Before you read this, understand that this is my personal testimony. I am sharing what happened to me, what the Lord taught me, and how He changed my life. I am not asking anyone to agree with me simply because I say something happened. Read the Scriptures, examine what I share, and test everything against the Word of God. Some of what I share may challenge the way you have been taught, but I ask that you approach it with an open heart and childlike faith.
This is my testimony of how the Lord pursued me, broke my pride, taught me to surrender, and began changing my life.
My life before October 15, 2023
I grew up in and out of church. I had family and friends whom I cherished, and around the age of eighteen, I felt a call to preach. But I resisted. I questioned how other people could tell me what to do when they had never walked in my shoes.
Instead of surrendering to the Lord, I ran away from Him and joined the Army.
I entered Active Duty in 2015 as an infantry recruit and graduated as an 11B infantryman that December. I served at several installations, including Fort Benning, Fort Stewart, Fort Lewis, and Fort Drum, before becoming an Army recruiter. I served as a rifleman, SAW gunner, Stryker gunner, Javelin team member, fireteam leader, squad leader, headquarters platoon sergeant, and recruiter. I traveled to thirteen countries and deployed to a combat zone from April to December 2022.
I learned discipline, responsibility, and how to lead. But underneath all of that, I carried years of pain.
I began swearing, drinking, watching pornography, fighting, and allowing pride, anger, fear, and insecurity to grow in me. I had spent years dealing with abuse and trauma, and I hid much of my shame and sin from everyone around me.
I married young, at twenty-one. That marriage became abusive and involved infidelity and deep betrayal. I stayed longer than I should have because I thought marriage meant enduring everything, no matter what happened. Eventually, the marriage ended.
Later, I met a woman who had a daughter. I fell in love with being a husband and father. I loved the laughter, the memories, the silliness, and the ordinary moments of family life. During deployment, I called home whenever I was not on patrol, even when it meant getting only about four hours of sleep.
I wanted to move mountains for them. I wanted to give them a good life.
But I had never truly dealt with the pain from my first marriage. After deployment, problems grew in my second marriage. I became consumed by hurt, doubt, anger, and confusion. I would go silent and then have outbursts of questions. I tried to keep my family together, but I did not know how to deal with what was happening inside me.
I eventually gave up drinking for a time, then started again. I tried to make things better through love notes, dates, shopping trips, and family events, but things continued to fall apart. In July 2023, while my wife was pregnant, she left.
My life came crashing down.
I was full of anger and pain. I stopped caring about right and wrong in the way I should have. I knew God existed, but I wanted to fight the world because of what I had suffered. I wanted to do what I wanted, and I thought I had earned the right to live however I pleased.
But even in that condition, the Lord had not finished pursuing me.
The Lord kept drawing me toward Him
One day, I felt an inward prompting to go to church. I visited a Catholic church, even though I felt spiritually dead and did not know what I was doing.
Later, I saw an advertisement for a Methodist church. The people there showed me genuine kindness and love. Instead of receiving that kindness peacefully, I felt deeply disturbed. I could not understand why their love affected me so strongly.
The pastor spoke about doubt from James 1:6–8. I wanted to choose myself and decide what was right for my life. I did not want anyone telling me what to do.
I later met someone who practiced witchcraft. I did not take it seriously at first, but she told me a Light was pursuing me and that I would have to make a decision. Fear came over me, and I left.
That Sunday, I went to a Baptist church. As I entered, I felt anger and resistance. The pastor spoke about James 1:6–8 and Matthew 6:24:
«“No man can serve two masters.”»
I became furious inside. I felt as though someone had struck my soul. I wanted to fight against whatever was confronting me. I was not angry at the pastor or the people. I was resisting the One whose words were reaching me through the message.
I kept returning to that church on Wednesdays and Sundays. Each time, I felt spiritually exhausted. My pride would not let me simply walk away and leave the matter alone. I kept returning to resist what I was hearing.
Then came October 15, 2023.
October 15, 2023 — “Submit to Me”
I was sitting in church when Romans 1:28–32 was read. The passage described unrighteousness, wickedness, pride, deceit, disobedience, and other sins. As I listened, I felt confronted by the condition of my own heart.
