TPJ01 | I Am Who You Say I Am | Ben’s Story | 10.13.20

Foreign.

Hello and welcome to the Prodigal Journey. This is our very first episode and I'm very excited to share it with you guys.I thought that for our first episode I would share some of my story and just open the door for others to share theirs as well. As I definitely appreciate the listeners that have already reached out wanting to share their stories on this podcast.You know, many times we feel like we are all alone or that we are going through something that no one else would understand. This podcast is to help us to continue to build more community so that we can encourage each other and realize that we are not alone.Don't go anywhere. We will be right back to dive into my story.

Who can give the dead new life? Who can save the lost? Who can heal the broken? Who can be a sacrifice?

All right, welcome back. This is my story.I grew up in a Christian home and my parents were always in some type of full time ministry and we were in church every time the doors were open. I always heard the Bible preached, but it wasn't until later in life, in 2011 at the age of 27, that I truly understood the Gospel.I grew up with very strict rules and was surrounded by a denomination that thrived on legalistic living as a way to grow closer to God. The time that a lot of my issues began was in junior high to high school.I became very good at playing the game and made countless decisions to trust Christ on weeks we would go to teen summer camp.I would become convicted about the way I was living and I would always decide to make reassurance of my salvation and and try to live the right way again. In high school, I was not allowed to date and I always had to be in mixed groups and could never hang out with just females that were my friends.One of the challenges with this was that even though we had mixed grades together, I was the only guy in my grade for a long time. My graduating class was only four people and I was the only guy. I should get some type of Guinness World Book of Records for that.But you know, in spite of all those rules, I did it anyway and went behind my parents back a lot. I became very good at lying and deceiving others and this began for me an unhealthy belief that relationships had to be secret.It made it easier for pornography to gain a stronghold later in life along with many other sin issues. Because of these unhealthy beliefs, I also had a hard time developing healthy friendships and I had a hard time trusting people.I began to believe that there Was something wrong with me and that I had to always work hard and prove myself just to be accepted by others.I always felt judged because I was the pastor's son and I felt like there were unrealistic expectations on our family and that I had always had to perform just to make people in the church happy. I started to believe that everything was transactional. I thought relationships and friendships were just a give and take.That if someone did something nice for you that you owed them something. This is how most of my friendships were in high school. So I didn't really learn how to love people strictly out of love.My parents reflected this to me so often. But instead of always seeing that, I let other things cloud that and started to let my friends shape my beliefs.Instead, when I started to focus only on the hypocrisy of those that judged our family, I vowed to myself that I would never have anything to do with church. Once I was on my own, I felt alone and I had so many unanswered questions.So I started to bury myself in sports as a way to find acceptance because I knew I could play sports.I played basketball at the school, but eventually I grew bitter toward my parents because I wanted to play baseball and hopefully eventually one day play at least at some professional or semi professional level. But city leagues played on the weekends so we were always in church and I was never able to attend the public school.Throughout college I did okay in classes but continued to focus more on sports instead. I had no real direction in life and had no clue what I really wanted to do after college. So I struggled to find an area of study.I started out my freshman year at a college in Greenville, South Carolina studying Bible. The following semester I went to a school in Wisconsin just because they offered hockey. But I was still not happy and still had no direction.The following year I returned to Greenville for school and tried my hand at culinary arts. I did well in the program, but I only completed one year and never finished.I was in college from 2002 to 2006, having changed my major several times and never completing a degree since I couldn't seem to find direction. In 2005 I enlisted in the army because it was something I had always wanted to do and I