Transformative Journey: From Skepticism to Faith

so i was in a point where nothing mattered if i had had a gun i probably would have shot myself that day well if you want to prove me wrong prove me wrong and she handed me a bible it broke through my defenses a little bit and then i was like okay if this is true in the bible maybe just maybe there's some other things [00:00:00]

And Daniel is a prophetic book. One of the definitions of prophecy is historical events that are recorded before they happen. And I love that definition. Because what I realized was, I realized as I'm reading this, wait a minute, they're talking about Alexander the Great here. And this was written before Alexander the Great. How is that possible? [00:07:18]

broke up so that was the first kind of chink in the armor that I had on it broke through my defenses a little bit and then I was like okay if this is true in the Bible maybe just maybe there's some other things that are true also so I started I started praying I was like and it's one of the worst prayers I think that I could ever make I said God if you're real I want to know you but if you're not get the hell out of my head [00:07:50]

So I'm very grateful for that time with my Jehovah's Witnesses friends because it really showed me what to look for. So now I'm at the point where I believe. I believe with my head things are starting to make sense, but I'm also going through some really hard things in my personal life. Around this time, I was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis and Kimebox disease. [00:09:15]

moving it and looking at it in real time and I'm just sitting there and he's like why aren't you screaming I'm like dude this doesn't feel much different than any other time that I've seen you it's always hurt this bad so and he's like alright I think I got it to where we're not going to need to do surgery so he cast it put it in a cast and it was the next appointment when we did a couple x -rays and took the cast off and he's like well I guess you got your radial shortening because it is a little bit shorter and did provide a little bit more room and provided it a little bit more relief [00:11:40]

but I started to see okay now God's starting to work I was a new new Christian but a head Christian like it didn't quite reach the heart yet I never fully surrendered to the Holy Spirit at least not yet now around this time I also had a gastric bypass what they don't tell you when you get a gastric bypass is that rapid weight loss will trigger gout and arthritis flare ups tremendously so there was a period of time where I'd lost like I think it was around a hundred pounds at this point and my flare ups were just so bad both knees flared up both ankles my wrist hurt so much but it was it was to the point where like I couldn't get out of bed [00:12:54]

So I asked God, I said God, I not even asked, I demanded. I was like God I cannot do this for more anymore. You have to take this from me. You just have to take it away. I cannot do this on my own. Just take over. And I begged him just to take over. And he did and it is kind of weird. [00:16:47]

Letting God take control is amazing. I would say that was my Holy Spirit moment where I actually surrendered. That's where the heart met the brain and it became real. It just didn't become my thought or my belief. It became who I am now. [00:18:24]

So after this moment, I ended up becoming the Sunday school superintendent and the youth coordinator at that church. And things were going great for a while. I was developing my faith, my faith is going stronger. [00:18:57]

One of the things I love is is being able to see God work through the kids I had one student who decided she wanted to do something different than everybody else a way to spread God's love and what she decided to do is start texting people every day and sometimes it would be the same text but it would be personalized she would put the the person's name in it in each one sometimes it would be a Bible verse sometimes it would be a song Christian song at one point she was over 200 people that she was texting which is [00:19:23]

I've never had a kid actually anoint me. It was just an awesome moment. So we get to see God work in some of these crazy ways. And even on a personal level, there was a time when my wife rolled our Durango. She hit ice and then went up and embankment and it rolled the car she was okay thankfully but it forced her to get some body scans because of course she was sore and during those scans they found pre -cancer in her uterus so she had a hysterectomy we would have never found that and who knows what that could have turned into without this what seemed like [00:21:20]

this horrible thing so God works even when it doesn't look like he's working so I say all this to say that in the good times in the bad times it doesn't matter God's still working in your life your journey no matter where you're at if you've been to church your whole life and never quite got it if you were an atheist like me if you think this whole thing is just stupid or or doesn't make any sense the bottom line is God's always working we kind of tend to think that we have a God that punishes people for not doing what he wants or not believing in him but it's quite the opposite what we have is because sin entered the world we're destined for hell and what God is doing right now is reach his hand out I just needed to take it and I took it and you can take that too we have the greatest story ever told right at our fingertips we need to share that and the best part is we're part of that story you're part of that story too [00:22:02]