical schools. However, there was this lady at his church who was constantly urging him to consider ORU. To get her off his back, he agreed to visit the campus during College Weekend. He tried to not like ORU. He avoided participating in many of the activities...and then one evening, he wandered into a campus worship service.
"I was looking at a ton of kids lifting their hands in worship and praising God, and what came into my spirit was, 'I want you here so I can teach you the knowledge you'll need as a doctor, without all the garbage that will hold you back from being My servant.'"
Almost instantly, Herzog knew that he was supposed to attend ORU. He understood that God wanted to keep his heart supple without having to reshape it after years of schooling.
"It made sense to me that I would learn about biology and chemistry and physics and I would also learn about my creator," shared Herzog. "I have friends who went to other schools and they now have these crazy philosophies that I would have been ingrained with."
During his time at ORU, Herzog majored in biology as a fellow in the honors program. After losing his grandfather and some other family members to lung cancer, he decided he wanted to focus his senior project on the subject, but was turned down at all the prestigious labs to which he applied. Following a lead from another upperclassman in the honors program, he humbled himself and took a volunteer position at the Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences in Tulsa, which turned into a couple of summer internships, a full-time job, and most favorably, an "in" with the selection committees for the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center MD/Ph.D. program in Oklahoma City.
As a result of his divine connection, Herzog is receiving a full-tuition scholarship as well as a $20,000 stipend for every year he is in the program.
"As a 21-year-old, I was able to buy a house in Oklahoma City and to have about a half a million dollars in my lap, for free--this is the God we serve," he shared with awe. "He just wants you to be with Him. And He'll take care of all the stuff that you worry about that really isn't important. I was shocked by that. I always thought, well, I need to focus on grades and all this stuff, and slowly throughout my time at ORU, He's shown me that 'you don't need to worry about the grades, you put in your best effort, you worry about being close to Me, and I'll take care of the other stuff. I'll show you favor in places where you normally wouldn't get favor by just your good grades.' My MCAT score was not high enough to receive the MD/Ph.D. program. You needed a 30 and I had a 29, yet God was able to work and get it taken care of."
Though Herzog was raised by Christian parents, he realized at ORU that he had to grow up in God for himself, build character, and experience a change of heart.
"For the first two years, I struggled with [being at ORU]. I said this is just not me. I'm not an overtly spiritual person--yes, I love God, but I'm not big on the whole praying in tongues in public thing--that bothered me a lot. I really had to plug into God's Spirit and what He was saying to really even be able to accept that. And there were other things that bogged me down. I wanted to go home... I just didn't want to be here anymore, but the reason I stayed was because I knew that God had put me here, and I felt like I was supposed to start seeking out why He put me here. And as I did that, and as I started praying for things I didn't understand and for people I didn't think were necessarily doing things correctly, my heart started to change towards them and I started to see the good in these people and not their flaws. It changed my whole attitude towards the school, and from that point on, I really wanted to help and to really benefit the school as much as I could here, and then benefit the name of the school once I graduate. So my heart changed after sophomore year. I was a little chastised. If God slapped people around, He slapped me upside the head then."
If someone had told Herzog, the freshman, that he would be selected, his senior year, to receive the Outstanding Student award (from the ORU School of Arts and Sciences), he would have expected nothing less.
"I was so cocky when I came to ORU," he confessed. "I was horrible. It was pretty bad. But now I'm almost uncomfortable with people knowing that I'm the outstanding student and that's totally different from who I was when I first got here. And it's funny to look back and ask, 'How was I like that?'--and still saying I was like Christ? I was to the point of being mean with how cocky I was and how prideful...and it didn't help that when I came here, I wasn't on the soccer team, and then I just walked on thinking, 'I can do anything I want.' It was good for me to be on the soccer team. I had a lot of influence there that was good, but from a pride standpoint, God had to knock me down a few notches first."
Herzog spoke at the annual honors medallion ceremony, a prelude to Commencement, about his change of heart and view of God.
"I want to hear the voice of God," he said, "and the way you do that is you read His word and you talk to Him...I know when God speaks now, and that wasn't always the case. My first two years [at ORU] were a bumbling mess as far as that was concerned--was it God or something else? And slowly I began to hear His voice more clearly because I've been pouring myself into the Word as much as possible.
"Make God your number-one priority," he urged. "Make His goals your goals and His purpose your purpose. Spend as much time with Him as you can. And when you start doing that, the rest of the stuff--you know when it says 'all these things shall be added'--when you seek Him first, it really means 'all of these things.' All this stuff I would have never imagined coming my way, I'm now sitting with it in my lap."
As for Herzog's plans beyond medical school, he's staying open to God's direction.
"God is constantly changing the things that I have in my mind that are going my way. He always has a little more in mind."
Brett is a Class of 2006 graduate.
