“It’s never too late to be what you might have been” – George Eliot
The sunshine tried its hardest to pierce through the mostly overcast skies as I stood waist high in the Indian Ocean. I had my squad-mates, correction, my family in the water with me in attendance as well as many people who were on the beach at the time in Bali. Out of all the people on the moderately crowded beach I’m sure there were Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, agnostics, atheists and many other beliefs as well. I’m happy to say they were all about to be in God’s presence for three baptisms. I stood next to our team coach who had the honor of baptizing me and two other squad-mates. He gave me an opportunity to explain why I was choosing to be baptized. As soon as I was done, my team coach took my body and sent me plunging into the Indian Ocean water…
Let me take you back to 2010
If I had to describe this time of my life in a few words I’d say exciting, difficult, and out of control because I had just graduated high school. Just like everyone else graduating high school going off to college, you think you have learned everything you have to learn in order to succeed so you feel accomplished. You feel like everything will come to you and the world is your oyster. The scariest feeling of them all is you feel “invincible”, but the truth is you are never more exposed in life than the time you graduate high school through the time you graduate college. I take that back, you are never more exposed in life than when you place the temptations of life before your relationship with God. It doesn’t matter what stage in life you are at, if you place the material, worldly, and sinful temptations of life before the One who has already given us everything then we are falling right into the enemy’s trap…I did
Throughout college and even after college I turned to the partying lifestyle for comfort. There were always friends to hang out with and parties to be at no matter what day of the week and I wanted to live life to the fullest. Truth is I don’t remember living life to the fullest, especially my later years in college because of the substance abuse I placed on my body. The first few years of college was more experimental with partying such as alcohol, tobacco, and drugs, but nothing ever became a habit. Going to parties was only a few times a month ordeal. As soon as I turned 21 years young, the enemy got a hold of me and never let go for many years. Alcohol, tobacco, and sex no longer became experimental because it became a habit and a vice in my life. One of those three rarely occurred without the others. If I abused alcohol then the chewing tobacco use and sexual actions were not too far behind. When I drank, it usually occurred nearly every night, whether it was one or two beers at dinner or drinking to a point of alcohol poisoning. On the nights when I drank heavily it almost seemed like I was in a competition with myself to see how much of a hit my body could take. It was a crap shoot on where I’d wake up in the mornings whether it was my bed, someone else’s bed, or the rock hard floor. When I would drink, my closest friends struggled to tell whether or not I was sober or drunk. I had been drunk so many times that I knew how to talk, act, and present myself to look sober so I could continue to party with my friends. I even learned how to present myself sober in front of cops even when I was inches from going to jail.
Sex and relationships with women was another vice that gripped my life and something I wrestled for a long time. There were some relationships that came into my life that were very healthy and I’m blessed to still call some of those women friends in my life. They are great influences and strong human beings. Things just didn’t work out at the time. There were also some relationships that were destructive in my self-worth and my (at the time) fading relationship with God. Anytime you put your time and trust into someone who then chooses someone else over you, you question who you are as a human being. Instead of realizing the other person was at fault, I beat myself up for who I was. I thought I made mistakes and I’d ask myself questions like “What is wrong with me?” or “What did I do wrong?”. Instead of turning to God for self-worth I took out my anger with unhealthy vices that eventually turned into sex addiction. I didn’t know how to trust a woman in relationship setting anymore and I knew one way I couldn’t get hurt was by watching pornography. Another way I would feed my addiction without the possibility of getting hurt in a relationship was having “one-night stands”. I would tell myself lies that I wasn’t good enough to be in a relationship or that girls would only use me and like me for my appearance. I began to build walls up around me that no woman could ever break down so they could never have any chance of hurting me, but I’d still be able to find pleasure in sex. Sex is one of the many amazing sacred gifts God gave us human beings, but I abused that gift and warped it with my life into something it wasn’t.
