All right. Welcome back to the Way The Truth and the Traveler. It's been a crazy week. Had a little travel involved. Took the family on a short vacation up to Branson, Missouri, doing a little early birthday celebration for our little boy that's about to turn six. We did the, top of the rock golf cart tour, checking the mountains out, went and did some cave tours, went about 80 feet underground. Looking around. It was pretty awesome. All I can say, looking at all of it is, wow, what a creator. Looking at everything, just how uniquely it's designed and in place. It makes it hard for me to believe that everything came about from a Big Bang or any other source than a great creator that loves us, that hand designed everything for our own enjoyment. So the last time I told y'all I was gonna give my testimony or share my story of how I came to put my faith and trust in Jesus Christ as my savior. And that's what we're gonna be talking about here today. So I grew up in a little small east Texas town. I'm talking tiny one stoplight. Everybody knows everybody kind of town. I grew up in the church, went to church every time the doors were open. I can't think of a Sunday or Wednesday that we missed, especially from the time I was about eight, nine years old on, When I was about 10 years old, my dad was being called to the ministry. He surrendered to preach and shortly thereafter became the associate pastor at our church. Yeah, I know you know what they say about preacher's kids, but we'll get to that. About that time I was going into middle school and I was having a real hard time fitting in. Middle school and high school were pretty hard for me. I was trying to find my identity and belonging and anything I could find. Went through those pretty awkward teenage years up until I was about a sophomore in high school. I never really fit in with anyone I just couldn't seem to find my place. But sophomore year of high school, everything kinda seemed to change for me'cause I made a decision that wasn't a very wise one. And that decision was, if you can't beat'em, join them. And that's exactly what I did. Everybody my age at that time was going out and partying. Drinking a lot of alcohol and hanging out with everybody on the weekend doing everything Lord knows we shouldn't be doing, but we did it anyway. And my popularity rating seemed to go from zero to a hundred. Real quick, I was the life of the party hanging out with the popular kids, doing everything anybody wanted to do, top of the social scales. But all along in my heart, I knew it wasn't right. I knew I was still struggling to find identity because it wasn't who I really was, but I was still at church every Sunday morning You know, I spent many years doing that, going to every party, and I never missed one that all my friends were going to and going back to church on Sunday, like I wasn't out there just living a life full of sin. And all along, ignoring every little voice I heard in my head telling me to slow down or that I was doing the wrong thing. When I was about 18 years old, I was sitting there listening to our head pastor at our church preach and he preached a message about salvation and hell, and it really scared me.'cause all the things he mentioned in the message were all the things I was out doing the night before. It got into my head pretty bad and I got really scared and so I decided to. Say a prayer and ask God to save me, but I never really meant it. I was just scared of going to hell. And I thought, if I just say these words, then I'll be fine. But I knew all along that wasn't the case'cause there was no life change in me. As soon as I got up from saying that prayer, I went right back on living my life like nothing was wrong. I continued to do the same things I did before. All the same actions with all the same people. Shortly after this, I graduated high school. A lot of my friends went off to college and I went to work, but every time I was off work, I would drive down to the big cities where my friends went to college and we'd party every weekend, like nothing had ever changed. I was driving home one Sunday night, back from partying all weekend when I got a text from a girl I'd known since I was about 12 years old. We tried to date one time when I was 16 and she was 15. It just didn't quite work out, but I wasn't gonna miss the opportunity for a good second chance. So I responded to her text and I asked her out to dinner. To my surprise, she said yes. So we went on our second first date as we call. It's still a joke to us to this day, but when we went out, I figured out real quick that she wasn't gonna put up with somebody that was a party guy or that acted a fool. So I decided right then and there I was gonna settle down and she was worth it to me. So I started playing the part, quit hanging out with my friends, quit partying, and I spent all my time with her. And it was worth it.'cause at the ripe young age of me just turning 21 and her being 19, we got married. We got married pretty young and that came with its own set of challenges like learning to live together and how to become adults and mature at the same time, brought its own set of exciting adventures, but we sure made it through it. But the one thing I was real good at was playing the part we never missed a Sunday or a Wednesday at church. We were there every time the door was open and I was doing everything I thought I was supposed to do. All the while knowing I didn't really believe any of it in my heart. I was just doing what I thought everyone was supposed to do. We both served in the church, I played on the worship