STRUNG OUT ON A COUCH … when a Visitor arrives!
There were only two things I cared about as a teenager: surfing and getting high. On this particular south Florida afternoon, the waves were flat. That left me with only one option. I had one pill of ecstasy, a bag of weed, and the house to myself. Not sure why I’d be having my own little private party that afternoon, as I had nothing to celebrate; I was only 19 years old and had just been arrested for the second time in my life. That arrest was a violation of my probation for the first arrest, which only compounded my problems. My life was heading in the wrong direction quickly.
But that afternoon the party had a different ending. I still remember it like it was yesterday. I was sitting on the couch in my living room, strung out, and in one of the most shameful states of my entire life. As the drugs wore off, I began thinking about the embarrassment of a man I had become, and the direction my life seemed to be heading. These thoughts led to me asking myself some difficult questions about the meaning and purpose of life, and where I had gone so wrong. But as I contemplated these things, I remember becoming aware that something strange was happening; I had answers. The answers were clear and obvious, as if they had been right in front of me the whole time. My eyes were being opened.
That afternoon, in a period of about 90 minutes, it was as if every question I had about life was answered. All the seeds of truth my mother had planted during my early childhood years were being watered. I now realize the Holy Spirit had joined me that afternoon. I sat down on that couch blind. But when I arose, I could see. I remember getting in my car the next morning and looking at the stack of CDs in my console, and thinking to myself, I don’t like any of this music anymore.
GOD – A GIRL – AND AN EDUCATION
One year later I was enrolled in Bible college at Christ for the Nations Institute in Dallas, Texas. I had no intentions of going into the ministry; I just knew I had a desire to study the Bible, to know God more, and C.F.N.I. seemed to be where He was leading me. I’m certain He was testing me also, to see if I’d be willing to lay down my idol of surfing and follow Him.
I graduated C.F.N.I. with a Certificate of Practical Theology. Around that same time, I met my beautiful bride, Tiffany, and we were hitched one year later. But now I had a problem; I had to figure out how to provide for this girl. I didn’t have the money or desire to go to college, and I still didn’t want to go into the ministry. So, I did what any normal person would do. I decided to become a real estate agent. Eight hundred bucks and eight weeks later, I had all the building blocks of something great: God, a wife, and a real estate license! Time to start building. So that’s what I did. I was young, newly married, and ambitious. Tiffany and I began building a family, and pursuing what I think most would refer to as the American Dream.
THE AMERICAN DREAM … making babies and making money!
Success in real estate came quickly. I sold 50 homes my first full year in the business and won Rookie of the Year in my brokerage. Life was going well. Tiffany and I were making babies and making money. I think we would have been considered a typical middle-class Christian family in the Bible belt of America. We had a house, two cars, two kids, and went on two vacations a year. I did my quiet times in the morning. We gave our ten percent faithfully. We went to church on Sunday (when it was convenient) and lived a moral and upstanding life. What else is there?
Fast forward about 20 years and it’s October of 2020. The kids are older. The house and cars have gotten a whole lot nicer. I now own my own brokerage, and I’ve got about 100 agents working for me. We’re on track to sell nearly 1100 homes, and I’m about to make more money than I ever dreamed I would make in one year. While the rest of the world has shut down for COVID, my wife and I somehow manage to get away for 6 vacations (don’t judge me). Oh, and to top it all off, I’m just under 6% body fat. We still go to church when it’s convenient. I still do my quiet times. We still give our ten percent. 2020 was the year I realized I was no longer chasing the American dream; I had achieved it. In October I decided to take the rest of the year off. After all, I had earned it.
SOMETHING IS WRONG! … and the darkness sets in.
That time off marked the beginning of what would become the darkest and most difficult season of my life. As I thought about the life I had built, I came to the realization that I had achieved everything I had ever set out to achieve in life, and yet I was discontent and unfulfilled. Something wasn’t right. Something seemed to be missing.
