Want To Hear Something Unbelievable - My Testimony

Have you ever given the right answer to a question you didn't actually understand? That doesn’t make sense does it. Well, it will in a moment …

I did it for years. Honestly for over 10 years. Someone would ask me about my faith and I'd tell them exactly what they needed to hear. I knew the answer, but didn’t understand it. I said I believed in Jesus, but I didn’t know what it really meant. I went to church, I journaled, I tried hard to be a good man. And I was still lost and didn’t understand what it meant to be “really” saved.

I grew up in Albany, Georgia, no real church foundation, parents divorced when I was ten, and an anger living underneath everything I did that I couldn't explain and couldn't shake.

Fighting, arguing, always on edge. Always hunting for something to fill a hole I couldn't name. I married young, started a family, did what I thought responsible people did, went to church, kept the house immaculate, stayed busy and distracted.

My double-wide sat on a long dirt road and my yard and house was spotless. Because that's how I managed my inner chaos. Order on the outside, wreckage on the inside.

Then Wayne Curles, my pastor came to visit and told me a story about a man named Charles Blondin — a legendary 19th-century tightrope walker who stretched a wire across Niagara Falls and walked it blindfolded, on stilts, carrying a man on his back, and more.

One day he pushed a wheelbarrow across with rocks in it, reached the other side, turned to the roaring crowd and asked, "Do you believe I could do it again?" Every voice cheered. He dumped the rocks out. "Then who will get in?"

Silence, except for his manager, who had watched Blondin do this hundreds of times and stepped forward and climbed in. But someone had loosened the wire. Midway across it began to sway and shift, no safety net below, and the manager panicked and grabbed the sides of the wheelbarrow, convinced that if he just held on tight enough he could keep them from going down.

Blondin leaned down quietly and said, "Do you believe I can get us to the other side?" The manager said, "Yes, but I think we're going to die today." Blondin said, "Then let go of the wheelbarrow. Just sit there effortlessly and trust me. I'll do all the work. I just need you to stop trying to save yourself." He let go. Blondin walked them to the other side.

Sitting in that living room, I finally understood the Gospel. It wasn’t my first time hearing it, but was the first time getting it. Jesus is Blondin. I was the manager. White-knuckling the sides of the wheelbarrow, going to church, giving the right answers and trying to be convinced I believed. But never once letting go.

Because here is what Jesus actually did, He lived the perfect life I could never live, went to the cross and took every sin I had ever committed, past, present, and future, and paid for every single one in full.

He died, was buried, and three days later rose from the dead, defeating death itself. He did every bit of the work. And all He asks of us is to stop gripping the wheelbarrow and trust that what He did was enough.

The Apostle Paul said it plainly, for it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of GOD, not by works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 2:8–9 NCV) That’s me. I’m just boasting in what Christ did.

On October 27th, 1982, I got on my knees around a coffee table and told Jesus I wasn't saved the way I thought I was, and I wanted the real thing. No lights, no angels, no heavenly choir. Just a pastor and a prayer. But something happened, my soul was truly saved that night and I knew it.

This isn't a story about life getting easier after that. I've made serious mistakes. I divorced. Had an affair. Remarried. Done things I'm not proud of. Fought cancer twice. Lost people I loved without warning. Bad things still happen. And GOD doesn't always intervene the way I want Him to. Yet His ways and His timing and His purposes run far deeper than I can see from where I'm standing.

As Isaiah wrote: "My thoughts are not like your thoughts. Your ways are not like my ways," says the LORD. "Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8–9 NCV)

But here is what changed. My anger is gone, well, except when I lose it. I’m still not perfect. Real forgiveness lives in my heart now, for others and for myself. That’s a strong element in my life now. When storms come I am anchored. I’m not immune, I’m anchored.

And if you need more evidence than one man's changed life, step outside on a clear night and look up. Look at the complexity of a single human cell. The precise tilt of the earth that makes life possible. The way a seed becomes a tree.

Paul wrote this nearly two thousand years ago and it still lands like a giant mountain, for since the creation of the world, GOD's invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made (creation), so that people are without excuse. (Romans 1:20 NCV)

If you see the design, you will find the Designer. And once you find the Designer, everything else becomes worth investigating. So do your honest homework. Vet it. The evidence is there, written across the universe and everything in creation. And the evidence is written across my life. I am truly a new creation.

I still can't believe it. It's truly amazing grace.

So if you want to finally be healed. I know it sounds churchy. But Jesus is your solution. No, it still won’t be perfect, but you will be rescued, healed and stronger. You will fight better, win more, and ultimately win through death - with eternal life. And after you die, you will live in a place where there is no pain, all joy, in a new heaven and a new earth.

I say - what are you waiting for. Pray the prayer: “I’m a sinner, Jesus paid for my sins, I want to follow His ways, God’s ways, and please save my soul and forgive me for all my past, present and future sins. I need healing and saving. Please save me. In Jesus’ Name I Pray (IJNIP) amen”. It’s that simple - now just trust it.

GOD, I don't fully know who is reading these words right now, but you do. For the one who has been gripping the wheelbarrow their whole life, giving all the right answers, doing all the right things, but never once truly letting go, please meet them right where they are, not when they feel worthy, not when they've cleaned up, but right now. For the skeptic who needs more than one man's story, point them outside, point them up, and let creation do what it was always meant to do. And for the one walking through something painful that makes no sense, remind them that your ways are higher, your purposes run deeper than they can see, and you have not forgotten them. Thank you for a pastor who sat across from me on a dirt road and told me a story about a wheelbarrow. Thank you that the Holy Spirit opened my eyes that night after decades of striving and straining and trying to save myself. Thank you that you just waited. I love you and we trust you with my very life. IJNIP amen ♥️

(This is very close to what my first house looked like)