Intro To My Testimony
Hey so this blog post is a little different. If you have read some of my other posts you know it's either some kind of business blog post or it's an Essay about some view I have in regards to Christianity. This one will be a bit different as the current essay I am writing is taking a bit longer to complete. As I was driving the other day I was thinking about my mother and fathers testimony that they shared with my wife and I while they were visiting for thanksgiving. They were stories I had never heard or known of my parents and I am grateful that I had the chance to hear them. They had asked Krystal and I about ours and I told them basically that I didn't have any kind of cool story about how I found faith in a moment of pain or suffering. And in fact I don't even feel as though I’ve ever really had any major impactful time in my life. So as I was driving I was thinking about “how did my faith in Christ grow to what it is today?”
For many, faith is born in a dramatic moment—a sharp turn from one way of living to another. I think many of us know of someone who lost a loved one or perhaps they struggled with drugs or alcohol or lived a life far from God and then miraculously something happened and this defining moment would happen to them that would change their lives forever and lead them into a relationship with God. Those stories are incredible to hear and the transformation is often something remarkable to behold, you go into their presence and you can feel their passion for life and the road before them. Other Christians might say you can feel the holy spirit burning inside of them.
My journey has been different. I’ve always known God, My earliest memories I remember being in church and never not considering myself a Christian. I have been incredibly fortunate as I don't feel that I have ever been in a situation in my life nearly as dramatic as some that I have heard like the ones I mention above. Yes my life has been filled with highs and lows just like any other, it's not as though It's been just sunshine and rainbows. However I have been incredibly blessed to know only shallow valleys in my life.
Trust
A fun question to ask people at parties or in networking events is “if you had a superpower, what would it be?” (I would want the power of luck, which I feel as though I definitely do). As a Christian however, have you ever considered what your strength or your super power might be? Often we call these spiritual gifts and while most probably have more than one, you might find that you excel at one more than others. Perhaps its empathy, being able to connect with others and share in their feelings to help them through a tough time? Maybe it's giving, maybe its leadership, or perhaps it's something else. For me, I feel as though mine is trust, trust in God. If you read one of my essay "God is a General, Not a Choreographer" you will know that I don't believe in predestination so its not that I trust in “his plan” or that everything is supposed to work out a specific way, but rather that I trust in his promise that regardless of whatever situation I am going through, I trust he is there beside me and that I can rely on his strength to see me through to the other side.
I have always felt that way. Growing up in church you hear of Daniel being thrown into a lion's den or the furnace, or David with Goliath. Those stories of people going through hard times that were probably incredibly scary, stressful, you name it I bet they felt it, they demonstrated how those figures had such a peace about them even in the midst of those trials. The bible often doesn't go into the internal monologue that some of these people must have had during these situations. Perhaps the best we get is some of the Psalms that were written during some of David’s trials. If you stop to think about how they must have felt in those situations, I know they must have been feeling immense fear and sorrow, maybe even shame or guilt, but even in those situations one thing comes through very clearly, peace. Peace and stillness in those situations. Jesus demonstrated this very well while walking on the water during the storm or while even sleeping through the storm on a boat on another occasion. That characteristic I have always found very persuasive to me about God's presence.
As a child I was rash, I often grew angry and had quite the temper. Eventually I learned this lesson of stillness and developed this inner peace regardless of whatever situation life decides to throw at me. I don't know exactly when it happened, perhaps in my early twenties when I began training in the martial arts to pursue a career as a MMA fighter (that career choice didn’t last long after the first time I was punched in the face, although I did continue training) however I suspect it happened a lot earlier. I remember the church that I was going to as a child had a specific sermon series, I don't remember what it was titled but it was on trusting God. They handed out these yellow rubber wrist bands that simply said “The next right step” and I wore that wrist band for quite a while until it broke and they had no more. The premise of the series was that I don't need to know or see every step in the journey to begin taking it, instead I need to only see and understand the next right step and trust that when I get there, God will show me the following one. This would define how I view much of life, even to this day.
This allowed for a significant amount of peace to fill me about most situations in life. Regardless of what I was going through or what was happening to me I knew that God would reveal the next right step to me when it was time and at that time I would take it.
A Failed Startup
Take, for example, my journey with Areii, a real estate investment platform I poured years of work and over $60,000 into building. After four years I felt like it was time to stop pursuing it and that it wasn't going to work out for me, I felt the weight of failure pressing in. But God had a different plan. Just when I thought the dream was over, someone stepped in and acquired Areii. What felt like an ending turned out to be a new chapter—a reminder that God’s timing and provision are always perfect.
Throughout my entire time with Areii, it was a consistent roller coaster. Yes I had feelings of nervousness and I felt like a failure quite often but only in relation to that endeavor. Every time I would struggle I would look back on what I had accomplished in other endeavors and think back to other “hard” times in life and everything would fall into perspective. I knew God was with me and that he would make everything work out. When I wrote the blog post a while back about the lessons I learned from shutting down a funded and growing startup. A competitor reached out to me and we ended up working out an agreement for Areii to be acquired by them. It was a win/win and ultimately it has led to Areii being in better hands and a positive outcome for me.
