Yeah. In, in my teen years, I was more than an agnostic -
I was studied, I was precise.
It was actually my goal to make people doubt their faith.
Especially growing up in the south where most proclamations of faith is,
"I believe just because I believe,"
which was never satisfactory for me.
But it was in the midst of personal crisis where,
where I'd run out of answers, I'd run out of ways to fix myself -
but I gave myself an opportunity to actually study the Scriptures.
If I was gonna disprove them, I had to know what they actually said.
And so I took time and I began reading the Bible from Genesis.
By the time I got to Numbers, I was fully convinced that God was not real.
But plowing through Numbers
and into the rest the Old Testament, I began to see what the Bible really was.
It was less an, an instruction manual
it was less a way to live, and it was more
a story of history - a story of humanity's
continued desire to do things
their way and God's continued kindness to intervene.
And what I realized reading even through the Old Testament and into the New
is that God was not the villain.
As a matter of fact, he was the rescuer.
And by the time I got to the end of the Scriptures,
I hadn't prayed a prayer with anyone,
I hadn't gone to the altar during a service,
but I realized that I believe.
And all of my doubt and all of my hostility began to melt
away and I, and I knew in that moment that not only
was God real, but God was personal.
Not only did God exist, but he was tangible.
And not only did he know me, but he wanted
me to know him just as much.