Nevertheless, the new year was approaching, and I knew my time off would be coming to an end. So, I did what I always did; I thought about the upcoming year and began to list out another set of goals to conquer. But I quickly realized that something was wrong; I was finding no motivation to achieve any of those goals. The money, the toys, the vacations, the body, none of it excited me anymore; I had already attained those things, and I knew they wouldn’t satisfy the void. Yet I didn’t have a choice because I had created a life, and a business, and an image, that now had to be maintained.
As I approached 2021, it felt like the pressure was building with each passing week. I felt like everyone in my life was expecting to see a renewed and invigorated version of Mike, that was ready to crush another set of goals. But that Mike was nowhere to be found. Instead, with each passing week, the exhaustion and emptiness seemed to be growing. I found myself with a complete inability to move forward and no answers in sight, and yet my deadline to get back to work was getting closer and closer. I was now beginning to feel trapped – by the very life I had built. The weight of the life I had created was crushing me. I felt like it was suffocating me.
The prison walls were now closing in on me, and my cell was getting very dark. I was slipping into a severe depression that would end up lasting nearly a year.
THE EXAM BEGINS
As I did when I was 19, I looked at my life and began to ask myself some questions. But this time the questions were much more difficult, and the answers didn’t come nearly as easily. I had read the Bible; I knew what it said. And I knew something was terribly wrong. There was a life the scriptures say was available to me, that I was not experiencing. As far as I could tell, that Book said I was supposed to be walking in a peace that surpasses all understanding, a joy that is unspeakable. It said the believer has true contentment available to them. But when I looked back over the last 20 years of my Christian walk, I did not find these things. I saw a man whose peace, and joy, and contentment were constantly rising and falling based on the number of pending transactions he had on the books, the amount of money he had in the bank account, how much body fat he saw in the mirror, and how far away the next vacation was. My tree was not producing genuine fruit (Galatians 5:22–23), and I knew what Jesus said about trees that don’t produce fruit (Matthew 7:19). What had started with some questions was now turning into a full-scale self-examination.
MORE QUESTIONS … and the HARD THINGS HE SAID!
As I continued to wrestle with the difficult questions, I found myself hearing two very different voices in my head.
One said: Mike, you are making this too complicated. It’s not about works. It’s about grace! The voice reminded me of the simplicity of the message being preached in churches across America, every Sunday morning: At the end of the service, with an emotional chord of music playing in the background, multitudes of people repeat a “sincere” prayer and POOF! They are in. Eternity secured! The voice continued: Mike, it’s a free gift. That’s the beauty of the message. You are making it too difficult with all these questions. Do you really think the vast majority of pastors and church-members in America have it all wrong?
But then I heard another voice, saying something very different:
Mike, what are you going to do with all these other passages of Scripture? What are you going to do with all these difficult things Jesus said? You must deal with these words of His!
I thought about that popular phrase of Jesus, “He who seeks to save His life will lose it, but he who loses his life for my sake will find it” (Luke 17:33). Had I lost my life for His sake? I thought of my friends, Jeff and Stephanie, who had left America and moved to Kenya to start an orphanage. I knew they had lost their lives for His sake. But had I? I knew everyone wasn’t called to the mission field. What would it even look like for a business owner and father in America, in my generation, to “lose his life” for the Kingdom?
I thought about Jesus’ words, “For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Mathew 7:14). Was I on a hard road with few other travelers? Or was I really on the same path as everyone else in America? Was my life really much different from the rest?
I thought about that rich young ruler in Matthew 19 who came to Jesus looking for eternal life. Why didn’t Jesus lead him in a prayer and tell him he was good to go? Why didn’t Jesus tell him it’s all about grace, and he was forgiven, and he could work out his money issues later? Why did Jesus have to go for the jugular, the one thing He knew the rich man wouldn’t give up? And then, as if that were not enough, He watched him walk away crying, and turned to His disciples and said, “It’s harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.” I knew that in a world where more than 50% of humans live on less than seven dollars a day, I was a very rich man! Had it been “hard” for me to enter the Kingdom of God? What is this struggle He seems to be alluding to?