Then I heard these words inwardly:
“Submit to Me.”
The presence and conviction were so overwhelming that I fell to the ground. In my heart and mind, I cried:
“I YIELD!”
I remained there for what felt like an eternity, around ten minutes. Then I experienced what felt like chains being cut away from me. I felt free, lighter than air. Something had changed in my heart.
In that moment, I surrendered my life, my past, my future, my sin, my desires, and my control.
I did not surrender like a soldier surrendering to an enemy. I surrendered like someone who finally trusts the person who loves him. I had spent years fighting, and I finally stopped fighting the Lord.
Not even a week later, I was about to return to sin. I heard the words, “You’ll lose Tyler,” and stopped. Later that night, I cried out, “I listened to You. Show Yourself to me.”
I then experienced what felt like fire entering the room and my soul. I felt a love so pure and overwhelming that I began to cry. It began a process of confronting and removing sin from my life.
John 1:29 says:
«“Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”»
That verse became deeply meaningful to me. Jesus did not come merely to tell people that they were sinners. He came to save people from their sins.
I later read Romans 10 and understood my surrender more clearly. I had stopped trying to establish my own righteousness and had placed my trust in Christ.
Deuteronomy 6:4–7 teaches us to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, and might, and to keep His words in our hearts and teach them diligently. Matthew 22:37–40 teaches that we are to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and love our neighbor as ourselves.
The Lord began teaching me that surrender was not simply an emotional moment. It meant giving Him my whole life and learning to love Him through how I lived.
What the Lord began changing in me
Since October 15, 2023, I have experienced changes that I could not produce by simply telling myself to be a better person.
The Lord began teaching me to forgive. He began healing the wounds I carried from abuse and betrayal. My relationship with my mother and father improved. I experienced healing from burdens connected to my trauma. I began learning how to love people I had previously hated or judged.
He taught me to examine myself rather than continually look for someone else to blame.
He also began teaching me through Matthew 5, 6, and 7—the Sermon on the Mount. Those chapters became a way of examining my heart, my conduct, my relationships, my prayers, and my obedience.
This is what I began learning.
- Forgiveness: releasing the wrong without pretending it never happened
The Lord taught me that forgiveness is not pretending abuse never happened. It is not calling evil good, excusing someone’s actions, or returning to a dangerous situation.
I had been abused and betrayed in my first marriage. I carried those memories and the anger that came with them.
To begin forgiving, I had to admit what had happened. I had to stop denying the facts, name the wrongs honestly, and then release the hatred I had been carrying.
I began bringing those memories before the Lord and choosing to let go of the desire to punish the people who had hurt me.
I learned that I could acknowledge the truth and still forgive. I could maintain appropriate boundaries without feeding hatred in my heart. Reconciliation and restored trust are not always possible or safe, but forgiveness was something I needed to work through before God.
The Lord also confronted me with the command that we must forgive others if we want to receive forgiveness ourselves. Matthew 6:14–15 makes that warning clear.
I began understanding forgiveness as releasing the debt from my heart rather than carrying it around every day.
- The wilderness: separating myself to seek the Lord
The Lord taught me about seasons of separation. In Scripture, the Hebrews, Moses, the prophets, Jesus, and His disciples all experienced times of wilderness, testing, preparation, or solitude.
In December 2023, I entered a period of separation. I stepped away from social media and television, focused on Scripture and Christian music, and spent time in prayer. I also practiced fasting and tried to remove distractions that kept pulling my attention away from God.
The lesson was not that a person can purchase God's attention through fasting or earn salvation through hardship. It was that I needed to quiet the noise around me and face what was happening in my own heart.
I learned to seek the Lord, examine my desires, and stop feeding the things that were drawing me back into sin.
If someone falls back into sin, I learned the importance of turning back to God, removing the influences that are feeding the sin, and returning to obedience rather than giving up.
A period of separation should bring a person closer to God, not become a way to boast about spiritual achievement.
- Being born again: surrendering the person I used to be
I began to understand being born again as more than adopting a religious label.
It meant surrendering the identity I had built around pride, anger, sin, pain, status, and the need to control everything. It meant placing my relationship with God above my own desires and allowing Him to reshape how I lived.
