The months leading up to October 31, 2020, were unlike any season I had known before. Outwardly I remained the same man I had been for years. I still went to work, still came home each evening to Sabrina and our children. I still carried the titles of husband and father. Yet beneath the ordinary routines of life, something had begun to change that I could neither explain nor resist. The Lord had begun to disturb the false peace I had spent so many years protecting.

As mentioned previously, it was not long before, while searching online for another sermon from Elevation Church. Instead, I came across a video by a woman named Doreen Virtue interviewing an ex-Elevation staff member that exposed the ministry for what it was. I would think of this as nothing more than a coincidence at the time, however, I see it now as the gracious providence of the Lord. The Lord opened my eyes to the truth, and I immediately had Sabrina watch it after. Through that same providence I was introduced to Ray Comfort and the ministry of Living Waters. His conversations with strangers on sidewalks and college campuses were unlike anything I had ever heard. He spoke plainly about the holiness of God, the Law, sin, judgment, repentance, and the cross of Christ. The gospel was no longer presented as health and wealth prosperity teaching, neither as speaking life into that which you desire, nor as God’s means of improving my life, but as His only remedy for rebels who stood guilty before Him.

For the first time, I began to see myself in the light of God’s commandments rather than by comparison with other men. I had always known I was a sinner in the broadest sense. Nearly everyone admits as much. But now the Law stripped away every comfortable excuse I had hidden behind. I had stolen, lied, murdered people in my heart through my anger and hatred for them, coveted that which was never meant for me, blasphemed the holy name of the God who gave me every breath, committed adultery, bowed the knee in worship to that which was created instead of the Creator. I had broken every one of His commandments. And the worst sin of all was not loving Him, forsaking Him, denying Him, and living in blatant rebellion to Him while He continued to be merciful and gracious to me for nearly 30 years at that time. The list was not merely a record of bad decisions. It was a revelation of what I was.

Even so, I remained lost. I still smoked marijuana every day. I still reached for the familiar escapes whenever life became difficult. I still carried on with the routines that had governed me for years. I would wake before sunrise, smoke, open my Bible, and read chapter after chapter. Looking back, the contradiction is astonishing. My hands that had daily prepared marijuana turned the pages of Scripture. My mouth that inhaled smoke and poured forth vulgarity and blasphemy would read the very words of God. Something was changing, but I had not yet changed.

The old life no longer satisfied me the way it once had. The drugs had long since stopped having an effect. They were just the chains that bound me while I thought I was free, the offerings made to the god of self. They left me emptier than before, and yet longing for more. The conviction that followed seemed to linger longer each week. The pleasures I had once pursued without hesitation now left behind a growing heaviness that refused to disappear.

I was becoming increasingly miserable. Not because I had stopped loving sin, but because the Lord was beginning to expose it for what it truly was. There is a misery that belongs to the man who has no concern for God. I had lived there for many years. But there is another misery that comes when the light begins to shine into darkness while the heart still clings to its idols. That was where I found myself. I wanted peace, yet I refused to surrender. I wanted relief from guilt without forsaking the sins that produced it. I wanted Christ close enough to quiet my conscience while still keeping my old masters within reach. It could not and would not last.

The Lord, whose patience toward me had already extended far beyond anything I deserved, was bringing me to the place where every refuge I had trusted would fail. I did not know that October 31 would become the dividing line of my life. The evening began as so many others had. The children were in the living room, filling the house with the ordinary sounds of young life. I had withdrawn into the bedroom, closed the door behind me, and surrounded myself with the very things that had become my refuge. Spread around me was the supply I had purchased with money gained from selling precious family heirlooms. Flower, wax, edibles, vape cartridges, and paraphernalia of every sort. Looking back now, I see that room differently than I did then. At the time it felt like a place of comfort. In reality it had become a sanctuary built for the worship of self.

Sabrina came into the bedroom. She was not looking for drugs. She was looking for her husband. That truth has often returned to me over the years with painful clarity. It is possible to live in the same house as those you love while remaining worlds away from them. My body was present. My heart was elsewhere. The distance between us had not been created in a single evening. It had been built slowly through years of selfishness, secrecy, and the countless small decisions by which I continually chose my own comfort over loving my wife as Christ commands a husband to love.

She simply wanted to spend time with me. Instead of laying aside the very thing that had separated us, I invited her into it. She had never been a drug user. Marijuana had never been part of her life. Yet I urged her to try one of the edibles I had with me. I minimized it. I treated it as though it were harmless. I spoke with the confidence of someone who had spent years convincing himself that his chains were not really chains at all. She trusted me. She ate far more than she should have. Neither of us understood what would follow.