Why is He constantly telling everyone that if they want to be His disciple, they will have to pick up a cross (a method of execution) and follow Him (Matthew 16:24)? Why does He say to count the cost before deciding to follow Him (Luke 14:28)? Why did He tell a man who simply wanted to go bury his father before following Him to “let the dead bury the dead” (Luke 9:60)?
On and on and on, the passages were jumping off the page like never before. I had read these passages for years … yet somehow, it seemed as though I was reading them for the first time. The words were suddenly very simple and very plain. I was hearing them like a child might hear them. I was hearing a message from Jesus that was much different from what I had been hearing from nearly the entire American church over the last 20 years.
I could come to only one conclusion: There was a beautiful and mysterious paradox I was seeing on the pages of Scripture. Eternal life was absolutely free, and at the same time it would cost a man everything – his entire life.
But what price had I truly paid? The answer to that question had profound implications in my life. It was becoming more and more apparent to me that there were some things in the depths of my heart that I had gotten wrong about Christianity. I was beginning to think I had bought into a lie.
THE MOST TERRIFYING VERSE … and the One Word that EVERYTHING HINGED ON!
Of all those passages, there was one that haunted me more than any other. In Matthew 7, at the conclusion of what most would say is the greatest sermon ever preached – The Sermon on the Mount – He tells us that on Judgment Day there will be MANY who come to Him thinking that they are His children, that they are saved, only to find out they have deceived themselves. This was the passage that exposed the question looming in my heart: Was I really who I thought I was? Was I really a believer? Or would I be one of those who would cry out to Him, “Lord, Lord …,” only to hear those horrific words, “I never knew you” (Mathew 7:23).
As I confronted those terrifying words, I heard that first voice again: Mike, you’re making it all too difficult. You are forgetting about grace. This isn’t about works; it’s about “believing.” All you must do is … BELIEVE! Mike, this is the enemy attacking you, causing you to doubt your salvation!
But then the other voice spoke up and said, Mike, what would be the greater trick of the enemy: to make a man who is a genuine believer doubt his salvation, or to make a man who is not a genuine believer think that he is? The answer was obvious; the enemy would rather have a soul forever! The voice continued, Mike, if you want to know if you’re a believer … you must first know what it means to believe!
I knew the Scriptures well enough to know there was a clear answer to that question. The book of James says that there are two kinds of faith (belief) – one that is genuine and another that is not; there is a faith that will save and there is a faith that will not save. He said that even the demons “believe” (James 2:19). So how do I know the difference? How do I know if my faith is the saving kind? James was clear: “A faith that does not produce works [action] is dead!” (James 2:20). Jesus was equally clear: “You will recognize them by their fruit!” (Matthew 7:16). A fig tree produces figs. A grape tree produces grapes.
Did the fruit (works) of my life correspond to the message I claimed to believe? That was the question everything was coming down to. It’s strange, though; it was a question that I had been asking myself for 20 years, yet I was realizing I had never really asked it at all; only now was I willing to hear the answers.
WHAT KIND OF TREE IS IT?
I began looking at my life in many different areas to see if I could observe corresponding works/fruit. For the sake of time, I will not go through all those areas, just two of them …
I looked at that Book sitting next to me. With my mouth I would so casually claim that it was the Word of God. But as I contemplated that statement, I began to see the magnitude of such a proclamation. I supposedly believed that this Book was the inspired, inerrant, living, and active Word of a God that had no beginning and will have no end. The Word of a God that dwells in unapproachable light. A God whose Word is so powerful that galaxies and universes come into existence at His command. It was the Word of a God that I will stand in front of and give an account to. A God who holds my eternity in His hand. For the last 20 years I had been saying that I “believed” this Book to be His Word! I finally saw how bold such a statement is! And I asked myself, what type of response (fruit and works) should correspond to such a momentous statement?