That did not mean I stopped loving my family or neglecting my responsibilities. It meant those things could no longer take God's place in my heart.
I had to learn to let go of the person I had been and follow Christ as He changed me.
I also learned that this requires continuing to walk with Him. I cannot point to one experience and use it as an excuse to stop examining myself.
- “Call Him Father”
In December 2023, I was praying in my bedroom with the lights mostly off. I was fasting and opening my heart to the Lord.
I heard the words inwardly:
“Be still, know I am God.”
As I prayed, I experienced what felt like a presence in the room. I could not see a person with my physical eyes, but I sensed movement and a presence near the foot of my bed.
Then I heard:
“Call Him Father.”
I quietly said, “Father?”
I was twenty-six years old, but in that moment I felt like a little child speaking to his father. I felt an overwhelming calmness, love, and compassion. I experienced it as the love of a father who had stopped what he was doing to look at his young son.
All I could say was:
“Thank You for loving me in all that You have done for me.”
I cried with joy. I felt loved and cared for in a way that was difficult to put into words.
That experience taught me to approach God with humility and trust rather than only fear, anger, or the desire to control everything. I began learning what it meant to come to Him as a child comes to a loving father.
- Why did the Lord pursue me?
Months after my conversion, I asked the Lord why He had pursued me when I was fighting Him.
I remembered the person I had been. I had argued with people, enjoyed conflict, judged others, and sometimes wanted to cause trouble simply because I wanted to fight. I could be harsh toward people beneath me and full of resentment toward those around me.
But I also remembered coming home to an empty house after my family was gone.
I had a photograph of my former wife and me on our wedding day by a lake in Washington. I would turn a rocking chair toward the photograph and talk as though she were there. I would tell her about my day, share jokes, and tell her how beautiful she was and how much I missed her.
I would watch videos of my stepdaughter, who was four years old the last time I saw her. I remembered the way she would run down the hallway calling, “Daddy, daddy, daddy,” often carrying a tablet to show me something.
I missed those ordinary moments more than I can describe.
I prayed for my former wife even while I was hurting. I asked God to protect her, to let her feel loved and cherished, and to keep her from harm. I prayed that my stepdaughter would know love, joy, and happiness, even if I could not be there to raise her.
I prayed for them even during a time when I was struggling with anger toward the world.
When I later reflected on these memories, I experienced what felt like the Lord showing me that He had seen those moments. The words that came to me were about loving someone who had hurt me deeply, continuing to wish them well, and showing love even when that love was not returned.
The message I took from that experience was that the Lord had seen the love I still carried, even when so much of my life had become angry and broken.
It reminded me of the love Christ shows people. He did not wait for me to become perfect before calling me to Him. He confronted my sin, called me to surrender, and began changing me.
- Faith is trust that produces action
I learned to think of faith as trust.
A child who trusts a loving parent acts on that trust. My stepdaughter believed I could help her, and she would respond with joy when I asked her to do something.
I began asking myself whether I trusted God with that same childlike confidence.
If I say I love Christ but refuse to follow what He teaches, what does my love look like in practice?
Faith should produce action. If I trust Him, I should want to obey Him, show love to others, forgive, tell the truth, and turn away from sin.
This does not mean I earn God's love by doing good works. It means that genuine trust changes how I live.
When Christ teaches me to love someone, I want to do it because I love Him.
- Sin is an infection, and Christ is the One who takes it away
The Lord taught me to stop treating sin as something I had to accept as a permanent part of myself.
I began thinking of sin like an infection or cancer that spreads if it is continually fed. It damages the heart, the mind, relationships, and our ability to live in truth.
Christ is the One I turned to for cleansing and freedom.
I had been a slave to habits and desires, including nicotine, drinking, lust, pride, anger, and other things I had allowed to control me. I had spent years believing that I would simply have to live with the person I had become.
But the Lord confronted that way of thinking.
John 1:29 says Christ takes away the sin of the world. The lesson I took from this was to bring my sin into the light, confess it, turn away from it, and trust Christ to deliver me rather than make peace with it.
