a life transformed by Yeshua

I remember so clearly the very black-and-white, night-and-day testimonies of the once drug-dealing, now clean Christians, of once sex-addicted and now pure Christians, and the once depressed, now joy-filled Christians whose stories made such an emotionally moving impact on my life. These stories move you to tears; they make you see the powerful, transformative love that makes people far off the deep end do a 180° and turn their lives around—you know the ones.

Growing up in the church, those are also some of the only ones I ever heard…

Being the child in church with a deep desire to be seen and loved, I wanted a story like that. There was a pressure as a church kid to have some “drastic life change story” to represent how incredible Jesus was to me and how much He “transformed my life.” Otherwise, I didn’t know if I could prove the power of Jesus over my life if I didn’t have a good story to go with it…

“Was my story even written yet? Perhaps the day is coming when I will eventually find myself wound up in darkness and depression, only to have Jesus come save the day…” I thought.

These are the honest thoughts I had when I was younger.

And it feels foolish to write it out now, but I know there were times I wished I had a period of darkness, sin, and depression so that I could have this incredible, powerful story of how Jesus transformed my life and how I’m no longer the same. Because “real Christians” have that kind of story, I told myself.

Part of that was pride and a deep desire to be seen, which I’ve unpacked a lot in my life since.

But that’s not why I’m writing this.

I’m writing this because I have since redefined what “a life transformed by Jesus” truly means.

One of my close friends now here in Atlanta landed an incredible job at a tech company right out of college. She was close to family where she was in St. Louis; she was working in sales, and she loved her job.

A few months turned into success-filled years, and she was quickly being promoted, with a higher salary and more benefits. And then she felt God putting Atlanta on her mind, as if she was supposed to move there. So, as if on cue, within a few short months, her company announced internally that they would be opening an office in Atlanta to seek interest. It was a sort of confirmation, she told me.

So Atlanta became her new home a few months later. She joined YoungLife in Atlanta, the middle and high school ministry that I’m part of. But then work started to not give the satisfaction that she was experiencing before… The salary was great and increasing, she loved the benefits and comfort of it all, but something started to not sit right in her soul.

She would go to God in prayer about it. She would read Scripture and live in community with other believers to process what was happening to her… Eventually, her response was clear: She needed to leave her perfect, comfortable, financially well-off job… for what, though?!

Because she would find herself seasons later doing ministry in Atlanta full-time on a low-income, fundraised salary to do one thing: love kids well.

To love kids well. To run to them and care for them. She chose this for herself. She listened to God. And I’ve spent many, many days alongside her in ministry, seeing the immensely tiring physically, emotionally, and mentally tasking work that goes into caring for kids well to know the Gospel and show them how deeply the Lord loves them.

Yes, she chose to leave a comfortable, safe, and flourishing financial life and career to give of herself.

How does this make any logical sense? In our western world of achievement and prosperity, what truly would make someone make this kind of decision?

She said that even if it seemed unwise and foolish to everyone else around her, it wouldn't change her mind. She told me she would feel satisfied for the rest of her life in that choice.

My definition of a life transformed by Yeshua changed that day.

It’s not only a life transformed from darkness and sin to light and purity; it’s a life lived in complete surrender and submission to a God who laid His own life down for those He loved, and in doing so, we are invited to do the same for those around us.

Yes, a life intentionally choosing the cost, the sacrifice, and the discomfort because it’s what we owe Him.

Love is a choice. Love is costly. Love is sacrifice.

This is the true meaning of a life transformed by Yeshua.

my one wild & precious life

I recently took the Myers-Briggs personality test for the third time in my life at the suggestion of my counselor. I have many thoughts about the write-up on the ENFJ-T personality type — mostly that I agree and feel validated in the quirks and tendencies that I have, which otherwise leave me confused as to why others don’t share the same tendencies and behaviors. For the most part, I face insecurities and negative traits in myself each day — but I think that’s how we all are. It's human nature, and somewhat selfish to imagine that everyone should operate as we do. In fact, I’d suggest it’s one of the core principles of disagreements and arguments among all interpersonal human conflicts in the world today, at a personal level at least. I try to use empathy to fight against it, and I feel like that works pretty well.

But the most striking piece I read from the personality type write-up was this: “The dark side of your personality is the nagging fear day in and day out that you may not reach your full potential and make the most of your one wild and precious life.”

For the record, I think there are many poor ways to respond to personality tests: thinking you are boxed in or have to live according to the words about your personality type, making excuses for your shortcomings (i.e., “that’s just the way I am”), or using it as a black-and-white way to look at life. Real life is lived in the gray.

On the positive side, I think personality tests are very useful in helping you understand yourself and bring words to core fears and desires within you that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to express. This is how I use them, and this is the essence of how this sentence landed with me.

I’ve been developing a pretty solid Sabbath habit recently since the start of 2024. It feels really good, and I find myself needing to brain-vomit everything that entered my brain during the last seven days. In that sense, it’s been really healthy. Every Saturday, I leave my house, disconnect from the internet and from the city, and find a quiet place. Then, I have some kind of outlet that is useful for unloading all of the thoughts, fears, emotional baggage, and prayers that inundate my mind and spirit. According to their own needs, I would encourage anyone to do the same.

It usually comes in the form of writing. Sometimes a prayer. Sometimes a journal entry. Sometimes it’s a list.