team. We were there every time that you could be, but I knew still deep down that it just wasn't real for me. I keep referencing playing the part I wanted to back up a little bit and give that a little explanation. When I say playing the part, I mean I had all the answers in my head. I grew up in church. Like I said before, I'd been there since I was a little kid, so I'd heard all the Bible stories, been to every Bible study you could go to, and I knew all the right answers, but I just didn't believe'em due to things happening in my life. And I chose to live my own way and to think my own way versus believe what the Bible actually had to say. I know now that wasn't the right thought process, but I knew how to play the part and make it look right. I knew how to play it well and make everybody else believe that I had it all together because that's what I thought you were supposed to do. I guess somewhere in my head I thought everybody was playing the part, but I was really wrong. It took a while before I discovered it was all real and that I was only faking it for, I guess, my own benefit.'cause it really wasn't benefiting anyone at all. Truth be told, it was just self-destructing me and tearing me apart piece by piece. I just didn't see it coming. The dangerous thing about playing the part is, like I said, it's not benefiting anyone. You seem like you've got it all together and everybody on the outside thinks that you do, but really on the inside, you know, you don't. You have the head knowledge, but you don't believe it in your heart. So while on the outside, everybody thinks your life is so well put together. On the inside, you know, your life is really a wreck and that nothing is together and everything is chaos and turmoil. But anyway, let's get back to the story here. Like I said, young, newly married, learning how to be adults had its own set of challenges. But a couple years passed by, we decided we wanna start having kids. That was a difficult time for us. We had a really hard time getting pregnant. It was just for some reason, difficult for us to have children, even though we really desired them. We prayed and prayed and all the while I was still playing the part and, I don't know who I was praying to. I guess I might as well have been talking to the ceiling'cause that's about what my effort felt like. But my wife, I knew she was praying to the god of creation and, and asking him to bless us. A small part of me really wanted to believe in the reality of Jesus and his salvation for me. But I had so many thoughts in my head of guilt and shame and regret of things I had done that I just couldn't ever really let myself get there. At this point in my life is where my story really takes a turning point for the worst. I'm gonna tell you about some things that I'm really ashamed of and some things that were really, really hard for me to deal with. So, like I said, we're praying. My wife is praying her heart out, begging God to give us a child. She comes home one day and lo and behold tells me she's pregnant. I'm all excited. I'm ecstatic. I'm overjoyed and can't contain myself. We both were, but a short time into the pregnancy, my wife experienced some complications and we ended up losing the baby. And this is where I really took a turn. I was heartbroken and so was my wife. And watching her go through that just almost killed me. I couldn't decide how I felt about it. I was just hollow and really couldn't come up with a conscience. Thought that made sense. So I turned bitter and I turned angry, and I decided right then and there I was gonna do a full 180 and that God and the Bible meant nothing to me. I had prayed hard, even though I didn't really believe it, but I knew she did and I just couldn't understand how a God that loved me so much would put me and her through so much pain. A side note, it wasn't God that caused our pain. He had a plan for our life. But shortly after that, we decided to try again. It took a few years, but we ended up having our daughter and then our son. I was a new dad making my way through life, but like I said, I'd already made the 180. I decided I was gonna do things on my own. I didn't go to church. I didn't read my Bible. I didn't believe anything anyone said about God. And truth be told, I can say it out loud now because God knows every thought we have and he knows I said it to him. I told God he wasn't real and to leave me alone and I didn't wanna speak to him. And I moved on about my life trying to do everything my own way. I said, I don't need you, God, I can do this. I've got me and I've got my family and I don't need anybody else to protect them or take care of us. But boy was I wrong. That was some of the hardest times in my life. I turned back to drinking alcohol and was borderline an alcoholic, consuming enough alcohol to shut my mind off every day. Any thought I had or any guilt or shame, I would just bury it deeper and deeper and deeper in the alcohol until I was just numb and hollow. Well, a lot of negative things come along with that'cause you can shut your mind off with a substance all you want, but I can promise you when you wake up in the morning. The guilt, shame, regret, and thoughts of anything you've done or anything you're carrying is all still there waiting for you the next morning. And that's exactly how it was for me. It was a very difficult time in my life and along with trying to bury my thoughts and numb my feelings with a substance of alcohol came some really depressing thoughts. I was swimming in guilt and couldn't decide which way to turn. And there entered Satan into my