When temptation comes, I must choose whether to entertain it or turn away. I cannot use my past, my trauma, my desires, or other people’s behavior as an excuse to keep doing wrong.
I also learned that I must be patient with people who are struggling. I can testify about the freedom I have experienced without pretending that I am better than everyone else.
- Examine yourself before correcting someone else
Jesus warned against hypocrisy and taught us to examine the beam in our own eye before trying to remove the speck from someone else's eye (Matthew 7:1–5).
The Lord taught me that if I am knowingly holding on to a sin, I should not stand over another person in pride and act as though I am righteous.
For example, someone who is feeding lust through pornography or sexual sin should first confront that sin in their own life rather than condemning another person for the same behavior.
This applies to every sin, not only sexual sin.
The point is not that we should never warn anyone about wrongdoing. It is that correction must begin with humility, honesty, repentance, and a willingness to live by the same truth we are speaking.
I learned that I must not use Scripture as a weapon against others while refusing to let it correct me.
Jesus opposed hypocrisy, arrogance, pride, and traditions that replaced God's truth. I want to be corrected by His words before I try to correct someone else.
- Understanding temptation
I began learning to recognize temptation in different ways.
Temptation through outside pressure: Sometimes temptation seems to come from outside us, through people, situations, or things such as social media. I learned to recognize when an influence is pushing me toward something I know is wrong and to remove myself from it.
Temptation through the mind and eyes: A thought may enter the mind, but I do not have to keep entertaining it. If I see something I desire and continue dwelling on it, that thought can begin to occupy my heart and influence my actions. I learned to turn my attention away rather than deliberately feed the thought.
Temptation arising from the heart: Sometimes a desire feels powerful and overwhelming. Simply trying to bury it or pretend it is not there does not necessarily resolve it. I learned to open my heart to the Lord, tell Him honestly what I was experiencing, surrender the desire, and ask for help.
James 4:6–7 teaches:
«“God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”»
The order matters: submit to God, humble yourself, and resist evil.
I learned that I do not have to rely on my own strength alone.
“Your weakness is My greatest strength”
In December 2023, I was tempted to sleep with someone. I had already removed many temptations from my life, but this experience felt like an outside pressure pushing against me.
I imagined myself holding up a shield and resisting. I was becoming tired from trying to defend myself through sheer determination.
Then words appeared in my mind:
“Your weakness is My greatest strength.”
I stopped relying on my own pride. In my heart, I said that I did not have the strength to overcome this by myself and that I trusted the Lord to do what He wanted with me.
I experienced it as if I had lowered my own shield and someone stronger had stepped in front of me to defend me.
The lesson was not to give up resisting sin. It was to stop trusting in my pride and self-sufficiency. I needed to submit to God and rely on His strength rather than believing that everything depended on my own willpower.
I learned to pray honestly, “Lord, I need Your help. I surrender this desire to You.”
- What repentance means to me
Repentance is not merely feeling bad after doing something wrong.
When I hurt someone I love, the truth of what I have done should matter to me. I must admit the wrong, understand why it was wrong, feel sorrow for it, and turn away from repeating it.
I began applying that to my relationship with God.
I must admit my sin honestly before Him. I must stop making excuses. I must ask Him to forgive me and choose to forsake what I did.
Repentance is a change of heart that leads to a change in direction.
Christ died so that our sins could be forgiven and cleansed, and so that we could know the Father. I do not want to treat His mercy as permission to continue doing what I know is wrong.
If I truly love Him, I should want to stop hurting Him through my choices.
- How I understand salvation by grace
I use this picture to explain what I learned.
Imagine having a knife stuck in your side, and the knife is labeled with the sin that has been controlling you. You cannot simply pretend it is not there. You need someone who can remove it.
I learned to come to Christ believing that He can save me from my sins, not merely forgive me while leaving me content to remain enslaved to them.
I had to trust Him enough to surrender the thing I was holding on to.
I did not deserve His love. Yet I experienced His mercy as something that called me to leave my old life behind.
Grace is not a reason to keep returning to the same sin. It is a reason to come to Him, receive mercy, and follow Him.
I often think of someone who loves you deeply and says, in effect, “I know your past, but do not keep living the way you lived before.”
