My Testimony: Snatched by Jesus and a Slow, Steady Blossoming

Introduction

I would like to start out by welcoming you to my new blog. For awhile now I have felt prompted and had a strong desire to share about my faith in Jesus, and I have had a desire to write about him and the Christian faith in general. I want this blog to be for everyone, but I especially want to invite those who don’t have a personal relationship with him to read. All I really ask is that you read with an open mind. He’s done an amazing work in my life, the life of a sinner, by redeeming me through his death and resurrection so many years ago. I really can’t help but tell you about my Lord and following him.

Early Years

Some people have a dramatic story to tell in their testimony of how they came to know Jesus. I have heard multiple stories of those that were on the brink of suicide or even attempted suicide that came to know the light of Jesus even in the midst of those dark and low moments. I have heard many stories of Muslims coming to faith in Jesus through dreams or visions. I praise the Lord for these and so many other amazing testimonies. My story is not so dramatic. I simply turned to the Lord as a child and asked him to be my Savior. That’s what I love about Jesus though, he loves everyone and wants a relationship with them and children are certainly amongst those with which he wants a relationship. He made this clear in Matthew 19:14 when “Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.’” What I love equally as much is that it was Jesus that snatched me. I can take no credit. This becomes even more evident when I take a step back. 

My mom had difficulty becoming pregnant. Just the fact that I am here is a miracle. And yet, I know with confidence that the Lord knew what he was doing and created me exactly how he wanted as Psalm 139:13 says, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.” Not only did he snatch me, he is the one that created me with care from the beginning. Also important is the fact that my mom felt compelled to introduce me to this great God. How my relationship with the Lord began is simple, yet amazing. What I am just as excited to tell you about though is the richness of my journey with him. It all started as a child, but in the years since there has been a blossoming. In the process I have sinned, been challenged, faced difficulties, but even more so, I have seen Jesus do an amazing work in me. I have certainly grown in my relationship with him over the years and look forward to continuing to do so.

From Childhood to High School Graduation

The Christian writer, speaker, and evangelist Ravi Zacharias, who himself came to Jesus after an attempted suicide as a teen, says of Jesus, “He doesn’t just change what you do. He changes what you want to do.” I find this to be such an apt way to describe what the Lord does in a person’s life; it certainly describes well what has happened in my life. As is presumably the case with many children, I wasn’t always excited to go to church or Sunday school or to read my Bible. As I moved into my teens though, this started to change. Not only was worshiping the Lord in church and learning about him through church, Sunday school, and the Bible something I did, I truly wanted to do it. There was a shift; the Lord changed what I wanted to do. There was also a slow, steady change in frequency. That is, prayer and Bible study were important to me, but slowly over time, I reached the point where I wanted to pray and read daily and did so. As I started to read the Bible and pray more and more, I found that it not only gave me a stronger knowledge of the Lord, it also gave me comfort. 

                I have always struggled with worry and at times anxiety in my life, and so, the comfort provided to me by the Lord through his word has been essential to my life. One night stands out in my mind. I was in high school and felt rather anxious as I sat in bed in the evening. I opened my Bible, which had been given as a gift to me by my mom. In the back of this Bible she as well as my dad and grandparents on my mom’s side had all written something. I turned there. My grandma had listed out multiple verses. One of them was Philippians 4:8. I turned my Bible to that verse and read it, which certainly is a great verse, but what really caught my eye and gave me peace were the verses that immediately precede. In those verses, the apostle Paul writes, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:4-7). These verses are amazing! We can rejoice in the Lord always! He is near! We don’t have to be anxious about anything because we can bring anything to him in prayer, and we have this promise of his peace. It’s a peace that is true and transcends because it’s not a peace dependent on anything earthly but a peace that comes from a God that knows what it’s like to be human, loves us deeply, and demonstrated this through dying on the cross that we might live with him eternally. So, even if the worst in life happens – death, we can rejoice and have peace because we know that our eternal home is secure if we are in relationship with him.

