Unstuck

Why does regret tend to paralyze us? We look back at a time, a decision, a series of choices that if we had the power to change it we would. The pain, the brokenness, the desire to make things right again seems to be as possible as counting grains of sand on a seashore. The result is a life that seems stuck. We are ready to move on but we would love to go back. This tension is one that many live in and many don’t know what to do.

So what do we do? We can’t stay stuck yet we aren’t sure how to move on? Lets take a walk to the cross where our Savior took all my regret, my pain, and the brokenness of all my choices upon Him. He knew the power of regret and the hold it can have on a life caught between what it could be and what it really is. He took the beating. He took insults. He took the pain and agony associated with the cruelty of the crucifixion and He died for me.

A sinless man, a Holy God did for me what I could never do for myself. He set me free not only from the penalty of my sin but showed me a path out. A life free from regret and living stuck. A life whose slate has been wiped clean by God’s amazing forgiving grace.

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

-Colossians 2:13-14

Here is my choice today in light of this amazing truth. I am going to live UNSTUCK. Knowing and believing that God has willingly cancelled everything that REGRET urges me to hold on to…wanting and wishing to change…I am letting it go. I am going to quit punishing myself for debts that God has already canceled! FREEDOM is waiting at the foot of the cross.

From Genie to Jehovah: The Story of How Jesus Became Real to Me

-by Brandon Stephens

Who could ask for a better childhood? Not me! Growing up in a two parent household, I was loved and provided for in every way. Mom and Dad raised me with morals and values although we never went to church, read the Bible, or prayed together. I excelled in school and was very active in clubs, sports, and band. I had a lot of friends and got along with almost everyone.

For as long as I can remember, I worked hard to be liked, accepted, and "good enough." On the outside it looked like I had it all together but on the inside I was missing something. I became a chameleon of sorts… Always adapting and changing who I was to fit in with others. In high school I became very promiscuous and gained self-confidence and self-worth from being considered by my peers as a "lady's man."

Then I found drugs. My parents were very overprotective so I had to be sneaky and hide my usage. When I went away to college however, I went nuts on the freedom of being on my own and my partying skyrocketed until one day I realized that I had a problem, I sought counseling and got introduced to various 12 step fellowships.

In denial and full of excuses, I rationalized that I wasn't "that bad," and didn't really need to stop. I tried every way possible to control my addiction: only using after work, only using on weekends, only drinking, avoiding certain drugs...none of it worked! Eventually, I started taking painkillers and they brought me to my knees. When my son, Oliver, was 15 months old and Andrea and I had been married only a month, I checked into rehab.

A couple years before I met Andrea I had been dating a Christian girl who took me to church. Even though I didn't grow up going to church or reading the Bible, I knew a little bit about Jesus. My childhood best friend, Scott, had a portrait of Jesus on his wall (even though his family never went to church or talked about God). Figuring God was a cosmic Santa Claus of sorts, we took the Jesus picture off the wall, put it on Scott's bed, got down on our knees and prayed that Jesus would make Scott's mom say yes to letting us have a sleep over.

When my Christian girlfriend at the time took me to church I wasn't trying to hear anything about religion, Jesus, or the Bible. I went because she went. Looking around the room, I saw people with their hands in the air and smiles on their faces singing songs to God. One night, in a moment of desperation I said, "Jesus, if you're real, come into my life and help me. I can't do this on my own anymore."

I wish I could say a lightning bolt shot down from heaven and I miraculously got clean and sober that day. The truth is I used for about four or five more years. I didn't understand all that, "you're a sinner and Jesus died for your sins," talk.

Sitting in rehab in 2009, I began to get some clarity while attending a Bible study. The rehab people told me I was an addict whether I wanted to be or not. Self-centered in the extreme, I cared only about getting what I thought I needed by any means necessary.

The Bible study people told me that I was a sinner whether I wanted to be or not because of a choice Adam and Eve made in the Garden of Eden to distrust God and do things their own way. Addiction became synonymous with sin and things started to make sense for me.

My counselor said if I continued using drugs I was either going to end up in jail, another rehab if I was lucky, or dead. My childhood best friend, Scott, actually ended up overdosing and died from heroin a few years ago. The pastor in the Bible study said that the wages of sin is death but that Jesus came as God in the flesh to become sin and die the death I should have died on the cross. After a decade of mixing drugs and drinking and driving, I wondered why I was still alive.

My counselor said if I wanted to stay clean then I needed to change everything about myself: the people I hung out with, the places I went, and the things I did. I needed a new life. The Bible study pastor said that Jesus was raised from the dead and that when I believe in Him, I share in His resurrection to new life. He told me, "Anyone in Christ is a new creation. He makes all things new."

I truly started to feel like the old me was dead and that I was becoming something new. I started to believe that Jesus died the death I should've died in my active addiction and that I was raised with Him to new life. Quite surprised, I said to myself, "Holy crap...I'm a Christian!"

Fresh out of rehab, I began attending church with Oliver (Andrea wanted no parts of my newfound religious zeal as she wasn't quite sure my sobriety would stick). Over the past seven years, my relationship with Jesus which started out of desperation, has become very real.

Spending time reading the Bible has taught me that the feeling of, "something's missing," that I experienced my entire life was a result of my broken relationship with my Creator. I tried to fix myself and gain identity through sex, drugs, hip hop, but nothing worked. I was dead inside.

Sin causes separation and death. Through Jesus' death for my sins on the cross, my relationship with God has been restored. When I asked him into my heart, He gave me his spirit. I became alive inside! He now lives in me.

I did horrible things in active addiction and certainly don't deserve the life I have today. No amount of good grades, varsity letters, or college degrees could earn this life either. The Bible says, "By grace you were saved through faith in Jesus." That's my story!

