Over the past year or so I have reconnected with many people who I have had the pleasure to know during different chapters in my life. It has been a pleasant surprise for me to find out that many of these people whom have meant so much to me in one way or another have come to faith in Christ. Many have asked me about the circumstances that led to my conversion and I have never really answered the question out loud. The other day I, through the wonders of modern technology, was able to watch a video of my friend Jeff Norman giving his story (Video – Here / Blog Post – Here). Inspired by Jeff, I have deiced to share the following. It is by no means an exhaustive auto-biography; I found it hard to condense thirty years of life into something interesting enough that a person might take the time to read. I hope that you enjoy and that maybe the Lord will use it in someone’s life. If you have any questions, or if something in not clear, please feel free to ask me.
I was born in May of 1980 to loving parents in League City, TX. My parents raised me and my father taught me about Jesus, but they didn’t attend church regularly. I attended church frequently, but not regularly, with my grandmother at the First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Texas City, TX. During those years I continued to learn the ways of the Christian religion, but was missing the relationship with Jesus. I knew what I should have been doing, but being still dead in my sin I was incapable of doing what was right. I had an intellectual knowledge of the Christian lifestyle and when I my conduct was contrary to that lifestyle I was aware that I was sinning, but without an experiential knowledge of what it meant to be a Christian I was not convicted.
I continued to live uninterrupted as a pseudo-Christian until late 2008. At the time I was living with my now wife, then girlfriend and our daughter. I knew all along that what I was doing was wrong, but was able to just keep on doing it. I was able to keep on doing it until the Holy Spirit of God began to stir within me. I realized that the lifestyle that I was living was displeasing to God and that something had to change. What needed to change was that I needed to surrender my life to Jesus, but I did not know that yet. I tried to change my life on my own and in January of 2009 my wife and I were married. I thought that getting married would line me back up with God’s plan and the conviction would go away, it didn’t. Still living as a pseudo-Christian and thinking that I was saved, I could not figure out what was wrong. Thank God for his divine planning because I had also started attending church at Faith Baptist. As I sat under the Word of God preached by the man of God Sunday after Sunday I began to have a clearer picture, but I still was not able to accept that my life up to that point had been a charade.
In early March of 2009 I was driving down a country road and was listening to some CD’s from a bible conference that my Pastor had loaned me. The particular CD that I was listening to was a sermon preached by the evangelist Sam Cathey. As I listened to the message everything became clear. I was a sinner, undeserving of God’s mercy and deserving of hell. There was nothing that I could do to change that and I needed someone, Jesus, to save me. The realization was so profound that I had to pull over and stop the car. I had tears streaming down my face and I asked Jesus to forgive me of my sins and save me. Paul met Jesus along the Damascus Road and I met Jesus along Bailey Mill Road. My life changed at that moment and has been changed ever since.
Shortly after God saved me I began to sense a desire to serve Him welling up inside of me. This desire sprang from my deep within my heart and grew greater and greater as my understanding what God had done for me grew. I began to prayerfully consider God’s call to serve and take inventory of the gifts that God had given me. As I considered the abilities that God have given me I came to recognize that He had blessed me with an ability to teach and a burden to care for people. Before I considered these gifts as something that I possessed that I could use to serve God, but then I realized the God had given me these gifts to serve Him and he allowed me to use them from day to day.