That is how I came to understand the mercy I received. The Lord did not tell me that my past was good. He called me out of it.
- The Holy Spirit and the fruit of a changed life
I began understanding the Holy Spirit through the words of Christ in John 14:15–17, 21, and 23.
Jesus connects love for Him with keeping His commandments and speaks of the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, whom the Father sends.
The lessons I took from these passages were:
- Love for Christ should lead to obedience.
- The Holy Spirit helps us walk in obedience.
- Christ reveals Himself to those who love Him and keep His words.
- We should ask the Father for His Spirit and remain attentive to His teaching.
I came to understand the Holy Spirit as God's presence working in a person, teaching, correcting, transforming, and empowering them to walk in His light.
As I read the Bible, passages that I had previously overlooked began to challenge me in a new way. I began to see how the Old and New Testaments connected and how the Lord's words called me to change.
Galatians 5:22–23 describes the fruit of the Spirit:
- Love
- Joy
- Peace
- Patience
- Kindness
- Goodness
- Faithfulness
- Gentleness
- Self-control
These are not just words to memorize. They are qualities I must allow the Lord to develop in my life.
A powerful experience alone is not the whole measure of a person's walk with God. I must also examine the fruit being produced in my conduct, my relationships, and my choices.
- Believing and becoming a disciple
The Lord challenged me to think seriously about what it means to follow Christ.
A disciple counts the cost. A disciple loves Christ above all, carries the cross, and follows Him wholeheartedly.
For me, that meant surrendering the things I had placed above God: my pride, my need for control, my sinful habits, my identity as a man who always had to fight, and my desire to decide for myself what was right.
I learned that following Christ means taking His commandments and the Sermon on the Mount seriously.
It also means loving people, helping those in need, and using whatever gifts God gives for good rather than for personal pride.
Jesus told His disciples to preach the kingdom, heal the sick, cleanse lepers, and freely give what they had freely received (Matthew 10:7–8). I take that as a reminder that what God gives should not be used to glorify ourselves or exploit other people.
I learned to ask not only, “Do I call myself a Christian?” but also, “Am I actually following what Jesus taught?”
- The Father and the Son
One of the central lessons in my testimony is that the God revealed in the Old Testament and Jesus Christ cannot be treated as though they are opposed to one another.
I came to see the Son as revealing the Father's character and living out His will.
The Son honored the Father, and I am called to honor the Son by following His example.
Jesus taught the commandments of God, demonstrated love, confronted hypocrisy, showed mercy, and called people to repentance. His life showed me what obedience and love look like in practice.
I also began studying the names used in Scripture. The Hebrew name commonly rendered Yeshua is associated with the meaning “Yahweh saves.” The name Jesus came through the Greek and Latin forms before reaching English.
For me, the important lesson was not merely learning names. It was learning to know the One to whom Scripture points and to follow His teachings.
I began asking how the Son's words connected with what the Father had already spoken, rather than treating the Scriptures as disconnected pieces.
- The feasts and their meaning in my walk with Christ
I began studying the appointed feasts in Leviticus 23 and how they relate to the story of Scripture and the work of Christ.
Passover: In the story of Moses, the Hebrews were delivered from bondage. I connected this with Christ as the Lamb of God, who delivers people from sin and death (John 1:29; 1 Corinthians 5:7). The lesson I took from Passover was deliverance: God calls people out of bondage.
Pentecost: I studied the giving of the Law and the coming of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2. I connected these passages with the promise that God's law would be written on the hearts of His people (Hebrews 10:16). The lesson was that obedience is not supposed to be merely outward; God's teaching must reach the heart.
Tabernacles: I reflected on how God dwelt among the Hebrews during their wilderness journey, guiding, teaching, correcting, and remaining with them. I connected that with John 1:14, which says the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. I also studied the possibility of a connection between the feast and Christ's birth.
What moved me was the theme of God dwelling with His people. He did not simply give instructions from a distance. He led, taught, corrected, and showed them His ways.
I wanted to learn to walk with Him in that same closeness.
- Pride, stubbornness, and hypocrisy
Jesus repeatedly confronted pride and hypocrisy. Matthew 23 and John 8:43–47 challenged me to examine whether I was hearing God's words or resisting them because they contradicted what I wanted.
