Thomas’s Testimony

I was born into a Christian family and was exposed to Christianity since birth. Growing up with great examples of a Christian life, it made logical sense to me to become a Christian from a young age. So, when I was two I asked my mother what I had to do to receive Jesus into my life too. She taught me how to say the prayer to ask Jesus into my heart and I believe that He has been there ever since. Christ has been my motivating factor throughout my whole life and He was constantly the one I sought when I was a child. During this time, I really had the delight of the Lord in my heart. As I continued to get older, though, the worries of the world began to choke out some of this delight and as I got into high school my mind started to shift as it grew from the moral law of God as I still clung fast to his grace that saved me.

After I got out of high school, I still had a love for the Lord as any Christian does. This caused me to want to go to school to learn as much as I could about God. I went to a private Christian College up in Salem, Oregon where I grew intellectually and spiritually. The problem was that my individual spiritual life and disciplines were not keeping pace with my knowledge which started to cause issues. As I learned more about how powerful God was and His demands for His people, I started to build up strongholds of how unworthy I am. During these times I still had powerful moments of knowing that the Holy Spirit was with me and Christ was guiding my life but habits that I learned in high school were taking stronger root in my life. I did not realize these strongholds in my life as the enemy hid them and helped to cultivate them. As I went into my senior year at the university I did not realize how much these issues would stick with me.

After College, I met my wife who has been a constant light in my life sent from God to help me during these times. As I left college I was unwittingly sinking deeper into my own sin and issues that were still unresolved during this time. As my wife and I dated and got engaged, though, I found something that was missing in my life for a while: a steady church in which to learn and to grow. This church helped to bandage issues in my life but the underlying feelings of failure and that God did not really like me were growing stronger. When my wife and I moved across town and stopped going to the church, these issues started to grow exponentially and caused me to think close to my 30^th year of life that I was unworthy of God and the gift that Christ gave to me on the cross.           

So what changed from that point which I would count as the darkest point until now? The same thing that changes in every believer’s life when they get saved or when we come to a new realization of just how infinitely merciful God is. He allowed revival to come into my life and allowed me to see what it looked like in the life of young adults. My wife and I went to a camp up in Michigan when I was 30 and the Holy Spirit used me to start a revival and open up the floodgates for barriers to come down. I no longer felt isolated and cut off from God. I felt the truth that Jesus not only saved me from my past sins but is constantly saving me from my present trouble and the sins that might happen in the future. I finally understood what it meant to grow in Christ since I was a child, and a new way forward was made by Father God for me to walk with Him more completely. I know now that our sin causes us to become isolated and that isolation leads to more sin and this causes us to not seek God as we should and lay down our lives at His throne. I know now that I want to dedicate the rest of my life to the Body of Christ and to disciple people who might be struggling as I once did. Jesus is there to forgive us for our sins as Christians as much as He is before we are saved. I want people to know what it means to be loved by the living God.