At first nothing seemed unusual. We continued talking as we had before. Then I noticed something changing. Her breathing became uneasy. Her body began to tremble. She tried to speak, but the words came slowly and uncertainly. The color seemed to drain from her face. Within moments the trembling became violent. Panic overtook her with a force neither of us expected.

I had seen people intoxicated countless times. I had experienced more highs than I could remember. This was different. She became terrified. I tried to reassure her, telling her it would pass. I spoke with a confidence I did not possess. Inside I was becoming terrified myself. Her shaking only grew worse. Her breathing became more labored. Her eyes no longer focused as they had only moments before.

Then she lost consciousness. The room suddenly became very quiet. I dropped to my knees beside the bed where she lay. I remember taking her hand into mine. I remember calling her name. I remember waiting for some response that did not come. The children were still elsewhere in the house, unaware that anything had happened. The ordinary sounds of home continued beyond the bedroom door while, inside that room, everything seemed to stop.

It is difficult to explain what happened within me during those moments. The Lord did not show me a vision. I heard no audible voice. Yet He did something infinitely more terrifying. He allowed me, for the first time in my life, to feel the weight of my sin. Not merely to acknowledge it. Nor simply to admit that I had done wrong. He caused me to see, in a measure I had never known before, what my rebellion actually was.

As I knelt there beside the woman I claimed to love, I saw that everything surrounding me bore witness against me. The drugs scattered throughout the room. The money by which they had been purchased. The years of deceit. The thefts, lies, lust, blasphemies, selfishness, and pride. The countless mercies I had received only to use them against the God who had given them. My entire life stood before me.

Until that night I had always viewed my sins as individual acts, disconnected from one another. They were mistakes to regret, habits to improve, weaknesses to overcome. But now I saw that they all sprang from the same poisoned root. My heart had loved itself more than God. Everything else had merely been fruit. The theft of pretzels. The money taken from friends, the pills, the drunkenness, the pornography, the sexual immorality, the drugs, the lies, the neglect of my wife, the absence from my children, the bitterness, the profanity, the worship of self through the pursuit of pleasure. It had all been the life of one man whose heart was curved inward upon itself.

For years I had imagined myself to be free. Now I saw chains. Not chains forced upon me by someone else. Chains I had willingly embraced. More than that, I saw that every sin had been committed against the God who had never once ceased being good to me. He had preserved my life through overdoses, spared me from prison, allowed me to marry, gave me children, provided work, filled my table with food. He had shown me patience upon patience while I continually repaid His kindness with rebellion.

The goodness of God, which I had ignored for nearly thirty years, suddenly became unbearable. I deserved judgment. Not because of one terrible decision. Because every part of my life had declared war against the One who made me. The words of Scripture that I had begun reading over previous months came rushing back with a force I had never known before. Not as mere verses, but as reality. I was guilty, completely guilty. Utterly without excuse. There was nothing left to defend. Nor was there anything left to negotiate. Nothing and no one left to blame on my upbringing, my circumstances, my addictions, or anyone else. I was the sinner. I had spent my life accusing others while excusing myself. Now every excuse died.

As I knelt beside Sabrina, unable to wake her, another realization struck me with overwhelming force. I had done this. Not accidentally. Not intentionally in the sense that I wished her harm. But it was my sin that had brought this into our home. These drugs were mine. The temptation had come from me. The persuasion had come from me. The suffering before my eyes had come through me.

The woman whom God had entrusted to my care now lay unconscious because I had loved my idols more than I loved her. The weight of that realization crushed me. For the first time in my life, I had nothing left to offer God except guilt. And it was there…with one hand holding Sabrina’s..and the other trembling beneath the crushing weight of my own sin. Then something happened I can only describe with fear and gratitude.

Though the room remained silent, a question came upon my soul with a weight unlike anything I have ever known. It was not merely a thought. It was not my imagination attempting to comfort itself. It came with an authority that stripped away every hiding place. The question was simple. “Do you love Me?” I could not answer. Everything in my life testified that I did not. The question came again. “Do you love Me?” Again…I could not speak. How could I? My entire life had been an answer. I had loved everything except Him. I had loved His gifts more than His glory. I had loved my pleasures more than His commandments. I had loved myself above all. Then, a third time, the question came. “Do you love Me?” This time tears broke through words I had no strength left to control. “No…I haven’t. But I want to.” It was the first truly honest thing I had ever said before God. And before I ever reached for Him…He had already reached for me.