The morning after October 31, 2020, I woke up knowing something had changed. However, the circumstances around me looked the same; the house, the room, the children, they were all the same. The responsibilities waiting for me had not disappeared overnight. Yet I knew that I was not the same man who had gone to sleep the night before.

For years I had woken up carrying the same desires, the same habits, and the same restless pursuit of something I could never quite find. The first thoughts of the day were often centered around myself: what I wanted, what I needed, what would make me feel better, what would help me escape. My mind naturally drifted toward the things that promised temporary relief, even though those same things had repeatedly left me emptier than before.

But that morning, there was a new desire within me. I wanted Christ. I wanted to know the One who had shown me mercy. I wanted to understand the Scriptures that had once seemed distant and lifeless. I wanted to turn away from the things that had enslaved me, not merely because I feared the consequences anymore, but because I had begun to see their ugliness before a holy God.

The difference was not that I had suddenly become a disciplined man. It was not that I woke up with a perfect understanding of theology or a complete plan for how to live the Christian life. I was still ignorant in many ways. I had much to learn. I carried years of sinful patterns and ways of thinking that would not disappear overnight. But the direction had changed.

For nearly thirty years I had run from God while convincing myself I was searching for freedom. Now, for the first time, I was running toward Him. The first outward evidence of what the Lord had done inwardly was immediate. I bagged up all the marijuana products; the flower, the wax, the edibles, the vape cartridges, the things I had spent thousands of dollars chasing and protecting. For years these things had occupied a place in my life that belonged only to God. They had been my comfort, my escape, my refuge when life felt difficult. I had sacrificed time, money, relationships, and integrity at their altar. But now I looked at them differently. They were not harmless pleasures. They were chains.

I called the person I had purchased them from and told him to come take everything, I was decided upon following Christ Jesus. I did not want payment. I did not want to hold onto a backup supply “just in case.” I did not want to preserve even the smallest piece of the life I claimed to have left behind. The same heart that had spent years grasping for more was now willing to open its hands and let go.

While waiting for him to arrive, I walked into the kitchen and poured every bottle of beer and liquor down the sink. The act itself did not save me. Throwing away drugs did not make me a Christian. Pouring out alcohol did not earn me forgiveness. I knew nothing of the depth of justification or sanctification at that time, but looking back I understand that these actions were not the cause of the change. They were the evidence of it.

The Lord had changed my desires before He changed my habits. For years I had tried to stop doing certain things because I knew they were causing problems. I had tried within my own willpower. I had tried through resolutions and empty promises. I had tried convincing myself that I was stronger than my addictions. Every attempt eventually failed because the problem was deeper than the behavior.

I did not need merely a new set of actions. I needed a new heart. And the Lord had given one. Sabrina noticed the difference quickly. She had lived with the old me. She knew the man who could speak about loving his family while repeatedly choosing himself,  the man who could talk about wanting to be better while returning again and again to the same sins. She knew the man who could read the Bible in the morning and then spend the rest of the day feeding the very desires that Scripture condemned. So when she saw the change, she knew it was not something I could have manufactured.

The drugs were gone, but that was not the only difference. My speech changed. The profanity and blasphemy that had once flowed from my mouth so naturally began to grieve me. The anger that had so often controlled my reactions began to be exposed. The selfishness that had shaped so many of my decisions became something I no longer wanted to defend.

I did not become sinless. I became a man who hated the sin I once loved. That distinction would become one of the great lessons of my Christian life. The Lord did not remove every remaining weakness in a moment. He did something far greater: He gave me new desires and began the lifelong work of making me more like Christ. The battle had not ended, rather it had only just begun.

For the first time in my life, the Scriptures were no longer merely words on a page. Before my conversion I had often opened the Bible out of curiosity or conviction, yet it remained largely closed to me. I could understand the stories. I could follow the arguments. I could even remember portions of what I had read. But I did not delight in them. They rarely lingered with me after I closed the book. My heart remained untouched because, though my eyes could see the words, I was still blind to their glory.

That changed almost immediately. I found myself reading not because I felt obligated, but because I genuinely wanted to know the God who had shown me such undeserved mercy. Questions that had once held little interest now consumed my thoughts. Who is God? What has He accomplished through Christ? Why would He save someone like me after nearly thirty years of open rebellion? What does it mean to follow Him? How am I to live now?

I read with a hunger that surprised even me. Passages I had skimmed over before now arrested my attention. The holiness of God no longer seemed like an abstract theological concept, but a glorious reality. The cross no longer appeared merely as the symbol of Christianity, but as the place where the wrath I deserved had been poured out upon Christ. Grace ceased to be little more than a religious word. It became the only explanation for why I was not still the man I had been only days before.

The Lord also gave me an insatiable appetite to hear His Word preached. I continued watching Ray Comfort and the ministry of Living Waters. His conversations with strangers, which had first awakened my conscience through the Law of God, continued to remind me of the seriousness of sin and the sufficiency of Christ. But I also found myself wanting to understand the Scriptures more deeply than those brief conversations allowed.

One preacher led to another. Before long I was listening to Voddie Baucham, Paul Washer, John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul, Conrad Mbewe, and others whom the Lord graciously used to establish me in the faith during those early months. They differed in personality and emphasis, yet they all shared something I had been starved of for years. They treated the Bible as the very Word of God. They did not entertain me. There was no promises given of earthly prosperity or encouragement to think more highly of myself. They pointed me instead to the holiness of God, the sinfulness of man, the sufficiency of Christ, and the necessity of submitting every part of life to His Lordship.

Looking back, I can see how kind the Lord was in directing my steps. Having just come out of the shallow and man-centered teaching that had so influenced Sabrina and me before my conversion, I could easily have fallen into another error. Instead, the Lord surrounded me; even if only through books, sermons, and videos, with men who continually directed my attention away from themselves and back to the Scriptures.

I did not understand everything I heard. Far from it. There were doctrines that confused me. There were passages of Scripture that seemed difficult to reconcile. At times I found myself stopping a sermon every few minutes simply to open my Bible and read the passage again. I wanted to know whether these things were truly so. It was not enough for someone to tell me what God had said. I wanted to see it for myself.

That desire itself was entirely new. Previously I had been content to borrow my beliefs from others or to ignore theology altogether. Now I found myself measuring everything by the Word of God. If a belief could not stand under the light of Scripture, I no longer wanted to hold it, no matter how long I had believed it or how popular it might be.

The Lord had not merely rescued me from a life of drugs, drunkenness, and open rebellion. He had begun renewing my mind. My outward life had changed dramatically in a single night, but now the quieter work was beginning. Day by day, passage by passage, sermon by sermon, He was teaching me to think differently, to desire differently, and to see the world through the lens of His Word rather than through my own fallen understanding.

I often think back on those early weeks with gratitude. There was a simplicity to them that I sometimes miss. I knew very little, yet I was eager to learn. I had no desire to impress anyone with knowledge. I simply wanted to sit at the feet of Christ and hear Him speak through His Word. Like a newborn child craving milk, my soul longed for the nourishment I had gone without for so many years. The Lord would not let me starve.