ended up being really good at what I was doing.I loved everything about it and I thought I would eventually make it a career. In February of 2006, I dropped out of school thinking I needed some time off.So I moved back to Illinois to work and live with my parents for a while. Eventually Sports in the military still seemed to not be enough. I still felt empty inside.After working in Illinois for a few months, I moved back to Greenville to live with a few friends from college and work here. I was exposed to pornography from one of those roommates while borrowing his computer and seeing his search history.I had been taught for so long that pornography was wrong, but had never embraced that belief or developed that conviction for myself. After so many years of striving to be accepted based on my performance, I suddenly felt an awkward relief.I realized that I didn't have to do a whole lot to feel accepted. And I started to believe that it was one of the only ways I could ever feel accepted.I felt like somehow it was giving me control in my life, but it was all a lie. I thought that everything was okay and that I could keep it separate from everything else in my life and that no one would ever have to find out.I had also convinced myself that I could, if I could just meet the right girl or just get married, that the problem would go away and fix itself. I met my ex wife in 2006 and we were married shortly after in 2008. At that time we had moved back to Wisconsin.Moved to Wisconsin to go back to college. Because neither of us had finished a degree yet, I enrolled in the biblical counseling major.In some ways, I think I thought that if I could learn to help fix other people's problems, that I would somehow fix myself in the process. Looking back, I definitely realized how flawed that thinking was. I was never going to be able to help anybody with the way my life was going to.While at college, my wife had discovered pornography that I had forgotten to clear from the search history. In some ways, I was relieved that I had been caught. I withdrew from school and we attended counseling together.Some of the counseling was helpful, but much of it focused on our marriage. I was still not addressing the things that led me to so many of my sinful choices. Eventually, I returned to school thinking that I was doing better.But I was so wrong. I still had no understanding of gospel change and was still a very selfish person.Things would get better for a while, but eventually I started to struggle again. In 2011, I had just finished up my military contract, was one semester short of graduating, and still felt like I had no direction for my life.In January of 2011, we had found out on my birthday that we were expecting our first child. Then a few weeks later, on our anniversary, we found out we had lost the baby.I started to think that this was somehow God's judgment because of my struggles with pornography and my selfishness and how I was hurting others.Instead of turning to God for peace and comfort, I turned back to my sin because I had believed the lie that there I felt accepted and that I was in complete control of my life.I felt like my life had no purpose and at one point had even contemplated suicide because it had felt like everything was going wrong and was out of control. At one time, I thought that the military would be my entire career. I was losing buddies of mine to war on deployments.I felt like I should have been on with them. We had lost a baby and my marriage was falling apart.In July of 2011, my sin and selfishness had numbed my moral compass so badly that it didn't seem to bother me anymore. Sometimes we tell ourselves, oh, I'll never do that. I'll never go that far. I'll never be like that person. I cannot believe that they did that.But when we continue down a destructive path, we lose our moral compass. We lose our sense of right and wrong.My sinful choices led me down a dark path that led further to some legal consequences and I was faced with having to pay a steep price for my sinful choices. I spent a year going through the court system before I was finally sentenced to and I ended up spending 18 months incarcerated overall.Some time in jail, some time in prison, and some probation as well.In July of 2011, when all of my sinful choices came crumbling down around me, I looked back over my life and realized that I had never really understood the gospel. And there was no spiritual fruit in my life that evidenced someone changed by the blood of Christ.You see, I viewed God solely as someone wanting to judge me for every wrong choice and did not see him as a God who wanted a loving relationship with me. That transactional belief that I had developed so early on had become so strong in my life at this point. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.

