Hello everyone! For those of you that do not know me, my name is Zach. I was born and raised in the great state of Wisconsin. I am 22 years old and currently work as a study technician in the early development of drug research. I graduated from UW-La Crosse in May of 2013 with a degree in Biology and a minor in Nutrition. Recently, I have made a decision to leave my job in the states and embarking on an 11 month journey taking me all around the world.
My testimony
I was born on April 25, 1991 and was raised by great parents. My mom can’t be put into words. She is the person that is willing sacrifice anything in order to help me. I also have a great father who has always been around to financially support me. I was not raised in a Christian household, but was raised in a household that would sporadically attend church services throughout the year. During this period of sporadic church attendance, I developed a very negative view towards religion. I viewed the church as a business, as an institution that gained money by making people feel guilty. I lived with this view all the way through high school and into college.
During high school, religion was something that never even crossed my mind. I was too focused on school, basketball, friends, and fishing to ever even give church a second thought. My senior year of high school is when I entered into my first relationship. I didn’t know it at the time, but this relationship would ultimately be the spark that changed my views on religion. Like many high school relationships, it ended, but the girl left me with three words that have stuck with me to this day. They were, “You Need God.” At the time I was in shock and was angry at the remark. It was something that I never thought I would hear, because I viewed myself as a good person. After pondering over those few words for a couple of weeks, I began to grow curious. I wondered if there may actually be some truth to this whole “God” thing.
By the time I was curious enough to take action I was living in college dorms. I was in the experimental phase that most freshmen find themselves in. I was trying to find the place that I fit in. I was blessed in having a guy across the hall also having the same interest to seek out God. We decided to try something new and found ourselves at a church like service put on by college students at our school. Let’s just say that it was an experience that I was far from comfortable with. When we arrived there were people singing with their arms in the air (I thought I just entered the Looney-bin). Even though I was as uncomfortable as I have ever been, I decided to stay. In staying, I noticed something different about these people. They were happy, not the pretend all is well happy, but were truly happy. This joy was something that confused me. I mean, how could believing in god make someone so happy? My only experiences with church services never brought me joy. When I attended them, I would usually find myself disengaged, only trying to keep myself occupied by counting ceiling tiles or counting how many bald guys there were. This was different. I now wanted to figure out why my views of church/religion/God were so different from the views of the people I had just encountered.
During my mission to solve why these college students were so happy I decided to do what they did. This involved joining a bible study, attending a church, and attending the weekly service put on by the college students. It was at these that I had learned what the gospel really was.
This took me a long time to wrap my head around it, because up to this point in my life I viewed myself as a good person not in need of a God.
The first fact that I had to accept was that I was a sinner. Throughout my life I had done many things that I have not been proud of, such as; lied, cheated, judged, and been a terrible friend. I learned that each one of these things was enough to land me in hell. Great, I just learned I am condemned to a terrible place. This was not the joy I thought I would find, but luckily this is not the end of the story. There is a way to get out of going to hell even though I am far from perfect. This was through a perfect person giving up his life to safe an imperfect person. This is what Jesus did for me. As a perfect person, Jesus took the burdens of my sins off of my shoulders and thrust it upon his own. When he was hung on the cross, the wrath that I deserved for my sins cascaded down on Jesus. He took the punishment that I deserved. Jesus only wanted me to believe in him and have faith in him return.
Ephesians 2: 8-9 “For by grace you have been saved though faith. And this is not your own doing, it is a gift of god, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Grace, a gift given from god, has saved me. For the very first time I realized I had something to be happy about. I was given new life!
This was the turning point of my life. I went from living a life that was self glorifying to living for something that is so much bigger than me. Since I put my faith in Christ as a freshman in college, I have continued to grow and mature in my faith. Now, I am dedicating 11 months to reach out to people all over the world.
