My Testimony

I'm being considered as a new Deacon at church. As I haven't been ordained, I have to attend an "ordination committee" meeting, at which I am supposed to present my testimony. While it's not earth-shattering, it was at least an interesting and somewhat cathartic experience. As religious topics are fair game here I've transcribed it below, if anyone would care to read it.

My testimony is not a riveting tale of triumph over adversity or an account of the conquering of insurmountable odds. I would opine that my life has not been nearly as challenging as the lives of most people. I have been extraordinarily blessed; my family is a very close-knit group of caring individuals whose influence has taught me how to love and respect others. In college I was fortunate enough to meet and marry my wife Sarah, one of the people to whom a great deal of credit must to with regard to my evolution as a Christ-follower. Having been raised in the Methodist church and baptized as a child, I have always believed in God and in His son Jesus. I think the most significant way in which God has changed my life is in how he has shifted one of the most central parts of my personality.

I have always been a left-brained person, with a bias toward scientific and technical reasoning. One of the great struggles I had with God and The Bible was the lack of substantive proof of some of the miraculous workings described therein. It was always very difficult for me to believe in something to which I could not apply the scientific method and reproduce the results. Needless to say this caused me to seriously doubt the veracity of such events as the virgin birth, the parting of the Red Sea, the raising of Lazarus from the dead, and the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand. Trying to exercise my logical mind, I recall at around the age of eight asking Reverend Jim Parks of Normandy United Methodist Church that if Hell was bad, and bad people go to Hell, wouldn’t they like Hell because it was bad? While I don’t recall his exact response, it seemed to satisfy my curiosity while providing an adequate explanation. He helped me understand that it wasn’t sufficient to just label Hell as “bad”, and that one of the worst aspects of Hell was the separation from God experienced by those that suffer there.

Many people that have known me for a long time would typically separate my life into two sections: “B.S., or “Before Sarah”, and “A.S”, or “After Sarah”. After Sarah and I started dating, I was brought into a family that practiced religion and Bible study much more diligently than I ever had before. As I began to really start to study God’s Word, I began to realize (perhaps also due to the fact that I was getting older) that not only am I not required to be able to understand everything that God does, but it is arrogant for me to even think I could understand it all. A scientific inspiration of mine, Richard Feynman, once wrote a famous phrase on the chalkboard he used – “What I cannot create, I do not understand.” For years, this was my credo. I soon discovered, however, than there are many things beyond my understanding, but there is nothing that is beyond God’s.

Another area in which I have grown spiritually is in the area of faith. With the birth of my daughter Hadley, as a father I have a much more heightened sense of the sacrifice that Jesus made to forgive my sin. I can start to better understand the love that God has for each and every person, and struggle daily to see others in the same light as I do my little girl. I also realize my infancy in the area of faith, especially when compared to that of Abraham.

I have also experienced positive change in my business life as well. For a long time I have felt led to venture out and use the gifts with which I have been blessed in a way that would glorify His name and provide a Christian example of how a business can operate. Through a tremendous amount of prayer, the support of my family and friends, and by acting on a little faith, I have been able to begin that process. While this change came at a very volatile time in my life, I don’t regret the decision; I knew that God was leading me somewhere, and I just needed to let go and take His hand. I am confident that the growth I have experienced has made a positive impact on my family, friends, and coworkers. I know that the example I set is more important than ever now, as I try to teach my daughter how to live a Godly life and what to expect from others that proclaim a belief in Jesus Christ as their Savior. Understanding that my level of responsibility for others has increased has only amplified my desire for growth in my spiritual maturity.

God has been at work in my life even before I realized it, and certainly in times when I didn’t deserve it. Only lately, with my family’s help, have I started to appreciate God’s intervention without needing any explanation or justification. I now thank God daily for both the peaks and the valleys, as I know I wouldn’t appreciate the former without the latter. I pray for his continued blessings on my family and church, and look forward to what the future holds.