Eight years ago, I led a stressful double life. On one hand, I was a well-respected English instructor in two top tertiary institutions. On the other hand, however, I was a train wreck addicted to several things, including cigarettes, alcohol, food, self-stimulation, & pornography. I was a member of & wrote songs for an R&B band whose songs I no longer enjoyed playing. My mouth was filthy, and so were my thoughts. I involved myself in a lot of activities because I felt I needed to be successful to be accepted.
I was also in a relationship with Catherine, a beautiful, intelligent woman who I felt I didn’t deserve; she was an overachiever who made me even more insecure. I dealt with the insecurity aggressively, often fighting with her over the pettiest things. It never got to the point of our breaking up – a testament to her patience & love for me, which would prove vital to where I am today.
In early 1999, Cathy found her way to Jesus Christ. At the start of her relationship with Him, I would take her to & attend Sunday service with her, though I found the four-hour services long & boring. In my heart, I ridiculed her newfound passion, thinking she would eventually tire of “this Christian thing.†Meanwhile, I continued to live my very stressful life, balancing teaching in two schools, a radio jock job, & my relationship with Cathy, using cigarettes, self-stimulation, & porn to deal with the stress.
The entire time, though, God was telling Cathy to leave me because we did not share the same faith. She began to pray for me in earnest, giving Him a deadline: if I did not have Christ in my life by a certain date, she would break up with me. She, of course, did not tell me about this. In a testament to God’s faithfulness to those who pray to Him in earnest, a few days before her deadline, at a Kenny Roger’s Roasters along Taft Avenue, a mutual friend of ours led me to Christ.
On that fateful day I committed my life to Jesus, I realized Christ was my way out of the emptiness, the insecurity, and the stress. I knew who Jesus was, but on that day, He became real to me, not as a literary character, but as Someone who saw me as valuable, precious, worth loving and dying for.
I made my best decision ever and accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior.
I began to trust in God to mold me according to how He saw fit, & seven years later, I see how faithful He has been in making my life so much worth living! Among the many things He has made possible in my life:
- He gave me grace to quit the cigarettes & alcohol cold-turkey. For years, I’ve told people that it was my love for Cathy that enabled me to quit, but I’ve since realized the truth & given God the glory. I have also kicked addictions to food, masturbation, & porn.
- He has blessed me musically. I quit my R&B band & began to write songs for Him. I now have over 20 original praise & worship songs & have been blessed to sing with the Victory Fort worship team. I’ve since made my original songs available for free podcast use by believers worldwide, & am blessed every time someone picks up a song for use on podcast.
- I now work for Victory Fort as their Communications Director.
- Cathy & I are married now with a handsome five-year-old, Nathan, and a beautiful two-year-old, Nicki. Our relationship is so much stronger now, & we both are blessed with opportunities to serve in the church.
Would you like to experience the joy and victory I’ve experienced? Make that decision today to say goodbye to constant worry about whether you’re good enough! The truth is, we’re all sinners, having fallen short of God’s glory (Rom 3:23), and no amount of good work is going to get us into heaven because we’re not perfect and we’ll never be good enough.
God, however, loved us so much that He was willing to exchange someone else so that we can have eternal life. That someone was Jesus Christ, who died for our sins. If you understand that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and would like to have eternal life for yourself, all you have to do is invite Jesus into your heart and your life, and then, boom! Watch in amazement as God just works wonders in your life.
Would you like to make the best decision you’ll ever make? Read this short prayer with me and open the door to a new, victorious life in Jesus!
Dear Heavenly Father:
I want to leave my past life and all the things that have weighted me down. I come to You for salvation and the promise of eternal life. Father, I admit I am a sinner and I’ve fallen short of Your glory. Forgive me for my sins, Father. I believe that Jesus Christ is Your Son, and that He died on the cross for me. I accept Jesus as my Personal Lord and Savior, and I want to spend the rest of my life loving and serving You. Be with me and change me, Father, so in everything I do, my life will be a prayer of thanksgiving to You. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.
If you prayed this prayer, please email me at superblessed [h]at gmail d[h]ot com. I promise to pray for you, and if you need someone to help you grow in your new life, I promise to be that someone. God bless you.