                Even though a blossoming started during these years as I drew closer to the Lord through worshipping in church with fellow believers, reading the Bible, and praying, there was (and really there always will be) so much of the journey in front of me. I was still very much focused on myself. Success was very important to me. Serving others and being generous with my time and money were nowhere to be found. My heart was prideful. Even more unfortunate, I wasn’t listening to Jesus’ Great Commission to tell people about him and doing it wasn’t even on my radar.

College Years

                When I went to college, I made the bad assumption that life would get easier. In high school, I wasn’t particularly involved with extracurricular activities, but I did play on the basketball and golf teams and that took up quite a bit of time. I had always been a good student and figured that, in college, school would be my only focus and that life would be much simpler and easier that way. This was very much a thought in error though.

                Two and a half months into college a friend of mine died unexpectedly. I had been with him just hours before. He was a senior in high school at the time and mentioned that he was thinking of coming to the college I was attending. Initially, I was in shock. I didn’t cry. I didn’t feel much emotion really. I went to the funeral just fine. A few days later I finally did break down and cry. What happened next caught me off guard. The next Monday during an Intro to Programming exam, I started to feel panicked, like I needed to leave the room immediately. It was a completely foreign feeling to me. In the moment, I realized that I must be having a panic attack. The Lord carried me through though and I finished the exam. For those that have never had a panic attack, it is not like worry at all. It is scary. Like things are spinning out of control and there is no way for you to get them back in control. Throughout my life I had had tendencies towards worry and anxiety, but this was very new, and presumably spurred by the death of my friend. 

                It would have been fine if this panic attack was an isolated incident. Unfortunately, it was not. Over the course of the next few years life became difficult. It wasn’t as if I was always having panic attacks, although they would come sometimes. It was more just anxiety in general and the fear that a panic attack could come at any moment. Just sitting through classes in college became challenging as a result and taking exams and giving presentations in classes were not activities that I looked forward to. I resolved to not let this difficulty control my life though and decided early to continue living life as I had without anxiety and panic attacks. More importantly, I drew closer to God during this time. Reading his word and praying sustained me. I also gained more insight and wisdom. I started to realize that earthly success isn’t what we are called to by any means and that God’s comfort isn’t a comfort that comes from removing suffering in life but a comfort that comes through the Lord giving us the strength to endure suffering. It is a comfort that comes in the midst of suffering. My trust in the Lord grew over this time as I needed to lean on him each day to make it through. I had to step out in faith and trust that he would be there, and when I did, he always was. I truly do have to give all the glory to him for carrying me through college. What was awesome too is that, slowly, over time, the Lord relieved my panic attacks and anxiety a lot. They are still present once in awhile in my life now, but nowhere close to the extent to which they intervened in my life in my first couple years of college.

                I had come into college with the idea that life would get easier. As you now know, quite the opposite happened. Did I want to face difficulty in the way I did? No. At the same time though, would I want to go back and change that part of my life? Definitely no! I have found in life that there is so much to be learned in suffering; so much wisdom to be gleaned. It also equips us for giving comfort to others that suffer. Also, for someone that turns to the Lord in those times, there is tremendous growth in the relationship that matters most in life – the one with the God that created us. What’s great about the Christian faith, which I find to be unique, is that we follow a God that knows suffering intimately. He knows what it is like to be human. He came to the earth as Jesus, was tempted as we are, yet was without sin, and suffered more than we can imagine by dying on the cross for our sins. He didn’t stay far away. He is a God that comes near that we can have a relationship with, and in those times of suffering, we can have peace because we know that he understands and has felt what we are going through. Even more awesome, is that he promises eternal life with him. Of this eternal life, it is said, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

Graduate School

After graduating from college, I pursued a master’s degree. During this time, the quote by Ravi Zacharias, “He doesn’t just change what you do. He changes what you want to do”, rang truer than ever. It came in small ways. One was being more generous, because really, we are just stewards of the resources that God gives us, and it helps to kill the greed that is so natural in all of our hearts. At this point in my life, it would have been easy to justify not giving as I didn’t have much. It would have been easy to wait until I had my master’s degree and a good paying job. But I am a firm believer that, if we are going to be faithful with a lot, we first need to be faithful with a little. These aren’t my words either, they come straight from Jesus, “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?” (Luke 16:10-12). 