Today, my true identity is found in Christ and can best be understood through my relationship with my kids. My children are my pride and joy! I've learned that the way I look at them is the way God sees me. There's nothing those kids could do to make me stop loving them and there's nothing I could do to make God stop loving me. Today, God is my Father and I'm his kid!

If I had gone to prison or died in active addiction, Oliver would have grown up without a father and my daughter, Alana, would never have been born. She's just one of the many blessings God has given me since I asked him into my heart. The reader of this blog would be done a great injustice if I didn't share that Jesus wants to do the same thing for you that he did for me.

The Bible says, "Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become the children of God." Another verse says, "For God so loved the world that He gave his only Son so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."

I understand if you think I'm a crazy, Bible-thumping fool! I used to think the same thing about those who shared Jesus with me. I thought the Bible was a book of fairy tales and that Jesus was a genie who granted wishes.

Today He is Jehovah, my friend, my comforter, my protection, my strength, and my truth. He wants you to know him like that as well. He knows everything about you and loves you regardless of anything you've ever done wrong. The Bible says He knows the number of hairs on your head and knew you when He knit you in your mother's womb!

If you're still reading this piece and don't have a relationship with Jesus, I encourage you to ask Him to become real to you as well. Today, I live an abundant life of peace, joy, and purpose and it's all because of Him!

The Difference A Year Makes

by Brandon Stephens

In her 1970 hit single, "Big Yellow Taxi," singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell proclaimed to the world, "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone..." While many of you are finishing Joni's classic lyric in your heads, my reflection upon the events of the past twelve months has got me thinking, "When it comes to life and life abundant, you don't know what you're missing 'til you get it!"

Who could complain? With the wreckage of over a decade's worth of substance abuse all but cleared away, my loving wife and two beautiful children and I secured a mortgage in a 2 bedroom/2 bathroom condo in the historic town of Smithville, NJ where town is spelled with an "e" at the end. Life was good. Or so I thought.

In comparison to the first 5 years of our relationship, Andrea and I were experiencing periodic bouts of stability and normalcy. Gone were the sleepless nights of her wondering if I’d make it home from Atlantic City. A successful working man is at the beck and call of his employer. Addiction was my full-time job and when the boss man called, I came a' running.

But now drugs are no longer my god. In 2009, a brief stint in rehab allowed my borrowed faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior to become my own. After attending a Bible study one evening, I discovered the Addict's Transitive Property of Christianity and had a breakthrough: if sin equals death, and addiction equals death, then sin must equal addiction!

Through this lens, Jesus' sacrifice on the cross became personal. The person I was as an active addict died with Him on the cross. My sins were covered with His righteousness and washed with His blood. I shared in His resurrection and received a new life freed from the bondage of addiction.

Andrea's faith journey began in 2009 to appease the post-rehab religious zealot that I had become. Initially my weekly church attendance with my then fifteen month old son, Oliver, gave Andrea an opportunity to have two hours alone in a quiet house without a whiny child or a Bible-thumping husband to interrupt her thoughts.

Raised by her non-practicing, Jewish mother and her Iranian-born, Armenian father (who is Christian by nationality more than belief), Andrea grew up with no concept of God, no exposure to prayer, and no experience with the Bible.

I was so excited about my new found faith and I was incessant at evangelizing Andrea but it was less than transformative. Slowly but surely she began to attend church with Oliver and I on a routine basis. Emphasis on ROUTINE.

Fortune literally found us in Smithville, that’s where we bought a house and settled down after Andrea's mom hit the jackpot in an Atlantic City casino and gave us the money for the down payment on our home. We began attending a small, local church, filled a pew, and routinely volunteered in the children's ministry. Emphasis once more on ROUTINE.

Venturing home one Sunday morning after church, Andrea and I experienced a distinct sense that something in our walk was missing, we realized our Christianity was compartmentalized and stored in a bin labeled, "Sunday Morning."

Last April, a string of God-ordained interactions and events found my two kids and I at an Easter Egg Hunt on the front lawn of Buff and Cissy McNickle. The family at Grace Falls Church made us feel welcome and immediately at home like a member of the family. I was overwhelmed by the hospitality and joy emanating from everyone that I interacted with.

Racing home and busting through the door, I took Andrea's ear hostage and spouted off about how great a time we had and how nice everyone I met was. My bubble burst as Andrea stated emphatically, "We are not switching churches."

Down but not defeated, I joined a "Real Life Discipleship" study at Grace Falls and went back to the drawing board. Knowing if I could just get Andrea in the same room with my new friends, she would experience the same love I had felt at the egg hunt. Opportunity and desire collided on Good Friday last year when Buff and Cissy's invitation to a local restaurant resulted in my wife's attendance at her first Grace Falls event.

Volumes could be written about the events and interactions that have taken place over the past twelve months. We've come to know God as our Provider. We've seen Him at work in the lives of those around us. A young man I was fortunate enough to pour into gave His life to Christ. The ripples of his decision are still reverberating through his family as the Kingdom continues to be built.

Our knowledge of God's story and recognition of our place within it becomes clearer every day. We've taken our faith out of the box labeled, "Sunday Morning." We've come to find our place in a family of servants who are on mission for God. Realizing that we were saved from the penalty of sin, are being saved from bondage of sin, and will one day be saved from the presence of sin, we've learned to rest in His grace and stop trying to prove ourselves.

Today, we're interested in how we can serve others and be Good News to those in our community. We've come to know that "church" is not a building but a Body. We are the church. Today, our lives are anything but ROUTINE. We have life and life abundant. What a difference a year makes.