“How has your life changed since becoming a Christian?”
Look, you may have noticed I tend to have a lot to say. Not so, here. I was laughably unprepared to answer to this question, posed by my pastor one morning over breakfast. I just hadn’t considered it. I was forced to unpack as I went, talking through changes I hadn’t really payed any attention to before.
Some testimonies include deeply emotional, spiritual, even miraculous moments that leave the individual with no doubt whatsoever of God’s presence in their life. The fact is, that was not what happened with me. While I’ve had those experiences, the day I decided to follow Christ was not one of them. Nor can I pin down a time when everything just sort of fell into place. My walk was sluggish at first, sitting in idle for a couple of years before someone reached down and slammed it into gear.
Still, the changes are there to see. I became a better father, a better husband, a better leader, and a better person. This is not my observation, but that of friends, of family, of co-workers. I can’t blame it on maturity, either. Remember, I had no reason to change. I thought I was doing a pretty good job already! Nor do I think this happened simply because the Bible changed my perspective. I am convinced that God worked in my life, and the results are evident.
I became more patient and less quick-tempered.
I lived much of my life with two gears: fast and get-out-of-my-way. I was often intolerant of people who I thought were wasting my time, and prone to dismiss someone entirely if they didn’t meet my expectations. I was quick to judge or confront people for things that I could have easily ignored and walked away from. The result of all that was a lot of unhealthy frustration that has mostly disappeared. I’ve still got work to do; I’m not even close to perfect, but I am so much better than I was.
I became more focused.
Look, I have a ten second attention span at the best of times. A virtually endless line of random thoughts lurk in the shadows, ready to interrupt me mid-conversation and ensure I never stay on topic. I’m a dabbler in many hobbies. The king of beginning things and forgetting about them – a flaw I am not entirely free of, to be clear. I’ve never been studious; even had I not dropped out of high school, I would not have gone to college. The odds of me studying a subject I have no interest in is roughly equivalent to your chances of wrestling a baboon into submission. Not impossible, but you’d better be prepared for a ride.
Since coming to Christ, and certainly since getting my feet underneath me and figuring out what to do with that faith, I have become laser focused. It’s like all the white noise has been filtered out. No more stray voltage. My eyes are fully fixed on the Kingdom and what I have to do here to further it. I feel confident that nobody who knew me five years ago saw that coming. I certainly didn’t.
I became less anxious.
I think it’s safe to say that I’ve never had great coping mechanisms. I drank too much, I partied too often, I disappeared in video games for weeks (or months, when I was younger) at a time. I wouldn’t have been able to tell you why then, but I’m certain now the reason was always anxiety. No more. Do I occasionally worry about things? Of course! But the direction and depth of that anxiety is not even comparable. The peace I feel now is inexplicable when compared with the previous decades of my life. This alone would be enough to convince me, but it isn’t even the most profound change.
I stopped fighting with alcohol.
While I would stop short of calling myself an alcoholic, the truth is that I danced around it for many, many years. My unhealthy relationship with booze started in my teens and didn’t even slow down until my thirties. Even in the first couple of years after I called myself a Christian, when I had what I now believe was a dead faith, I was drinking more than I should.
I always said I didn’t have a problem not drinking, only with stopping once I started. Not alcoholism, just bad coping habits, and don’t we all have those? And maybe that was true. Maybe it wasn’t an addiction. The fruit was the same, though. There were years of my life where I spent more Saturdays hung over than not. I caused my family and my friends a lot of concern – even though I was never mean or violent, or prone to getting myself in real trouble, I was still an idiot. I will also say that every single truly bad decision I can recall making has been fueled by alcohol. I tried for years to stop, with very little success.
What changed? You tell me. I can’t explain it. I don’t even know when it happened. I just realized at some point that what I had been doing was not compatible with my faith, and that God was calling me to be something completely different. And I stopped. Not perfectly, not instantly. There were times, especially in the beginning, when a drink with friends would start to get out of hand. But each time I was able to see it and rein it in, and that is just not something that would have happened before.
I can’t even say it was some grueling battle. I didn’t have to bury it deep, or develop some hard-line position with alcohol. I’ve got no moral qualms with it in moderation. I wouldn’t feel guilty if I had a glass of wine with my wife, or a beer if I was out to dinner. But that old dragon I fought for decades? It seems well and truly slain. I just don’t feel any desire for it, and I firmly attribute that victory to God.
I started seeing the world in color.
For as long as I can remember, I avoided feelings. The why doesn’t really matter, nor can I really pin it down anyway. At some point, though, it resulted in me becoming absolutely sure that nobody cared about me. I know there were people in my life that did, but there it was anyway. The iron-clad certainty that there would never be anyone that loved me. Not truly. Not anyone that didn’t have to. I became extremely self-conscious.
I buried it in booze, in comedy, in sarcasm, even anger. I found refuge in making others laugh, mostly because I didn’t want anyone else to know how hard I was trying to feel anything at all. Many of my relationships were superficial. Much of my character was a façade. My driving factor was being loved, not being kind. I was funny so that people might like me, and I was kind so that someone might love me. I did that for so long, I forgot I was doing it. I didn’t even realize my entire world had turned grey.
I don’t mean to be dark, and I don’t want to sound like I was some sort of sociopath. I had friends, and I loved them. I loved my wife, of course. I loved my children. But the heart that I loved them with was beating in a world that more closely resembled a black and white still than a color picture.
Jesus changed that. He pulled the film from my eyes and gave me a world that is more beautiful than I ever imagined. I feel, like I have never felt before. Rather than existing and hoping for some fleeting moment of satisfaction, I am so full of joy that it takes my breath away sometimes. A sunset can stop me in my tracks. The right song can leave me smiling for hours. I look at my wife and truly cannot imagine being without her. I look at my children, and I want to live forever just to see them laugh a few more times. I look at the world, at the people, and I understand why God cares. Why He would give us just a little more time to show them exactly what we’ve found.
And so, if you ask what Christ has done for me, it is this. This, more than anything else, is how I know that God has given me new life. It is not something I can ever explain. Not fully. It is not something that anyone can ever take, either. I am more than convinced, and that is enough for me.