mind trying to talk to me. I know it wasn't the Lord that Satan was trying to tell me. The only way for me to escape these feelings and these thoughts was for me to die. And that's really difficult for me to admit. And it's, it's a hard thing to talk about, but I want to be completely honest with everyone. It's a big reason why I'm telling this story is because I know there's a lot of people out there like me that need to hear this. I had a lot of suicidal thoughts, Satan, in my head, telling me that I needed to die, and that was the only way that I would truly find peace was to end my own life, to leave my kids orphaned and my wife a widow, that they would be happier without me because I was such a horrible person. It was one of the most difficult things I've ever walked my way through. And I kept drinking even heavier and heavier just to try to bury the feelings and those thoughts along with all the other thoughts of guilt and shame I carried The one thing I can tell you is the whole time I was walking through this and dealing with this and trying to make sense of it all is that God never left my side. He was there with me the whole time whether I wanted him to be or not, or whether I knew he was there or not. I was thumbing through my phone one day watching videos online and videos of Christian music started to come up. It's something I wasn't new to being as I used to serve on a worship team, but I hadn't been to church in quite a while. It was newer music, so I was inclined to listen, check it out. Well then videos of pastors preaching at different churches started popping up and for some reason I just stopped to listen. I couldn't help but wonder what the message was about and hear the stories like I had never heard'em before, but for some reason it got my attention. I never went home and made a change right here at this point, but it was something I was doing every day for a couple of months. I was just watching videos of these pastors and, and watching videos of these Christian songs and listening to the lyrics, and then going on about my everyday life, still dealing with the guilt and shame and suicidal thoughts, and still drinking pretty heavy to try to bury it all. I know now that God was just trying to make his way back into my life and he was trying to get me to stop running from him and to listen to a message he had for me. I just wasn't ready to hear it yet, I guess. But anyway, I went home one day and I was really struggling. My suicidal thoughts were worse than ever. My drinking was worse than ever, and all of my guilt was just weighing on my shoulders and. I decided to call a good friend of mine who I knew had kind of gone through a similar situation. He's been one of my best friends since we were little kids. We grew up in the church together and I just figured he could offer me some good advice that I needed, so I decided to give him a call and pour my heart out to him, and that's exactly what I did. I was able to be real with him and tell him everything that was going on, everything that I had done, everything I was doing. And just all the guilt and shame and anger that I was carrying around. He listened to me for about two hours on the phone and he gave me some pretty solid advice. He said, bud, the Lord is trying to speak to you. He said, and you need to be ready to listen. He said, my suggestion is you go into your bedroom in a quiet place alone. Open your Bible up, start reading it, and really pray and ask God to speak to you through his word for you to understand what he's trying to say to you. So I went into my room, grabbed my Bible that I hadn't seen for quite a while at this point. It was buried at the bottom of the shelf in my closet, but I pulled it out and I began to pray and I asked God to help me understand the things I read, to understand what he wanted to say to me and why I started studying the plan of salvation all throughout the gospels. Just how to be saved, what it means to be saved. And what our actions are like before and after. And I realized pretty quick that just because I said a few words back when I was 18, that like I said, I never really meant, meant nothing. I never truly believed that Jesus was the son of God. I never believed that he made a sacrifice for me on the cross. But in reading this, it was like I had never read it before and I truly started to believe it. I was broken. That somebody could love us so much that they would give their only son me. Now being a father, something I couldn't imagine, it's a good thing I'm not the Lord'cause I'd sure have a hard time giving up my only son to save all of humanity, but that's exactly what he did. I read the story and the parable about the lost sheep where he left the 99 for the one, and it just struck me that I was the one that had gone astray. It broke me to a point. I had never been broken before. I was just heart broke for all the things I had done, and here came the thoughts of guilt and shame that were just unbearable. I continued to read in the Bible and I was begging God just to give me some answers. Throughout the passages of scripture I read, God showed me his true love for me and how important I was to him, how important each and every one of us are to him, and that we can't. Grasp his love fully or have a full understanding of it, because that's how great it is that it doesn't even make complete sense to us all the time. But then came the point of trying to justify myself. I said, well, God, I, I said this prayer back when I was 18. I know I didn't mean it, but I said it. well, in Romans eight 16. In his word it said his spirit