My life started out like many good southerners lives do. I was brought up in the church and my mother talked about God to my brother and I often. I don’t remember doing family bible studies or anything like that but then again, I was young. What I do remember, when I was around the age of 6, is one of my friends at church going down the aisle and getting ’saved’. I remember telling my dad later on (either that night or in just a few nights) that I wanted to be ’saved’ and he lead me in a prayer that was supposed to ’save’ me. I believed what I knew of the bible and honestly believed that I was ’saved’ that night. The following Sunday I went down the aisle and made it public and then followed it up with a baptism the next Sunday. After that, life went downhill…
Within about a years time following my decision my parents decided to get a divorce. It broke my heart to see my parents fight like they did. It was tough but I just went with the flow. We moved to Georgia and as time went by I saw less and less of my dad and saw my mom work hard and struggle to provide for us. I also began seeing my mom date men who either professed to be Christians with their lips but would deny Christ with their lifestyles or that simply claimed to be Christians to get close to her and use her. It wasn’t a fun time and during it I began to rebel against God.
It is only by God’s grace that I am where I am today. From middle school through my first year in college I lived a disgraceful sinful life. I am blessed that I didn’t get arrested or seriously hurt in these years. I look back on those times and wonder how many people I help lead to Hell because I was going to church and then partying on the weekends. I was the worst hypocrite of all. I knew what I was doing was wrong and there were some things that even I wouldn’t do because they were against God. I got the mentality that since I had already drank or smoked then there wasn’t any reason to not do it again. I had already committed that sin and once and once was as bad as a thousand times in my mind. To make it worse I was really good at hiding my sin. No one in my family knew, none of my church family knew, or at least no one ever approached me about it. Through all of this the Holy Spirit stayed with me, convicting me.
I knew I needed God but I wasn’t strong enough to go back on my own. I was ashamed. Luckily, through one of my friends I partied with the most, I met David Stroud. He would end up leading me back to God more than he realized. He didn’t do anything spectacular; he just witnessed to me and called my bluff. He kept inviting me to church and the BSU and never quit. Thanks to his relentlessness and the Holy Spirit I began turning back to God.
I remember years back while I was struggling with God; I met the girl of my dreams. One of the things that stayed strong on my heart during my life was keeping my marriage pure and praying for the wife I had never met. It broke my heart when she rejected me, thank God she rejected me. I wasn’t ready for her because I needed to get straight with God first.I remember years passing, praying that God would make her mine and then one day, I gave up. Walking to class at college, talking to God, I decided that I was going to stop pursuing her. If she was the woman I was supposed to be with then God would bring her to me. That week we got a call from some friends saying they were coming to visit. Along with them was the girl of my dreams and a blind date. Was this blind date the girl for me? I was going to find out, or at least I thought I was. Little did I know that God had been working on the girl of my dream’s heart too and led her straight to me. From that night on I knew that she was going to be my wife and on July 10th, 2004 we got married.
During the five years that my wife and I dated, I began to experience things I had never seen. Such as, a family that loved me and loved each other so much. They were stable and took me in as if I were one of their own. They fed me and provided shelter for me while I finished college. Then, God led us back to the last place I would have ever imagined. He led us back to the place where I started all my drug use and rebellious lifestyle, Ewing Road Baptist. It was different now, I was different now. There was a new pastor that was on fire for God and a congregation of true believers. I met people that talked the talk and walked the walk. The pastor’s expository teaching style was exactly what I needed. The bible was enjoyable and liberating. I began to thrive on the word of God. The more I learned about God the more sin he revealed in me and the more I loved him for it. Jesus dying in my place for the sins I committed means so much more to me.
I used to look back and wonder if I was truly saved at six years old when I prayed that prayer. My life didn’t change that much, I was only six, how bad could I have been? I also wondered if it was the Holy Spirit speaking to me all those years or just my Christian upbringing making me feel guilty. But know that I look back, I had faith like a child and I didn’t avoid some sins because I was afraid my mom would find out, I didn’t do those sins because I didn’t want to commit every sin against God. I wanted to remain good in some areas of my life. I know that I am now saved without a doubt and it’s a wonderful feeling. God has placed in me a new heart and is shaping me into being the man he wants me to be.
Now he has placed a burden in me for those who think they are ’saved’ because of a simple prayer or because they walked some aisle at a youth conference with everyone else. How is any of that different than thinking you are ’saved’ because you were sprinkled as a baby? The bible says when you are saved you get a new heart and that you will hate the things you love and love the things you hated. Becoming saved isn’t something you do, it’s a supernatural event God does in you. I pray that God will give me an opportunity to share with lost people and that God will use me to bring them to him for good.