I know the answer to that question is subjective. I can only tell you that my answer caused me great concern. Sure, I did my quiet times in the mornings, but had I dedicated my life to knowing and understanding and meditating upon the Words of that Book – as it commands me to, so many times? The answer was no, I had not. The sad truth is that I had been a “Christian” for 20 years, and had even been to Bible college, and yet I hadn’t even read the entire thing. Those Old Testament prophets just never sounded like that much fun to read! I now realize those may have been some of the words I needed to read the most.
I then took a step back and looked at the totality of this message I claimed to “believe,” which naturally led me to think about all the lost souls who do not know Him, and the fate they will encounter. I pondered the proclamation of my mouth …
I was professing to believe that every single person who does not know Him will be tormented for all of eternity. That they will be thrown into a lake of fire forever. FOREVER! No matter how many millions of years they have been in that lake, they will always have more time in front of them than is behind them; it will be the complete loss of all hope! Each moment will be worse than the one before it. They will have no ability to numb the excruciating pain with any type of substance like drugs or alcohol. They will have no distraction. They will have no sleep, where they can slip into another state of consciousness to escape for a period of time. They will always be fully present, in an endless realm of horror and torment, forever!
I supposedly believed that I was passing by multitudes of people every day who at any moment could breathe their last breath and end up in this terrible place. I believed that many of those people were even my friends and family. This was the proclamation of my mouth. But my words didn’t stop there!
For the last 20 years I had made another bold statement: I professed that I had the cure for their disease, the one and only message that would save them from that eternity of endless suffering. I was walking around every day of my life with the antidote they needed in my back pocket.
Once again, did the response of my life, my fruit and my works, correspond to these incredible statements I was claiming to believe? How often was I sharing this cure? Did my heart even break for these people? How many converts did I have over the last 20 years of carrying around this priceless medicine?
The answers to these questions, and many others like them, were beginning to shake the foundations of my life. I was becoming more and more concerned – and, at times, terrified – that my “belief” was not producing corresponding works; that it may be the “dead” kind that James was talking about.
As I evaluated this path of life I had been on for so long and the state of my soul, I found myself becoming more and more convinced that the last 20 years of my Christian journey had really been about me doing just enough for Him to ease my conscience, so that all the while I could go on building my own kingdom on this Earth.
I was living a version of Christianity that I now refer to as “Christianity with a line,” meaning that I evaluated the standard – or line – of the Christian life by those around me, and I made sure that my version was meeting that standard, or maybe even exceeding it in some areas. To the outside world I looked like a good Christian man (a bit like the Pharisees did). But on the inside, I knew deep down in my soul that I was not all-in. The problem was that now I had confronted the difficult words Jesus said, and I knew that “all-in” was the only option He ever gave.
But why? Why was I not all-in? Why was my belief not producing corresponding works? Because there was another god on the throne of my heart.
A Dethroning and DELIVERANCE
I wrestled with the questions and the depression for nearly a year, until the night of October 19, 2021. I remember that date because it’s my birthday. We had been in Colorado doing a college visit for my daughter, Madeline. I couldn’t sleep that night and went out to the living room of our hotel so I wouldn’t wake up Tiff. I ended up watching two different videos that night. The first was a short YouTube video by John Piper, titled “Why I Abominate the Prosperity Gospel.” It resonated with me deeply and confirmed many of the things I had been wrestling with since Bible college. More than anything, though, I believe that it primed the soil of my heart for the second video: a 17-minute testimonial about a couple named Alan and Katherine Barnhart.
I was gripped from the first words that came out of Alan’s mouth: “In our society we think of business success as a blessing. I think business success is much more dangerous than failure.” In light of those dangers, he and his wife chose to do something radical! They evaluated their true needs as a family and decided to cap their personal income at just over 100k per year. Everything else would go to the Kingdom. Then, just to create some accountability, they made that decision known to the employees at their company! It became part of the model of their company.