will bear witness with ours. So that got me to thinking, well, what does bear witness mean? I don't understand that, so I decided to just Google the definition. The very definition of Bear witness is to serve as evidence or proof that something exists or is the case. Well, that got me to thinking there's no proof or evidence in my life that says Jesus is my savior. If I were to stand before a judge in a courtroom is how I had to think about it, and he asked Jesus, do you know this man? Or asked me if I knew Jesus? Either one of us would have to say, I don't know him. I know nothing about him and that was hard for me to swallow, but it was the truth. So I continued to pray and I asked God to forgive all of my sins, take all the guilt and shame and anger that I carried, asked forgiveness for telling God I didn't believe in him, that I was angry at him, that he didn't exist, that I wanted him to leave me alone. I asked forgiveness for all of it. And I can tell you right then and there, God forgave me of every bit of it, and all he did was show me the outpouring of his love in my life, that he was with me the whole step of the way. No matter what I said or what I did. He had always been there and he was always loving me, even when I didn't want him to be. I asked Jesus to save me right there to come in and change my life completely, because I didn't want to be this hollow shell of a man anymore. That I wanted to be something real, something he could use and to tell others about what he can do.'cause I had already seen him doing it for me. I had a lot of hard realizations that day that I wasn't the best father or husband I could be, that I wasn't leading my family in the right direction, or that I hadn't been leading them in God's word at all. It was a hard pill for me to swallow. But as time went on, I began to try to change things about myself. And notice I said I began to try to change things. I started slipping back into old habits using foul language. I, and then came the alcohol. Not long after I was saved, I just didn't know what to do, so I decided to fall back to what worked. I don't want to go too deep into this part because we will cover it in a future episode. But I can tell you it was hard. I knew I was doing wrong. I was convicted of it every day. I knew that I had a God that saved me and that loved me, and that he was there every step, and yet I was still trying to do things my own way and deny him. Well, that broke me once again, and I began to pray to God and ask him to forgive me and to take these things from me. And I can tell you just like he forgave me of all of it. The first time he forgave me again, showed me his love over and over in my life, continued to bless me and be with me in ways I couldn't even imagine. But it made me come to a hard point of realization. That staying close to God doesn't just happen by accident. It's not some magic words we say or pray or anything that we can actually physically do. It's kinda like a marriage. If you have a good marriage, it's'cause you spend a lot of time together and you put a lot of effort into it. I know everything there is to know about my wife. She's my favorite person on the face of this earth. I know her favorite colors, her favorite foods. I know intimate details about her, but I've spent a lot of time getting to know her. And learning her cues and learning every little detail about her and the same as her for me. She knows me better than I know myself, but that doesn't happen by accident. We spent the time because we loved each other and we wanted to learn all these intimate details of one another. It's the same with our relationship with God, and that's what I've come to find. You wanna know who God is. You want a close personal relationship with him? Spend time in prayer and reading your Bible, reading his words, talk to God. It doesn't have to be some big formatted prayer like sometimes we hear in church you can talk to God like you're talking to your friend, and he'll listen and he will answer you through his word and he will be there with you. I can promise you that. So you wanna stay close to the Lord and you want a good relationship with him. Put in the time and effort'cause that's what it takes. It's not always easy, but nothing good ever comes without any effort. One thing I can't stress enough is that I'm nobody special. The same way God loves me, he loves you, and anything he's done for me, he'll do for you. The changes he's made in me and my life, he'll do for you as well. He's such a loving God that wants you to have a relationship with him. He just wants your time and he wants your heart. It's the best decision I've ever made in my life and the most important one too. He continues to change and work in me every day, and I'm forever grateful for it. I used to not like talking about my story because I had so much shame and guilt and past in there that I didn't want anybody to know about. But the closer I get to Jesus and the deeper our relationship gets, the more I find I love sharing my story with others because I hope that it brings peace. And love and help to those in need of it, and that it'll help you find answers that you're looking for the same way I found mine through God's word, through his love and through his sacrifice for us on the cross. If you have any questions or a topic you would like discussed or covered, you can always reach us at Truth Traveler podcast@gmail.com. We hope to see you back next week for a new episode and have you listening in and always remember, love God, love your neighbor, and trust Jesus with everything that you do.