If there is any good found within these pages, let none suppose it came from me. Whatever grace is seen, whatever truth is spoken, whatever encouragement is found for the weary pilgrim or the trembling sinner, let all the glory be given to God alone. I have no more cause to boast than the clay has against the Potter or the branch apart from the Vine. From beginning to end, the Lord alone has been faithful.

I have written these pages not only for others, but for my own remembrance. I do not wish to forget the pit from which the Lord was pleased to draw me, nor allow pride to whisper that I stand by any strength of my own.

There was a time when I would have hidden much of what follows. My sins are many, my failures more than I can number, and even now I grieve the remaining corruption that daily wars against my soul. Yet I have become persuaded that the Lord delights to glorify Himself through weak vessels. He displays the riches of His mercy in those who have nothing of their own with which to commend themselves.

For that reason I have not sought to conceal the darker portions of my life. To hide the disease is to diminish the glory of the Great Physician. Christ receives little honor if my sin is made to appear small. But when the sinner honestly confesses the depth of his disease, the greatness of the cure shines all the more brightly.

My desire is not that the reader would know me, but that through the account of one undeserving sinner they might behold the patience, holiness, justice, mercy, and glory of God. I have often returned to the words of the Apostle Paul: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.”

Though I would never compare myself to that faithful Apostle, I have often found those words fitting upon my own lips. Looking back over my life, I no longer see merely a collection of sinful choices. I see something far more dreadful: a heart curved inward upon itself. Lust, theft, deceit, pride, drunkenness, drugs, blasphemy, and countless other transgressions were not separate evils but the bitter fruit of a poisoned root. I loved myself more than I loved God.

Yet while I was fleeing from Him with all the strength of my fallen heart, He was never absent from my story. Though I neither sought Him nor desired Him, He was already pursuing the glory of His own Name through the salvation of one who had no desire to come. He preserved me when I deserved judgment. He restrained me when I would have plunged further into wickedness. He placed faithful witnesses in my path whom I ignored. He awakened my conscience when I tried to silence it. And when His appointed time had come, He did what no man, no sermon, no argument, and no resolution ever could. He gave me a new heart.

What follows, then, is not the story of a man who gradually improved himself, nor of one who finally found religion after years of searching. It is the testimony of a sinner who loved darkness rather than light until the Lord, according to the riches of His mercy, opened blind eyes to behold the glory of Christ.

Even now I do not write as one who has arrived. Remaining sin still grieves me. There have been victories that testify to God’s sanctifying grace, and there have been grievous failures that have driven me afresh to the foot of the cross. If anything has become clearer since my conversion, it is not the measure of my own strength, but the immeasurable sufficiency of Christ.

If these pages accomplish anything, may they encourage the weary saint in his fight against sin, warn the careless sinner who presumes upon tomorrow, and above all exalt the Lord Jesus Christ, whose mercy is greater than our guilt and whose grace still abounds toward the chief of sinners.

Soli Deo Gloria