Lately, I’ve been finding myself taking my Saturday mornings and unloading the weight of pressure I put on myself about all the things my heart desires to do and the grief of all the time I don’t have to do it. I literally make lists of these things. I just can’t do it all, and so I try my very hardest, as I have most of my life, to complete and pursue as much as possible. While many other things can be redeemed later, including money and materialistic desires, there is no redemption of time. You’ll never get lost time back.

It may sound pretty pathetic that it’s these experiences I’m grieving the loss of, to be honest with you. Because I know so many in my life who are grieving much greater losses than time. But in reality, I think it’s deeply rooted in what death has looked like so early in my life journey.

I think about my friends Luke and Corban who lost their lives way too early. I think about them every day. I think about the brevity of life, and I think about the ticking clock I’m racing against.

So much of our society relies on career achievements to define success. My friends didn't even have the chance to have *that* kind of success... but I'm writing to say that I have learned the Lord has a very different definition of success...

They way they lived prove something completely different — something more value than anything we attach our worth.

The Kingdom of God has a completely different set of values and perspective of this one wild & precious life we have.

At the risk of sounding insensitive, these are my real thoughts when it comes to the value of life. But what follows is me running those theories out to the extreme, asking Yahweh to shape my mind and my lens. And time and time again, I’m reminded that absolutely anything on my list, anything I desire, and plainly my entire existence is completely worthless without something outside of myself giving it some reason to continue on.

Yes, whether I desire marriage or a career with a fancy job title… Whether I desire a full heart of relationships, or something I create, or respect and popularity in abundance… even a life of ease, happiness, and rest — give it a hundred years and it most likely won’t ever be remembered. Can you even name your great-great-grandparents? And if you can, then name one thing they did in their life.

Sure, there are some anomalies, but you get the point. I’m actively facing my fear of not making the most of my life in these words you’re reading.

Last Saturday, I found a beautiful park with the breeze creating mist from the waterfalls and lush greenery that I walked through. Birds were singing and the sun was warming my spirit, with the hum of airplanes taking off from the Atlanta airport. I felt at peace. And out of all things, my counselor reminded me of John Piper’s “Don’t Waste Your Life” sermon. I listened again for the first time in years, and sat with the reality that he presents in the seven-minute message:

Ruby and Laura, two single eighty-somethings, left the comfort of their home in America for Cameroon to share the Gospel. Tragically, on the mission field, the brakes went out in the vehicle they were riding in, sending them over a cliff and into their deaths.

And then he presents a brochure about early retirement, featuring Bob and Penny. They took early retirement, moved to Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, play softball, and collect shells.

Which of these is a tragedy?

Of course, this day, a Lecrae lyric was stuck in my head. He mentions Luke 12:15 to 21. I opened it up:

“…one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

Storing up my treasures in Heaven. Reminding myself daily, with new mercy every morning, that I am right where I am supposed to be — and that loving God and loving neighbor by giving my life away sacrificially in the here and now is truly the only way to make my life worth something. It’s the only thing that will last in light of the Lord.

Luke and Corban's life mattered in the most. Both of them spent their time investing in the things that were truly everlasting — their relationship with their Lord and by loving those around them. Truthfully, the way they lived is a standard and challenge to the life I live each day to hold fast to the parts of life that truly matter.

I’m grateful for that truth today, and while my Western conditioning may continue to make me feel the tendency to achieve, overwork, and idolize a life of not resting in God, I know it’s true that I’m held in the everlasting arms of love that have already done the important work.

An easy yoke it is for me then, to have the opportunity to serve and love all people, knowing that I have been accepted, grafted in, and loved first. Lord, help me see my life and time as You do.

Arriving

So many of those at the top are miserable.

Take any discipline, and there's a rat race for it: sports, music, your workplace, education, money, possessions, and so on. You can fill in the blank for yourself. 

And whether we know it or not, we truly believe deep down that our rank in said discipline is the value of our existence. We get our worth from it. Or maybe we believe that someday we will get that job, make enough money, have enough status. Suddenly, we are enslaved to a rat race — doing anything we can to prove ourselves, to end up unfulfilled and unsatisfied. And I'm pretty convinced it's killing the true life we were meant to find of joy, contentment, and peace.

I had a discussion with someone who has a successful touring rock band. He's traveled the nation for music and is signed to a label. If you've known my past personally, you know that I would be envious. That's the position I've wanted to be in as far back as I can remember - since being inspired by old Creed music videos when I was 7.

"I wake up every day feeling like a failure," he expressed to me. I sat in silence, puzzled. "I know you're probably looking at me wanting to be where I am," he said honestly, "but I'm looking at those topping the charts, those with more fans and followers, and those writing more impressive music than me, and I feel like I'm in my thirties now with nothing to show for what I've done."

What an explosion of truth. A deep reality of our humanity.

After winning three Super Bowl championship rings in 2005, Tom Brady asked in a 60 Minutes interview: "Why do I have three Super Bowl rings, and still think there's something greater out there for me? I reached my goal, my dream, my life. Me, I think: God, it's gotta be more than this."

You see, "success" is relative. It's a moving target. If our human nature tells us anything, it's that we won't ever be "enough." There will always be someone better than you, smarter than you, more educated and impressive than you. And the sooner we figure that out, the freer we will be to live.

Stop trying to prove yourself. You are already enough.

I am slowly discovering the source of my lasting contentment, peace, and joy — but it probably won't be the rat race I have been enslaved to for so many years. Some live their whole lives believing they will "arrive" — wherever that is for them, to find that it never comes. What a tragedy.

You are unique, and I truly think more and more each day that the best thing to fight against comparison is to just exist.