A Collapsed Building
Then there was the commercial building project that I and a partner took on, right on the downtown square of the town that I resided in at the time. We envisioned restoring the structure to its former glory, bringing in some cool new business to the area and possibly rental units upstairs. We knew that it would take some work and was a risky play, but with my background and reputation in town the bank and city were eager to help with the project and we were able to acquire the property. We had the architects and engineers working on the plan to fix the back wall before it collapsed and destroyed the building and potentially the building one foot away from it. As happens though, before plans could even be finalized, the building collapsed. Standing in the rubble, it was hard to see anything other than loss. I was on the front page of our local newspaper and they made it out as though I was personally responsible for the destruction and the loss of a historic icon to the town (Some pretty famous bands played at the location as they were starting out, bands like Fallout Boy and a couple others). Yet, once again, God turned what seemed like a disaster into a blessing. A storm triggered an insurance payout, and the vacant lot sold at a profit. It wasn’t what I had planned, but in the end God had my back and again while I don’t believe that outcome was inevitable I do believe that through trusting in him and continuing to take the next right step, everything worked out.
Over the past decade, I’ve embarked on over 12 business ventures, pouring in hundreds of thousands of dollars. Statistically, many entrepreneurs experience significant losses, but I’ve been spared from that. I don’t attribute this to luck or even my skill—though hard work plays a role. I believe it’s the hand of God, guiding and sustaining me through lean times and prosperous seasons. Faithfully tithing, even when finances felt tight, has been a way to keep God at the center of my journey, reminding me that everything I have is ultimately His.
Even in my current startup, a family entertainment center I am working toward building and opening where I live now. I have already invested over $10,000 and I don't fully know if I will be able to pull it off. There are still a great many things to figure out and we have to raise nearly $4 Million still. If we don’t raise the capital and we don't get the project completed, that's money I will never get back. My wife and I have invested what we had left into this project because we felt that it was what we should do and that God was going to bless this opportunity. But even if he doesn't, and we don't raise the capital, and we “lose” that money, while we will be bummed, we feel peace about the situation because we felt like this was the next right step for our family.
Through all of these experiences, my relationship with God has deepened. While my faith didn’t begin with a dramatic conversion moment, it has grown through witnessing His faithfulness in the big and small challenges of life. He has shown me that His plans are always better than mine, even when they take me down paths I didn’t expect.
Faith That Shapes Everything
My journey hasn’t been about dramatic shifts or grand gestures—it’s about an ongoing, day-by-day relationship with a God who cares deeply for every detail of my life. Whether in moments of triumph or in the face of what seemed like insurmountable challenges, I’ve seen His hand at work, providing, guiding, and teaching me to trust.
This is why I believe in Christ. Not because of one pivotal moment, but because of a lifetime of moments where His love, grace, and provision have been undeniable. My story didn't have some big conversion pivot point that filled me with a new outlook on life, my faith story won't make for a great movie or an inspirational tale. There is no one larger moment in time that makes up the bedrock of my faith. Instead the foundation of my faith lies in countless stones placed by two sets of hands. God has been with me as a trusted friend and partner in this life.
Occasionally when I think about all of this I will often find myself a little concerned that at some point in my life I still may yet find myself in one of these crisis moments. After all, we know that this life is filled with troubles. I try not to worry too much about the future or what may or may not happen because often I'm wrong about the things I know for certain will happen so how could I be any more accurate about the possibilities that I imagine. But if the day comes that a crisis moment does come, I will trust God, not necessarily because I know that it will be made right or that I will get through it, but because I know that at the end of the day, this world is temporary. It doesn't really matter what happens here, financial troubles, injuries, death, they mean very little in the grand scheme of things. Troubles are temporary and this life is fleeting, my relationship with Christ is enduring and God is everlasting.
Many people with exceptional Christ stories share them in hopes that they can help others in similar situations because often they don't have role models to look towards or a figure that they can follow. While those of us with these less than outstanding christ stories often don’t share them because it's hard to define how you feel God in these everyday average situations that have all stacked together. If you are reading my testimony and you feel the same, as though you don't have some grand defining moment in your faith story, that is fine, count it as a blessing. I share mine to encourage you that a Christ story built on many small stones is just as solid a foundation as a Christ story built on one large stone. I find it easier to trust God in a wide range of situations because I have gone through so many different things in life. Different jobs, different set backs, different struggles, deaths of close friends, all sorts of stuff. I feel like a Farmers Insurance Agent “i know a thing or two, because I've seen a thing or two” haha. SO I will leave you with that, a joke at the end of my testimony blog post I guess, why not haha. See you around.
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