Satisfied but rising up again. The power of death was broken. Jesus Christ was glorified.

It was at that point that God had opened my eyes and saved me and I realized my need for a Savior. I realized just how wretched I was. I began a journey to truly understand the Bible and what God had done for me. But it was still not an easy road.The church we were a part of during the court process treated me as though I would only ever be a pew Christian and just sit there for church and go home. Many people told me that I would never be used by God. Ever again.I struggled to keep hope alive in my heart as we were struggling to keep our family together.During my incarceration from 2012 to 2013, my older brother passed away due to a heart condition and the bitterness and anger came back as I again felt like this was another type of judgment for the sinful choices I was making.You would think at this point in my life that I would have learned about God and who he really was, how merciful and gracious he was to have not allowed me to die yet instead of thinking, he was only concerned about judging me. After incarceration, things got better for us for a while.We got plugged into a different church and I had taught myself to play guitar and started to help lead worship. The church was very gracious as they walked through this with us.Eventually though, I started to struggle again because I had still not addressed core issues that had led to my sinful choices before. Some of the sin had found its way back and my wife had decided she couldn't do it anymore. I had caused too much pain and too much hurt to her.At this point, I went to an intense program that lasted a few months.This program helped me continue to change and for the first time I started to peel back the layers of the wrong thinking I had developed from a very young age.After completing the program, I began a process to move back to South Carolina to be closer to family and a good support network after my divorce was finalized at the end of 2017. In early 2018, I moved back to South Carolina and God's leading was very apparent in this move in the ways he was providing for me.It was only by God's grace that I ended up at Grace Church. He put the right people in my life to help disciple me and help me see more of the gospel.I was shown by pastors and staff people in my community group that I don't have to perform to be accepted by others or by God and that there is nothing I can do to change how much God loves me. Church leadership was willing to tell me things I needed to hear and not what I wanted to hear.And that is true love to speak into someone's life in this way. I became involved in the church's Regeneration Program. This is a 12 step discipleship and recovery program, also known as REGEN.At first I got involved in going through the program wanting to help out, but I didn't realize just how much more I still needed to change in my life and REGEN helped me see the areas that I still needed to change and continue to grow. I realized that first and foremost I had offended a holy God.Through Regen, I have battled a lot of shame and guilt over my sinful choices and how they have affected others. I also have struggled through trying to establish some type of normal relationship with my ex wife as we co parent our son.I have apologized and done what I can to make amends with her and I often think about what it will look like to one day have that hard conversation with my son and explain to him the hurtful things I have done.It won't necessarily be some big one time conversation, but could be a conversation that happens over time as I look for ways to disciple him and point him to the Gospel.These last two and a half years I have been on a journey to deal with hurts that I have caused others, harms that were done to me, and I have done what I can to make reconciliation with friends and family. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with the rest of the story.

Dying for the Sins of Every man. It is done Conquered on the cross through the Son of God, the Son of Man.

Now that I have completed regen, I have helped to co lead a group and I'm getting ready to start another one in the next week or so.These groups last about nine months and is a very intense time, but it is also very rewarding when you allow yourself to be vulnerable to others, realizing that you are not alone in your struggles. Through Regen, I have learned that there are two parts to forgiveness.Initially, we make a decision to forgive someone which forgives them for what they have done, but the process of forgiveness is the hardest part. It feels like an ongoing tug of war that reminds you of the hurt you have caused to others or the hurt that someone has caused you.The process means being forgiven for the impact that our sinful choices have had on others. The impact can unfold in layers over time and it could take a very long time or it may never happen at all.The process can continue to bring fear, anxiety and other things not only to the one who did the harm, but mostly to the one who was harmed. This should continually drive us back to God's Word and remind us of God's forgiveness, His patience and his mercy to us.I would not be where I am today without the constant grace that has been shown to me by God through my family and the people at church. When others were telling me that God would never use me again, my church was stepping into the moment and ministering to my broken heart.Grace Church truly knows what it means for people to be redeemed and restored and for God to use them in a great way. Regent has helped me see that my identity does not come from what others say I am or how they label me for my sinful choices I've made.My identity comes from who God says I am. I am constantly driven back to Ephesians where it lays out all the spiritual blessings that we receive through Christ.We are chosen in Christ to be holy and without fault. In his eyes. We are adopted. He purchased our freedom with his own blood.We are forgiven I want to leave you with a few verses that have meant a lot to me over the last few years. In First Timothy 1:15 16 it says this is a trustworthy saying and everyone should accept it.Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and I am the worst of them all. But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners.Then others will realize that they too can believe in him and receive eternal life.My hope and prayer is that my story in no way ever glorifies my sin, but it only stands as a testimony of God's mercy and grace to someone who is so undeserving, and I pray that it celebrates God's ability to change our lives. No one is ever beyond the reach of God's grace. Ever. Thanks for tuning in again.I am very excited about how God can use the stories and lessons on this podcast to help others. Be sure to subscribe to the Prodigal Journey and share it with others. It is available on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.If you would like to reach out, you can reach me ben@theprodigaljourney.com thanks for listening. Tune in next time to the Prodigal Journey.