Matthew 15:6–9 warns about traditions that make the commandment of God ineffective.
I learned that religious appearance does not automatically mean a person is walking in truth. A person can know religious language, attend church, and still refuse correction.
I began asking the Lord to expose pride in me: arrogance, stubbornness, dishonesty, and the desire to win arguments instead of doing what is right.
Proverbs 6:16–19 describes things the Lord hates, including:
- Haughty eyes and pride
- A lying tongue
- Hands that shed innocent blood
- A heart that devises wicked plans
- Feet that hurry toward evil
- A false witness who speaks lies
- A person who sows discord among others
These verses taught me that God cares about the condition of the heart and the actions that come from it.
I did not want to be someone who speaks about righteousness while practicing dishonesty, hatred, or pride.
- Reading Scripture with childlike faith
My daughter believed I could fix almost anything. When she asked me for help, she came with a kind of trust that I wanted to understand better.
I began thinking about approaching God and His Word with that kind of humility and willingness to learn.
Childlike faith does not mean refusing to think or asking no questions. It means coming without the pride that assumes we already know everything.
I learned to read Scripture carefully, ask questions, and let the Word correct my assumptions rather than forcing every passage to agree with what I already wanted.
I want to keep learning instead of assuming that I have everything figured out.
- Churches, denominations, and money
I have visited different churches, and I have seen people express their faith in different ways. Some emphasize love and service, some emphasize spiritual gifts, some are eager to reach others, and some are strong in standing against evil.
I began questioning why people so often define themselves first by denominational labels rather than by their devotion to Christ.
I do not want a label to prevent me from asking whether a teaching agrees with Scripture. I encourage people to examine what they are taught rather than accepting something only because a pastor, priest, or religious organization says it.
I also learned to be cautious when spiritual leaders use religion to pressure people for money or claim that people cannot be free from sin. Jesus taught His disciples, “Freely ye have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8).
I studied the biblical context of tithing and the support provided to those who served in the temple. I came to emphasize giving to people in need and giving when the Lord places someone on my heart, rather than using money to manipulate people spiritually.
The church is not merely a building. Christ's people are called to live as His body, showing His love and serving one another.
My concern is that divisions over labels and traditions can distract us from the work of becoming more like Christ. I want to seek unity in Him while still testing every teaching against Scripture.
- Prayer: speaking honestly with the Father
The Lord taught me to pray with humility and honesty.
The pattern Jesus gave in Matthew 6:9–13 became a guide for me:
Our Father in heaven: Come to God as Father, with trust and reverence.
Hallowed be Thy name: Honor Him rather than treating His name casually.
Thy kingdom come: Seek His kingdom and His purposes.
Thy will be done: Surrender your own will rather than insisting that God follow your plans.
Give us this day our daily bread: Ask for what you need, both physical provision and the nourishment of God's Word.
Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors: Confess your sins and release the wrongs others have done to you.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: Ask for protection and help to resist sin and evil.
Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory: Remember that the glory belongs to God, not to us.
I also learned that prayer is not limited to repeating words. The Lord taught me to speak honestly about my fears, grief, anger, worries, and desires.
I no longer want to bury every emotion and pretend that I am fine. I can tell the Father what I am feeling, open my heart before Him, and ask Him to guide me.
I learned to trust Him with my needs instead of allowing anxiety about food, clothing, money, or the future to control me. That does not mean ignoring responsibilities; it means bringing those responsibilities before God and taking the next faithful step.
- The commandments as promises of love
I began viewing the Ten Commandments as more than a list of restrictions. I came to see them as describing what love for God and neighbor looks like in practice.
If I love God:
- I will not put another god before Him.
- I will not worship idols or give my devotion to objects made by human hands.
- I will not take His name in vain.
- I will honor His Sabbath.
If I love my neighbor:
- I will honor my parents.
- I will not murder.
- I will not commit adultery or nurture lust.
- I will not steal.
- I will not bear false witness or lie.
- I will not covet what belongs to someone else.
I also became concerned about the ways people can attach spiritual meaning to objects, images, statues, charms, or other things and place their trust in them instead of God.
