Summary of My Childhood
I grew up in a Christian household having parents who loved the Lord and shared Him with my brother and I all of the time. We were no strangers to church early on and home Bible study in my teen years. During my childhood, we had seen our fair share of tough times and my parents always turned to prayer. My childhood was great overall and being brought up with knowledge of Jesus made it natural to just adopt my parent’s faith as I entered into my teen and young adult life. As far as I was concerned I was a Christian, because that’s what I was raised to be.
The Lust of the World
I always considered myself a Christian, I believed God existed and that Jesus really lived. I would pray at times, especially when things where tough. Honestly, who doesn’t pray when life becomes overwhelming? I submit to you that even the most staunch atheist has prayed to the God they’ve denied when the unthinkable happens in their life. But for me, I now know that I was not exhibiting any fruit of salvation. I was lost in sin and self-deception. I had developed what would go on to become a 23-year addiction to pornography.
The years I had abused my brain with pornography rewired how I thought of women. They became objects to me, fantasies and conquests. I’m not proud of this dark time and I’m not excited to share it but it’s important to know where I was at. I thought of myself as a good person, lawful and kind; in my mind I was being a Christian because I didn’t do all the bad things others did, so I thought. I excused my sin and never even gave a critical thought about what I was doing, I loved every moment of it. It didn’t matter to me that I was a slave to pornography, lusting after other women as a married man, abusing alcohol on a regular basis and so many other things. My sins were so bad, that I was not even afraid to expose and encourage my friends and family members with those things.
When Life Hit Hard
I hit a time in my early 30’s where loved ones were dying and I almost lost my dad to an untimely death. My job had become an obsession, not the kind where I worked myself to death, but the kind where my mind was so obsessed with it, I had placed my worth and identity in it and it became a hindrance to my ability to enjoy anything in life. It’s something that I come by naturally, having Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I’d worry about everything, stupid things, small things, and the big things that I should’ve had some concern over, would wreck my mental state completely. I would often get extremely drunk, especially at parties and holiday events with family, friends and coworkers. I wanted to escape the struggles in my life and the alcohol would let me do that for a moment. Sometimes I would pray, when the numbing from alcohol and porn were not enough. Jesus was my last resort at that time and to me He was someone I could call on in my times of need, but lock away when things felt great.
It was in March 2018 that the rough time I was having at work boiled over. I experienced a level of burnout like I never had before, there was so much friction between me and the leadership on my team. It came to the point where I was suddenly given the option to leave or accept a different position outside the team I was on. I was shaken, never had I been so close to being let go or laid off prior in my career. Since I began working at age 17, I had never been without a job up to that point.
I decided to accept the new position, which was fully remote, as a majority of my co-workers were in Europe and Israel. In the subsequent months I was absolutely broken, fearful of what the next day would hold, lost in depression and anxiety. The thing I had placed so much of my identity and self-worth in was taken from me in an instant. Sill, I worked hard in a new position that was yet to be fully defined, for a business segment that was struggling to make money and hunting for its stride. The uncertainty of each day took its toll on me, chipping away at an already fragile heart and mind. I think it was this, combined with the previous few years of losing loved ones, pets and near losses, which God used to finally bring me to Him.
When Jesus Found Me
During that summer I started getting into conspiracy theories online and things of that nature. I was searching for truth, answers and hope — I was so confused. Nothing around me seemed solid to stand on, everything was so shaky, I had no solid foundation in my life. It was then I picked up my Bible for the first time in over a decade, I began reading and listening to it non-stop, for hours each day, as I worked and in my free time. What I had come to realize was that I was not a Christian. I had made up a “Jesus" in my own mind who approved of my addictions and all my sinful obsessions, who was like a genie I could call on. The words of Scripture I read revealed to me who Jesus really is and who I really am, a sinner. I was a deceived and condemned person who was cruising right along on the road to Hell, zipping along at 100 MPH, lost in my sinful pleasures. I was a slave to my addiction and a hypocrite in my judgment of others, never once looking at my own sin.
That August of 2018 the real Jesus had made Himself known to me, He had taken hold of my heart and I finally placed my full trust in Him. I had found the Truth I was so desperately seeking. I felt a love so intense and it just gripped onto my heart like nothing ever has. I saw that even though I’m not perfect, Jesus still loves me and died for me. In Jesus I found the hope that was missing in my spirit and I had finally found that true saving faith, which I had previously assumed I had for 37 years, but realized I hadn’t. Prior, I had simply adopted my parent’s faith and never even knew anything about what I believed.
My Life Forever Changed
Since accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior, my life has new meaning, the void has been filled, I have a purpose and a hope each day. There is this undying joy in my inner being that I can’t explain, but I know for a fact that I never had it before. The Lord has broken my alcohol abuse and my addiction to pornography. Though I’m not perfect, and have struggled at times, how I live my life is a vast improvement over what it once was. My wife has witnessed her husband go from an addicted, broken and angry man, who would yell and lose his temper at the smallest things, to a man who has greater self-control, is calm and slow to anger. My life has been truly made new, just as the Bible says it would be.
I’ve dealt with some tough times since coming to Jesus, I was even laid off from my job in Fall 2019, something that I once feared to death, but God has since turned that situation into a blessing that I could not have ever predicted. No longer is there that sense of hopelessness and despair that I once was a slave to, He is so good! While He has not fully healed my anxiety disorder, through Him I am much more in control of it than I ever was before. I now know that all I need is Jesus and since I have Him, He will take care of all the rest. Looking back, I realize God’s hand was all over my life, making sure I’d end up in a place where I’d turn from all of that sin, to Him. I am so thankful for His faithful love!
If you’ve found yourself in a situation similar to mine or perhaps you’ve never considered yourself a Christian at all, please know that Jesus is real, He loves you, and He wants you to come to Him, His arms are wide open. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done, you don’t have to clean up your life first, just repent and accept Him as your Lord and Savior who died for your sins and rose again to conquer your death sentence; He will begin the clean up work that is needed. Life in Christ isn’t a list of rules and regulations you must keep, it’s not religion, but it’s a true personal relationship with your God and Savior. I am living proof that even 37 years into life, Jesus never gave up on me, and He won’t give up on you either, the choice is yours.
Learn more about Jesus and what He did.