At the time I never saw anything wrong with my actions because I developed a schedule in my life. I would go to nearly every class in college so I could get good grades. I was able to walk onto my college’s golf team for two semesters, work hard for a cumulative grade point average above 3.2, and build my resume with prestigious internships, all while partying. I thought to myself, how can life get any better? I’m able to accomplish the things I set out to do in my young adult life all while having fun. I was able to go to school in the South and work in the Northeast during the summer time. I accomplished my dream of being a golf professional all while my journey led me to live and have fun in some of the biggest cities in the U.S., but the truth is my relationship with God was dead and nonexistent.
For as long as I can remember I have always believed in God. I have always believed that Jesus was sent by God to die on the cross and save our sins, but there was a problem. I never lived out my life in accordance to that. I abused God’s grace and lived my life as such. “Okay God I believe in you and your story, but if you can hold on a second while I sin that’d be great and I’ll be back soon”. I didn’t take His grace seriously and I threw it down the drain. I honestly stopped calling myself a Christian because it wasn’t fair to those who truly followed the Lord and had a strong relationship with Him. I was that Christian poser who would say “I believe in Jesus”, but party like there was no tomorrow. I had a foot in both worlds. When I was with my partying friends, some would be careful about what they would say around me because they thought I worshiped Jesus. When I was around my Christian friends, some would wonder why I even bothered with church because they knew I lived my life like a viking. I had to make a choice of either living my life my way for my dreams or for who God wanted me and follow His dreams for me…needless to say I’m blessed God never let go of me and I chose to live my life for Him.
Fast Forward to 2016
I am one day away from embarking on a journey of a lifetime on The World Race Expedition Route at launch. We are in our second to last worship service before we say goodbye to our parents and God gave me a vision for the first time in my life. I had never had a vision from God before so this tripped me out in the best way ever! The band playing asked us to be quiet and listen to hear for God’s voice if He had anything to say to you. So I sat on the ground and asked “Okay God, my entire life I’ve been the one talking asking for all these things in my life. Well, I’m shutting up finally and I’m just gonna listen for you”. Immediately I got this picture in my mind of me standing on a rock bed next to a river in the woods. Next I saw Jesus in the middle of the river asking me to come join Him in the water.
The band began to play the last song and after I opened my eyes I began to hear the words of this song. It literally explained “come down to the river o my soul”, exactly what I saw in my vision before the song started playing. I had never heard the song before because it was a new song the band had been working on and just then played it for one of the first times ever live. Any calmness I had in my body went right out the window because I couldn’t contain my excitement for what God had just shown me! I felt like a little kid dancing around because it was a vision God used to say you need to walk & dance in freedom. I knew immediately what God was telling me to do. He said, “YOU NEED TO GET BAPTIZED”.
Now I was a little confused at first because I had been baptized in high school and thought why do I need to be baptized again God? Isn’t the last time good enough? I waited for an answer and didn’t hear anything for a few weeks. Last month I was in Indonesia and I heard God again. This time He challenged me to take a day of silence. In other words, not talk and devote my entire day to listening to others and God. The day of silence taught me many things, but one of the things I received from that day was the confirmation that I needed to be baptized.
Baptism (Continued)
After being submerged in the Indian Ocean for a split second, I was brought up out of the water by my team coach and something was different. I WAS SET FREE! I WAS WASHED CLEAN! Now I’ll be the first to say that the Bali beach water was the furthest thing from being clean. It had so much trash from plastic bottles, Lays potato chip bags, straws, even toothbrushes, but I’ll also be the first to tell you I added to the trash in the Indian Ocean. Jesus took all of the mistakes I had made, all of my vices/addictions, the enemy’s lies, EVERYTHING, and washed my soul clean in the already polluted waters of the Indian Oceans. My physical self remained the same, but my spiritual self had been washed clean in Jesus’ name! On February 6th my spiritual self died because I put all of my hurt & pain from the past seven years at the foot of the cross!
It’s never been about me and it never will be because it will always be about God and His Kingdom. I tried living life according to my rules and my dreams and the honest truth is I woke up with my face in the dirt. I had accomplished everything I set for as a teenager/young adult. I had community, good grades, walked on the men’s collegiate golf team, partying lifestyle, good jobs throughout and after college, but it wasn’t enough. It left me empty and always searching for more, but the amazing truth is you are never able to get enough to truly satisfy the human self. Material items like alcohol and sex are fun for a few hours worth of a buzz and then you wake up and it’s gone. Actually it’s not gone because chances are if you went hard enough you’ll wake up with your head feeling like an elephant is sitting on it and there will be a slight reduction of money in your bank account. This isn’t an opinion, this is a fact. The only thing that can truly satisfy the human self is Christ’s love because it is infinite. If you pursue Him, He will never stop pursuing you and He will provide you with infinite love.