I began examining my own habits and attachments. I did not want to be controlled by addiction, possessions, pride, or desires that had taken the place of love for God.
Jesus summarized the commandments through love for God and love for neighbor (Matthew 22:37–40). I came to understand that love is not an excuse to disregard God's instructions. Love should lead me to take them seriously.
I also studied the relationship between the Law of Moses, the commandments, and the teachings of Christ. I understand Christ's commandments as upholding the Father's will, with obedience flowing from the heart rather than being merely an outward performance. I continue to examine how the Scriptures fit together.
- The Sabbath and the Lord's Day
I began observing Saturday as the Sabbath, setting aside the day for rest rather than work or business. I want the day to be restful, joyful, and centered on God, not a legalistic burden.
I also see value in gathering with other believers on Sunday for teaching, fellowship, and worship.
My emphasis is that the day should not become an excuse for pride or condemnation. I want to honor God with the time He has given me, rest from ordinary work, and make room for fellowship and His Word.
- The things I learned to reject
As the Lord began changing me, I had to examine the sins I had previously excused or hidden.
I had to confront lust, pride, arrogance, lying, anger, addiction, greed, and the desire to control everything. I learned that I could not keep feeding these things and expect to walk freely.
The Lord taught me to be especially wary of pride because it can disguise itself as strength, knowledge, religious zeal, or the need to be right.
I learned that I must not confuse stubbornness with conviction. Conviction means standing for what is true while remaining willing to be corrected. Stubbornness means refusing correction simply because I do not want to surrender.
- Learning to trust the Father
Through these experiences, I began to understand God's character differently.
I learned to approach Him as a Father who teaches, corrects, comforts, encourages, and calls His children away from what destroys them. I experienced His love as gentle but firm, patient but unwilling to call sin good.
I began learning that He wants people to experience love, joy, family, meaningful relationships, and the goodness of life without surrendering themselves to sin.
I also learned to bring my deepest burdens to Him instead of pretending they do not exist. I can be honest about grief, fear, loneliness, anger, and uncertainty.
When I cannot see the next step, I can still seek Him, read His Word, pray, and do what I know is right.
What I want others to understand
I am not sharing this because I think I am better than anyone else. I am sharing it because I know what it is like to be broken, angry, ashamed, stubborn, and convinced that I would always be the same person.
I know what it is like to hide sin. I know what it is like to carry trauma and believe that the pain will define the rest of your life.
I also know what it was like to reach the point where I stopped fighting God and surrendered.
The Lord began teaching me to forgive, to repent, to trust, to obey, and to love. He taught me to examine myself, to bring my burdens to Him, to seek His Spirit, and to take the words of Christ seriously.
I still need to walk with Him. I must keep learning, keep examining my heart, and keep returning to His Word.
If you are struggling with sin, do not simply accept it as your permanent identity. Bring it into the light. Tell God the truth. Confess what you have done, ask for His help, and turn away from what is destroying you.
If you have been hurt by others, you do not have to pretend it never happened. Seek safety, tell the truth, and bring the pain before God. Forgiveness does not require you to return to abuse or allow someone to harm you again.
If you are full of pride, ask the Lord to show you where you are resisting Him.
If you feel abandoned, speak honestly to the Father.
If you have fallen back into sin, do not use that fall as a reason to surrender to it. Turn back to Christ and seek His help.
And if you have questions about what I have written, read the Scriptures for yourself. Do not accept my words just because they are part of my testimony. Examine them carefully.
The most important lesson I learned is this:
Jesus came to save His people from their sins.
He did not call me so I could remain the person I was when He found me. He called me to surrender, to learn His ways, and to walk in the light He gives.
I spent years trying to control my own life. On October 15, 2023, I finally yielded.
I am sharing this testimony in the hope that someone else will seek the Lord, open their heart to Him, and discover that they do not have to remain bound by their past.
May the Father teach you His ways, may you follow the Son, and may your life become a testimony of the love, truth, mercy, and freedom that He brings.
Are you ready to surrender? Are you ready to let go of what is keeping you bound? Are you ready to follow Christ with your whole heart?