Alan and Katherine seemed to be taking all that “rich man” stuff Jesus talked about very seriously. By capping their income, they had removed their personal ambitions entirely from the equation and set up a hedge of protection around their hearts. They had laid their entire business at His feet. When they made that decision, the business was failing. Today their business is worth hundreds of millions. Alan and Katherine have continued to maintain that cap on their income and give everything else to the Kingdom. As I watched that video, I realized God was giving me an answer to that question I had asked myself a while back: What would it even look like for a business owner and father in America, in my generation, to “lose his life” for the Kingdom?
THROUGH THE EYE OF A NEEDLE!
By the time the video was over I was weeping. I was wrecked. With tears running down my face, I stared into that static computer screen, reflecting on what I had just watched. I knew a decision had to be made, and my heart was finally ready to make it. In that moment, after a year of the darkest depression of my life and the most difficult self-examination I could ever imagine, I finally settled something within my heart: I had bought into a lie! The half-hearted version of Christianity I had been living was a lie. This pursuit of the American Dream with a few dashes of Christianity sprinkled on top was a lie, and I was finally done buying it. I would no longer spend my life cowardly straddling some middle line between two worlds. I was choosing sides – choosing a Kingdom. The pursuit of money, materialism, the American Dream, and everything it represents would no longer sit on the throne of my heart! I finally decided what I BELIEVE!
And in the very moment I made that decision, something changed. I mean I literally – physically and spiritually – felt something change. The darkness lifted, and I was immediately aware that I had been set free. God took His rightful place on the throne of my heart. That night, on my birthday, God delivered me.
A NEW MAN … A NEW LIFE … and a lingering question!
That night of deliverance marked the beginning of a reformation in my theology, and a revival in my heart, that has lasted up until this day. Although He delivered me from that dark season, I do not claim to be a perfect man, and I still have many more questions than I do answers. There is so much more I do not know.
But here are the things I do know: I would not trade that dark and difficult season for anything in this world. I know I am not the same man I was before. Tiffany would attest to that: we often joke that she is still getting to know her husband. I know that I have finally found what I was searching for all those years. I know there is a fire that burns inside me that wasn’t there before. I know that I have a hunger for His word like never before. I know I have a passion and urgency for evangelism that wasn’t there before. I know that my peace and joy are no longer tied to the things of this world.
I know that for the first time in my Christian journey, I no longer feel like a spectator in the arena watching other great soldiers do battle; I finally feel like I have suited up and entered the arena myself. I know that I now understand – in a way that I never did before – what He meant when He spoke of squeezing through the eye of a needle, and finding the treasure hidden in the field. I know that I finally feel ALIVE.
But as to that one lingering question in my mind; Was I a real believer before, or had I deceived myself? Well, that is one of those questions He has not given me the answer to. I look forward to getting it all straightened out one day. Until then, you’ve read my story, and you’ve likely got a Bible…you tell me!
8 Responses
The article presents an intriguing analysis of the nature of religious belief in general and the aspects that facilitate living a real Christian life. It substantiates its arguments with the Holy Scripture and challenges the audience for more of God.
Hey Edward…thank you for taking the time to read and comment!! Blessings brother
Matthew 7 has haunted me for about a year now. I look for opportunities to talk to people throughout my day. I still feel like I’m falling well short of what God wants from me. Your description of hell is just like I imagine it will be. If that’s not enough to motivate a person I don’t know what is.
Ray… Thank you so much for reading and taking the time to comment. Matt 7 is such a crucial and difficult verse. It haunted me as well for many years. Please don’t stop wrestling with it. Spend some time truly reflecting on the hard things Jesus said and be extremely cautious about comparing your walk with the version of Christianity around you today. Keep pressing in brother!!
Amazing story, I am struggling because sometimes I feel I do not have enough money but then the lord reminds me that what I have now is what I need. Thank you for sharing and God bless you always!
Hey Maria… thank you for reading and taking the time to comment. He is a faithful provider!!
Wow! Very thought-provoking and raw. I PTL for reading this and your journey, Mike.
Thank you so much David for taking the time to read and comment!!