My Story

A Pastor friend asked me to write out my testimony so he could use it as an illustration in his sermon.  Since I've never written it out I thought I'd use it as this weeks blog post.  This is my story.

I grew up in a family where not a single person was a follower of Jesus when I was little.  Not my parents, not my step-parents, none of my aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins; no one in my family was a follower of Jesus.

When I was in the seventh grade my grandfather on my mother’s side died.  There was a little Baptist church down the road from my Granny and her neighbors recommended that the pastor from that church do the funeral.  He was a professor at a local seminary who loved to preach and he loved his people.  He began to visit my Granny shortly after the funeral and within a few months had led her to Christ. 

My Granny began to pray for her family.

Now my mother would feel guilty for not having her children in church from time to time; usually after I had done something she deemed particularly bad, or after something like my sister’s first words being “Damn Flies”.  After one of the events had occurred we would attend the local United Methodist Church for maybe three weeks in a row, until the urgency of our trespasses had wore off and then we’d slip back into our routine, only showing up for services on Christmas and Easter.  I can remember my Dad on one Easter morning looking out at some men playing golf and commenting with disdain, “Who doesn’t go to church on Easter?”  The answer to that question would be my biological dad and stepmom.  All that to say, we had very little in the way of a formal Christian upbringing.

When I became a senior in High School my best friend Gary Rhom, who loved to party and chase after the girls with me, had an encounter with Jesus at a YoungLife retreat.  Out of nowhere it seemed he went on the straight and narrow.  After this had gone on for several weeks and Gary’s weekly twisting of my arm to go to YoungLife club I finally decided to go up to our schools YoungLife leader, a guy named Kitt Sublett who had the thickest coke bottle glasses you’ve ever seen, and ask him what he had done to freak my  friend out about God.

Kitt looked at me and said,  “Do you really want to know?” and I was like, “yes” and then he said call me up tomorrow and we’ll catch a sandwich at Schlotzsky’s. 

The next day I went and strong armed another of my good friends Frankie Sanford to go along with me.  We asked Kitt every question that our unbelieving hearts found so critical (what about the pygmies in Africa? What about the dinosaurs? What about evolution?) and Kitt gave us honest answers that I could tell he genuinely believed.  This was enough to get my curiosity up so when he said, “Where do we go from here?” I was open to continuing the dialogue. 

Kitt started a small Bible Study for Gary, me, and Frankie.  We called it the Coke-a-cola club because Kitt bought the cokes that came in the little glass bottles.  For nine weeks we studied the Bible.  Kit taught us about God’s good creation, about the Fall and the problem of sin, then we looked at Jesus his life, teachings, and miracles, then he showed us prophecies about Jesus in Old Testament and how they were fulfilled in the New Testament.  When he showed me Isaiah 53 I freaked out.  That passage was written hundreds of years before Jesus walked the planet and yet was so clearly about him.  It seemed like overwhelming proof to me that Jesus was who he claimed to be.  During that study my mind came to believe that Jesus was Lord but God wanted all of me not just my mind.

Now during these nine weeks God was at work in my life.  You see I had sort of a Diest’s view of God.  I believed there was a God, I just believed he wasn’t personal and he did not care about me.  That he had got everything going and he was kindda watching the show.  Well as we began studying the Bible I began reading the New Testament on my own and Jesus was anything but impersonal.  In Jesus I was confronted with a God who loved each person individually, who’d entered humanity to redeem and fix what was broken about it. 

I began to look at my friendships and see that all centered around getting drunk and partying.  I knew that in a few short months I’d be leaving home and going to college and was wondering is this all there is?  Am I going to be spending the rest of my life trying to get the beautiful sexy wife, accumulate the most stuff, so that I can make my life the biggest party that I can?  Is this really the meaning of life?  Or is there something that I’m seeing in Jesus, something about his self-giving, self-sacrificing love that points to the fact that real life, the good life is found somewhere in a completely different direction?

All these questions came to head on the evening of April 16^th, 1987.   One of my good friends Gregg Gambel and I had gone to a party together.  I had ridden with him and I put my keys in his glove compartment (these were the days of skin tight levi’s and your keys looked pretty stupid sticking out of your pocket).  At the party there were a bunch of kids from another school and my girlfriend was there too.  I was a pretty horrible boyfriend during those day’s, it was hard to find space for anyone other than my ego, so we were constantly fighting. 

We had a talk the day before about how we felt our relationship was to physical and we were going to try to figure out how to be friends on top of being boyfriend and girlfriend.  Anyway we arrive at this party and I come up to her to say hi and she did not give me the greeting that I felt like I deserved (you know fawning, gushing, pseudo-worship) and so I start churning up the party so all the attention can center around me.  I get together a group of people and we start playing the drinking game quarters and before long I’m fairly drunk.  I look over at my girlfriend and she is talking with this guy I can’t stand.  I start thinking how much I’d like to punch him; I decide to take a walk instead.   Frankie, my good buddy, lives a few streets over so I decide to walk to his house.  It takes me about an hour to find my way two streets over.  When I get to Frankie’s I ask if he will take me home.  He tells me he can’t because he’s sick, so I start trying to find my way back to the party. 

During this walk I begin to talk with God.  I’m telling him how empty I am.  I tell him what a mess I’ve made out of my life.  I finally make it back to the house where the party was, but when I get there everyone is gone.  The party has moved locations and my buddy that I had come to the party with is gone as well, with my keys.  The next morning is Easter Sunday, and I’m thinking great, the one Sunday we are going to be in church and I’m going to be coming home way late, drunk off my butt.   I decide I’m going to have to walk home and I head towards the exit of the neighborhood.  All this time I’m talking with God asking him if there is a better way to do life.  Finally I just sit down on the sidewalk and I make a bargain with God.  I say, “God if you will get me out of this mess, I will give my life to you hook line and sinker.” 

No sooner does this prayer come out of my mouth than a friend of mine who is home from college for Easter weekend drives by and sees me sitting on the side walk.  He stops and says, “Jeff, what are you doing sitting on that sidewalk?”  I say, “I’m drunk and lost, will you take me home?”  He says sure. 

I get in his car and we begin to drive to my home.  He has to stop and get gas, and while he is getting gas I see my buddy that I came to the party with in the turn lane that is next to the gas station.  I hang out the window and wave my arms and yell.  Gregg sees me, drives over, I hop in his car, get my keys, arrive home and go to my room no questions asked. 

The next morning we are sitting in church.  Our pastor is preaching on the power of the resurrection and God’s Spirit begins to speak to me.  He says, “I upheld my end of the bargain; Jeff, are you going to uphold yours?”  I begin to think, that is going to mean some dramatic changes.  I will have to change my lifestyle, it might mean my friendships will have to change, what will this mean for me and my girlfriend?  Then I start to think it all could have just been a series of coincidences.  I need to be reasonable.  Then I hear God speak again, he says this is your opportunity Jeff, if you don’t move now it won’t come around again for a long time.  At that moment I came to realize that the God I had always thought was impersonal and distant was as close as some drunk kids prayer in the back of a neighborhood.

So right there in that moment, I surrender my heart to Jesus.

Many thought that was just a phase; that in a few months I’d grow out of this Jesus thing.  But 25 years later I know it was the best decision I’ve ever made.  Now, I understand that any choice I’ve made to be faithful to Jesus has been a good one and any choice I’ve made to do life my own way has been a bad one.

I guess Granny’s prayers were packing some power.