For twenty-three years I lived as an atheist.
Like, I didn’t believe in God at all, at all.
In fact, I used to love it when missionaries or Christians or something would come up to
my door and try to speak to me about God because I used to look forward to arguing with them
to prove them wrong that God’s existence was hilarious.
Man, and I lived that way for a long time.
It wasn’t until my sister was diagnosed with cancer that things got even worse for
me.
I remember my mom calling me and telling me the news.
The first thing that I did after I hung up that phone was I got on my knees.
Let me tell you, it wasn’t to pray to God.
I literally got on my knees to yell at God, to yell at Him, to blame Him.
I blamed Him for everything because my sister was very much a church-going, person.
Then there was me; Mr. Atheist that laughed at the thought of even an existence of God.
LIke, to me I just couldn’t comprehend how anybody could even waste their time thinking
of something that was, to me, no more than a fable that somebody had made up.
Man, that day, whew, the things I said.
Man, I cursed Him.
I remember just telling Him like; “How dare you!”
Like, my sister was so faithful and then there is me.
So, I sent a message to my friend Ryan.
This was like, gosh, this had to have been probably one o’clock in the morning or somewhere
around there.
I sent a message to my friend Ryan and was just like; “Dude, I feel like my whole world
is spinning out of control and I am about to lose everything.”
I was like; “You’ve got to be straight up with me man.
What do I need to do?
What do I do?
What do I do?”
He just said, mind you, he had no idea I was an atheist.
We had known each other for a while.
He had tattooed me.
We had kept in touch and became good friends.
But he didn’t know that I was an atheist because I never talked about that.
I liked Ryan a lot and I knew he was a Christian so I just kind of kept that part of me at bay.
He said; “You need to let Jesus into your life.”
I kind of thought about that for a minute.
Like something deep down in me was telling me that I needed to talk to Ryan.
He came from a rough background.
You’ve all heard his testimony and stuff.
You know he was able to turn his life around so I listened to him.
He talked to me for a while about letting Jesus into my life and shared some scriptures
and stuff with me.
There was one term he kept saying over and over, that he said a couple of times.
I was telling him; “Man, like I don’t get it.
I don’t understand.”
He said; “Only the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy but I have come to give you
life so that you may have it abundantly.”
I didn’t know what scripture that was or if it even was a scripture.
Heck, I had no idea.
So, after he said that, I was like; “Wow, wow that’s cool.”
I figured it had to be some kind of scripture but I honestly didn’t know.
I had no idea.
That same night, I wasn’t feeling that great because of my surgery and everything.
So, I was just watching Youtube videos like checking out new metal bands that I was finding.
I remembered Ryan had mentioned to me about an evangelist that he listens to every now
and then.
So, I was just on Youtube and this evangelists name popped up and the title said; “Angry
at God.”
I was like; “Okay, this is weird.”
Because seriously, if you guys seen my Youtube, it was like Slayer, like all these heavy metal
bands that I was watching music videos for all night long trying to find some music to
put on my iPod and this evangelist that Ryan had told me about was randomly on my Youtube
page.
The title said; “Angry at God.”
I thought; “Interesting.”
So, I watched it and for an hour and forty minutes, this guy had nailed everything as
to why I was angry at God and why I was an atheist.
He said; “There’s a scripture John 10:10 and in that the evangelist said; “John 10:10
Only the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy but I have come to give you life so that you
may have it abundantly.”
My mind just went that’s where that came from.
Man, that one scripture, that one scripture, one simple scripture changed my entire, freakin
life.
Everything that he said was true.
Everybody blames God for everything, for everything bad, everything bad.
God’s the go-to guy when it’s not Him at all.
It’s the devil.
There is no reason to blame God because if God didn’t love us He never would have sent
His only Son down to be tortured and killed so that our sins may be forgiven.
I would have ended up losing my fiance, my home because I just think that the anger and
the hatred of the devil just would have taken it all.
But he didn’t and he couldn’t.
So, I made it through my sister’s funeral.
Before her funeral, I actually got to have a conversation with her.
I actually shared with her that scripture of John 10:10 Only the thief comes to steal,
kill and destroy but I have come to give you life so that you may have it abundantly.
She was feeling pretty distraught one day and she said; “I don’t get it.
I don’t know what I did wrong.”
I said; “You didn’t.”
I shared that with her and that was the first time I think she was kind of mind blown because
she knew I was atheist.
I just told her that things had started to change for me and that scripture helped me
a lot.
I think it helped her too.
Fast forward a couple of months after that.
I was able to marry my best friend.
My job is going better.
I’m happy and it’s all because of God.