This desire to change what I did and wanted to do came in much more profound ways too. I didn’t know it at the time, but the seeds of this change actually started in college. That is one thing that is great about the Lord. He works in ways that we can tell he is working when we are in the moment, but sometimes we don’t detect what he is doing or starting in the moment. This was the case when I was invited during the summer after my first year in college to attend a study of the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan. In this book, Francis wrote of a Christianity that involved giving, and living, and loving sacrificially. It involved following Jesus at all costs and telling others about him. Not only that, he taught that this is really how God wants all Christians to live. In the moment, it felt somewhat foreign, and so, I didn’t do much with it. 

Moving forward to the summer after my first year in grad school, I had a lot of time on my hands as I was living in an apartment by myself and hadn’t really made friends where I was. One day it dawned on me that I should take advantage of this time. What came to my mind was the idea that I should start watching sermons on YouTube. As for who to listen to, the name that came to my mind was Francis Chan. This might seem strange since I hadn’t really done much with what he taught in his book Crazy Love, but I knew that he was a nationally known pastor that surely had videos on YouTube. 

As I listened, I encountered exactly what I had heard four years earlier but now it was resonating with me; it was convicting me. I listened to multiple sermons by Francis Chan. I started to listen to others too. David Platt was one in particular that stood out. David’s words were challenging too, but they matched up with what the Bible says. That’s one thing I loved about their preaching. They point people to the Bible and Jesus. Not to their own words. Ultimately, it was Jesus that was convicting me with challenging statements. In Matthew 10:38, 39, Jesus says that “anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” These are very difficult statements indeed. Basically, what he is saying is that we need to give our lives to him. He wants everything. Not just our Sunday mornings. These statements might seem too demanding. One must remember though who Jesus is. He is God. He created us. Not only that, he loves us deeply and died on the cross for us. I think it bears remembering just how short our lives here are and that he promises eternal life with him. 

There’s another thing that Jesus says that is challenging for me too. He tells us to tell people about him – everywhere. “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:19, 20). Being someone that hadn’t really shared his faith, and generally not liking the potential for challenging conversations with people (not that a conversation about Jesus has to be, but it can be), this was difficult. I knew though that I needed to and wanted to follow this Great Commission by Jesus to tell everyone about him. In the years since this conviction I have shared my faith some, but not as much as I would have liked to. I trust though that the Lord will give me the courage, strength, and opportunity to share about him in the coming years. I am excited to share about him.

Finally, the Lord brought about a desire in my heart that just years before would have sounded not like me at all, but it tied in closely with the Lord’s desire for his followers to tell others about him. That is, the desire to go on a foreign mission trip. This desire grew in my heart and I knew that I needed to go. I knew that the Lord wanted me to go. When and where I was not sure, but I knew that the Lord would fill in those details. Once again, the Lord had changed what I wanted to do, and to be frank, in a rather dramatic way. When I left grad school, I had earned a master’s degree, but even more than that, the Lord had molded me more into who he wanted me to be.

Recent Years

In recent years, the molding of my grad school years has been transferred into more action. Most notably, in February of 2016 I reached out to a group that goes on mission trips that I had become aware of, and in November of 2016, I found myself on a mission trip in Kenya. There is so much that I could say about my time there. It was an awesome and very freeing time. The Lord worked in many ways. Many of which I probably won’t know on this side of eternity. One of personal significance is how he worked through me. 

