I believe my story is not one of some impressive, life-changing conversion experience, but rather gently and patiently feeling the Lord “breathe” His Spirit on me throughout my life to draw me back to Himself.
I grew up as an only child in a home where we never went to church. Then, one weekend, when I was in early high school, my family decided to try a church up the road that we had heard of and that my grandparents had attended. I didn’t know what any of this “religion” was about, but I look back and realize that it was the first time I felt the gentle breath of the Lord nudging me back to Himself.
As I went off to school at Baylor, I joined a Christian organization where I met other guys who were really similar to myself, yet something was different. They were actively following Jesus. I didn’t really know what that meant, but the more I was around them, the more I understood that whatever they had — that was what I wanted. The gentle breath of the Lord calling me back to Himself.
A couple of years later, I met my wonderful wife Anna and her family, and still — something was different about them and the way they lived. I would come to find out that they had been in ministry all of their lives and, more importantly, been following Jesus for a long time — and raising their family to do so as well. As Anna and I would later get married and start a family of our own, I knew I wanted what they had. It was Jesus. The gentle breath of the Lord calling me back to Himself.
Now, being called to ministry on Young Life staff, I walk with teenagers to help them find the freedom, significance, and “life to the full” that comes with knowing Jesus. I find it to be no coincidence that as the Lord “breathed” creation into existence in the beginning and then started a new creation in the “Word,” His only Son — so also has the Lord created new life in me by His subtle, gentle breath throughout my life.