Being baptized didn’t mean I would be splashed by some water and be done with it. Being baptized is a commitment, no, its a relationship, NO, IT’S A WAY OF LIFE and I refuse to let petty temptations in life take me away from God’s love. I’M NOT PLAYING GAMES ANYMORE! It’s costing me and will continue to cost me a lot in life to follow the One who gave me life and never let me go. God could’ve have given up on me years ago, but He decided to hang onto me instead. God cleansed my soul from all of my sins and I will live my hardest in a relationship with Him.
Words seriously can’t express my happiness in this time of my life right now. I feel free to dance in the Lord’s presence because of the joy my soul has for Him. I realize hard times will come and also that I’m a human being who makes mistakes and will continue to make mistakes. If I make mistakes it means I’m taking healthy risks in life and I’m growing in my relationship with Him. I’m not saying it’s okay to go out and sin all over the place because that is abusing His grace. I’m choosing to follow Him and learn through Him when I do slip up. I’m not perfect and I never will be, but Jesus is! I most definitely don’t have everything figured and nor will I ever, but Jesus is the life and the way. He is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. Jesus means everything to me because He has given me new desires and new dreams for my life, dreams I never even thought would ever come into my head over the past years.
I am a Christian second because I’m a son first! He is a good father and He will never leave my side. There is no room for the enemy in my life anymore because Jesus is the One who I give my praise to and who I worship my life with. The enemy pours lies into our lives that I refuse to believe because he tries to make us feel inadequate. In actuality, if we live our lives for Christ we are in fact more powerful than our minds can comprehend.
“Through the trials and the pain, I will remain forever unbroken” – Fit For A King
I don’t regret anything that I have done in my life because at the time I thought I was making the right decisions. Over the course of my life I have been blessed by the Lord immensely. I have made friendships with men & women that I will have for the rest of my life until I go home to the Father. I have had some awesome relationships with women that were so much fun being able to grow as human beings with each other. I am no greater than anyone else on this earth because we all sin and no sin is greater than one another. There is no better learning tool than making mistakes and I’ve made a lot of them. Alcohol, drugs, and sex can be fun until they eat your soul dry. I care more about eternal love from the Father in heaven than I do about a temporary buzz here on earth.
I’m happy and blessed all of this happened to my life. Sure it was painful in more ways than one, but the mistakes I made from my past created me into the human being I am today. If it wasn’t for taking risks and learning more about myself I never would’ve found Jesus in my life. The enemy thought he had me, but what he didn’t realize was his grip on my life would eventually lead me to Christ.
“I committed a sin and there were many more that followed…
Some that changed my mind, some that broke me down…
But all of them made me who I am now!”
– We Came As Romans
I encourage all of you to take a deep look into your life to get to know yourself. What is something that the enemy is using to grab a vice grip on your life so you can’t experience Christ’s love? God’s love isn’t only for a few people. His love is universal and He wants you to not only receive it, but also go out and spread it. God wants to heal you and God wants to use your imperfect self to impact people’s lives. God doesn’t use perfect people to build His Kingdom. He uses imperfect people to spread His perfect love.
We can’t wait any longer to receive God’s love and grace. He doesn’t care what you have done wrong in life because He only cares about what you are doing to live your life right now. I didn’t push the reset button in life because I can’t change my past, none of us can, but what I can change is who I am today and who I’m going to be. I merely wrote the end of one chapter of my life and I started to write a new one. God is the director of my movie and I’m writing the script. I’m taking back what is rightfully mine and I’m living, dancing, and running in freedom. God is waiting with open arms for all of you to accept Him into your life. So I got one question for you…
What’s holding you back?
Photo Cred: Josh Cooper, Kate Thompson, Taylor Upchurch