While there, one of our duties was to teach the youth. I have never been particularly fond of public speaking, but through college and getting to teach math during grad school and the year after graduating, I had gotten plenty of experience with public speaking. However, when giving presentations in college or teaching, I always had everything planned out and practiced meticulously multiple times. Now in Kenya with this task of teaching a room packed with up to 60 youth, I had little time to practice. The night before our first official teaching day I was quite nervous, but I knew that the Lord had brought me there for a reason and that I needed to step out in faith in him. Multiple times throughout the trip I found myself in front of many youth with my Bible. I would open to the passage that I felt the Lord wanted me to teach on and I would read and teach. What is amazing is how the Lord just spoke through me and especially through his word. I can take no credit, it was him at work. It really was awesome to be doing something like speaking publicly, which is outside my comfort zone, and to do it with ease. The words were always there. When it’s the Lord’s words that you are speaking it is easy though. I stepped out in faith and he was there, just like he always has been. 

As I move towards concluding, I would like to address a couple more ways in which the Lord has been working in my life recently. One is a huge answered prayer: my wife. I don’t think there is anything for my own life that I have prayed for more or dreamed of more than getting married to the right woman. This year that prayer came true as I got to marry my best friend who is a woman that is forgiving, kind, compassionate, beautiful, loves me, and most importantly, loves Jesus. While it’s easy to focus on this ultimate answer of “Yes”, it’s equally important to remember the “No” answers along the way. Multiple times I prayed that I would be able to marry or a least date a young lady and the answer would come back “No”. I am so grateful for those answers. Not that there was anything wrong with those young ladies, but because the Lord knew that a relationship with them wouldn’t be right for me or them. I firmly believe that the Lord always answers prayer, it’s just not always the answer we want in the moment. I’m glad that the Lord doesn’t always just give us what we want though. He loves us and knows what’s best for us, and he sees from an eternal perspective. Not the temporal perspective from which we operate. To draw an analogy that I have heard multiple times before, it’s like a child going to the doctor. In the moment, the child may think that a parent is mean for bringing them to the doctor. However, the parent knows that it will be for the child’s overall good. In life, we are the children and God is the parent that knows best.

I have also enjoyed coming to see more and more of the evidence for Jesus and God in general in recent years. The evidence comes in many forms. From Muslims coming to faith in Jesus through him coming to them in dreams and visions as I mentioned earlier. Some of whom have paid with their lives for doing so. To the scientific finding that the universe had a beginning, which begs the question: how can something come from nothing? As a Christian, I believe that a God outside of space and time is the most plausible answer. To the fact that, without a God, life is meaningless. That is, if life ends in the grave for everyone, does anything accomplished on earth really matter? By no means is this an exhaustive list, but just a few examples.

Conclusion

To conclude, I would first like to briefly state what I believe. We are all sinners in need of a savior. I am certainly included. The God that created us and loves us came to earth as Jesus, lived a perfect life, died on the cross for our sins, rose again, ascended to heaven, and desires to have us turn to him in relationship. In Christianity, it’s not religion, it’s relationship, and it’s not just belief, it’s identity. As a Christian, my identity is in Christ Jesus and everything in my life flows from that. 

With that being said, the journey to this point has been a blossoming. By no means am I a flower in full bloom though. I believe that won’t come until I am with Jesus. I am excited though to see how the Lord continues to work in my life. Even now there are so many ways he is at work. From helping me to lay down my life for him, my wife, and others to better trusting his will to pursuing sharing him more with others (hence this blog). The journey with Jesus truly does have an amazing richness to it as he makes us more and more like him and draws us into a closer relationship with him. 

Thank you so much for reading this. By no means does this recount my entire journey to this point with Jesus, but it is a sampling of the route I have taken. In future posts, I aim to share more about Jesus and the Christian faith. If you don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus or if you do, I invite you to continue reading in the future. I have a desire to share about him that I cannot contain. It brings much joy. As life is busy, I can’t promise to write often, but as the Lord leads and opportunity presents, I hope to write.