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Let me start by saying I was raised in a Christian home, and have gone to church my entire life. Ever since I can remember I’ve known the gospel and the forgiveness that Jesus offered. Up until the end of last year I didn’t care about being spiritual. I wasn’t the one that decided to all of a sudden be spiritual and start searching for God, HE started the whole process. Early last summer HE pulled me out of an addiction. I didn’t recognize it at the time, but this was GOD working in me, to protect me from any further harm than I had already done (to myself, to my family, etc.). The thought of GOD changing me at the time never crossed my mind, so HE had to change more things in my life. He only needed to change one more thing in my life for me to think about GOD, to really investigate who GOD was, and come to grips with my life.
This change that GOD made was bringing an old crush back into my life. I got her number and thought I was doing really well, I texted her and she texted back; life was good. But GOD had other plans for me, and HIS plan was for her to stop replying to most of my texts. I was absolutely crushed when she didn’t reply to texts and was on cloud 9 when she did reply. My whole mood for the day/couple of days was based on if she had replied or not. I’m not the brightest light on the planet, and it took me a while to put two and two together. It came to me one day and it hit me…”Andrew, your living for a girl right now”! My next thought was, “Andrew, she isn’t going to get you anywhere in eternity”, and the thoughts of hell began to circle in my head. Needless to say, the thought of hell scared me to death. So what did I do? I texted her and asked her why she gave her life to Christ. She replied that she searched and searched and the only thing that filled the void was GOD. I needed to know more because I was feeling this same void, like my life was worthless. I thought “Everybody can go to school, get a job, get married, have kids, and retire….so what?” There HAS to be something more than just living. God was at work pulling the strings of my heart.
At this point I should mention that I am a complete introvert; I would rather have a conversation via email or text than in person. So my next move was to hop on the internet and see if I could get some of my questions answered. After some searching I found a site where I could ask questions about GOD. I sent them an email at 3:30 in the morning and wasn’t really expecting to hear anything back. When I woke up the next morning there was an email in my inbox, filled with the information I was looking for. This was the start of a long process of asking a TON of questions about GOD trying to figure out HIS nature. For around three months straight I sent an email every night, and received a reply every morning. The emails kept getting longer and longer as the questions became more involved and through discussing the answers new questions arose. I started staying up late some nights chatting with the person I was emailing. The chatting was very beneficial to me; I could ask a lot of questions and get them answered right away and keep asking questions. But chatting could only get me so far, and even with my introverted nature I needed to talk to somebody in person. I wasn’t close to my mom, but I texted her one night and she came to my bedroom to talk. We talked that night till around 3am, and subsequent nights till the wee hours of the morning. It was during these talks to the wee hours of the night that the facts just couldn’t be ignored, GOD had changed me and I believed in HIS son’s death on the cross and His resurrection.
It took a while for me to "accept" the fact that I was a believer. I don't know if "accept" is the right way to put it.....maybe more like completely convince myself. To me it seemed there would be a big change all of a sudden, which never happened in my life, so therefore I couldn’t be saved. But further convincing from my mom and others close to me I realized that not everyone has a conversion that could rival the spectacular nature of Paul’s conversion.
Since my conversion, my life has changed in a number of visible ways. The first and most visible way that I have changed is how open I am with people. Having lived nearly all my life in MY box it’s been quite challenging getting out and talking with people but I have made considerable progress. Another thing that has changes is my overall attitude towards life. By this I mean I care about other people way way more than I ever did before. He has also been working allowing me to “grow up” and take responsibility when things go wrong. It’s easy to point fingers, but with HIS help I have been able to take responsibility for my actions.
God has also been working in my life to show me areas of my life that need to be changed. Someday I wouldn’t mind marrying a Godly woman and God has been showing me things in my life that I need to work on right now to ever stand the chance of making that a reality.
I’ll end with this, before accepting Christ I always LOOKED happy, I smiled and laughed, but deep down, the true me was hidden. I no longer have to put on a show to the rest of the world….I AM genuinely happy, because Romans 8:18 tells us “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”
My God is good and infinitely awesome!!!
This change that GOD made was bringing an old crush back into my life. I got her number and thought I was doing really well, I texted her and she texted back; life was good. But GOD had other plans for me, and HIS plan was for her to stop replying to most of my texts. I was absolutely crushed when she didn’t reply to texts and was on cloud 9 when she did reply. My whole mood for the day/couple of days was based on if she had replied or not. I’m not the brightest light on the planet, and it took me a while to put two and two together. It came to me one day and it hit me…”Andrew, your living for a girl right now”! My next thought was, “Andrew, she isn’t going to get you anywhere in eternity”, and the thoughts of hell began to circle in my head. Needless to say, the thought of hell scared me to death. So what did I do? I texted her and asked her why she gave her life to Christ. She replied that she searched and searched and the only thing that filled the void was GOD. I needed to know more because I was feeling this same void, like my life was worthless. I thought “Everybody can go to school, get a job, get married, have kids, and retire….so what?” There HAS to be something more than just living. God was at work pulling the strings of my heart.
At this point I should mention that I am a complete introvert; I would rather have a conversation via email or text than in person. So my next move was to hop on the internet and see if I could get some of my questions answered. After some searching I found a site where I could ask questions about GOD. I sent them an email at 3:30 in the morning and wasn’t really expecting to hear anything back. When I woke up the next morning there was an email in my inbox, filled with the information I was looking for. This was the start of a long process of asking a TON of questions about GOD trying to figure out HIS nature. For around three months straight I sent an email every night, and received a reply every morning. The emails kept getting longer and longer as the questions became more involved and through discussing the answers new questions arose. I started staying up late some nights chatting with the person I was emailing. The chatting was very beneficial to me; I could ask a lot of questions and get them answered right away and keep asking questions. But chatting could only get me so far, and even with my introverted nature I needed to talk to somebody in person. I wasn’t close to my mom, but I texted her one night and she came to my bedroom to talk. We talked that night till around 3am, and subsequent nights till the wee hours of the morning. It was during these talks to the wee hours of the night that the facts just couldn’t be ignored, GOD had changed me and I believed in HIS son’s death on the cross and His resurrection.
It took a while for me to "accept" the fact that I was a believer. I don't know if "accept" is the right way to put it.....maybe more like completely convince myself. To me it seemed there would be a big change all of a sudden, which never happened in my life, so therefore I couldn’t be saved. But further convincing from my mom and others close to me I realized that not everyone has a conversion that could rival the spectacular nature of Paul’s conversion.
Since my conversion, my life has changed in a number of visible ways. The first and most visible way that I have changed is how open I am with people. Having lived nearly all my life in MY box it’s been quite challenging getting out and talking with people but I have made considerable progress. Another thing that has changes is my overall attitude towards life. By this I mean I care about other people way way more than I ever did before. He has also been working allowing me to “grow up” and take responsibility when things go wrong. It’s easy to point fingers, but with HIS help I have been able to take responsibility for my actions.
God has also been working in my life to show me areas of my life that need to be changed. Someday I wouldn’t mind marrying a Godly woman and God has been showing me things in my life that I need to work on right now to ever stand the chance of making that a reality.
I’ll end with this, before accepting Christ I always LOOKED happy, I smiled and laughed, but deep down, the true me was hidden. I no longer have to put on a show to the rest of the world….I AM genuinely happy, because Romans 8:18 tells us “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”
My God is good and infinitely awesome!!!
