What if the Gospel is true?

When the Gospel was first shared with me in college, I distinctly remember this feeling of, “what if this is true?” washing over my body. As a staunch atheist, I tried to push down that feeling, not wanting to give up my worldly freedoms and relinquish the power I wanted to have to save myself. My worldview was one that brought quick anger, selfishness, unforgiveness, and distrust. It wasn’t one that I was proud of, but it was what I knew.

But what if the Gospel is true? I remember asking myself this question when I came to King’s Church for the first time as an intern in the summer of 2022. At that point, I had built more of an agnostic worldview, too afraid to commit my heart to Christ, but had an overwhelming sense that there was something bigger to life than work, money, and worldly success. That summer was the first time I felt the loving embrace of a Christ-like family. Genuine friendships were formed and my first Bible was gifted to me.

I left D.C. that August, feeling more displaced than I ever had. I couldn’t understand how my small town self felt so at home in a big city 3,000 miles away from where I grew up. My last semester of college was filled with worldly highs, trying to find the true joy I experienced within the body of believers through fleeting idols. After every weekend party, I would wake up thinking “surely there has to be something more than this,” and ask myself, “what if the Gospel is true?”

That next January, I experienced one of the hardest periods of my life. It was in that pain and isolation that I knew it was time to make a choice: live in a constant state of emptiness or run to the place where I knew I had once experienced a fullness of peace, joy, and love like never before. In my brokeness, I gave my life to Jesus. Within a few weeks, the Lord swung open a door for me to move back to D.C., and the first place I wanted to go when I got there was church.

I got baptized at King’s Church in June of 2023- almost exactly one year after walking through the doors of Penn Social for the first time. Every single day since then, God has reminded me of the truth in Paul’s words to the church in Ephesus:

“...assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:21-24).

Every single one of us is a new creation when we come to know Christ. He has overcome the world, defeated death, and delivered us from our sin. It can be easy to look back on the ways I mocked, beat, and crucified Christ in my own heart before placing my trust in Him. It should break our hearts to see how we disgrace the God of the universe. But that heartbreak should turn our eyes towards the cross, not our backs against it. The same God that transformed Saul to Paul also transformed you and I. Walking in that freedom is the only way to properly glorify our Savior every day on earth.

After two years of following Jesus, I still struggle with finding the words to explain what it was like to go from my atheist worldview and complete disparity to looking at the cross in all my shame and guilt and seeing love, grace, and freedom freely given so that I could be free in Jesus Christ.

My testimony is a reflection of our Savior not being in a rush, but rather in His perfect timing moving the pieces He wants to move. We often are so focused on the single string of our lives that we don’t see the beautiful tapestry God is weaving all around us. I want to leave you with this poem written by Grant Tullar, often quoted by Corrie Ten Boom, two people of immense faith:

“My life is but a weaving

Between my God and me.

I cannot choose the colors

He weaveth steadily.

Oft’ times He weaveth sorrow;

And I in foolish pride

Forget He sees the upper

And I the underside.

Not ’til the loom is silent

And the shuttles cease to fly

Will God unroll the canvas

And reveal the reason why.

The dark threads are as needful

In the weaver’s skillful hand

As the threads of gold and silver

In the pattern He has planned.

He knows, He loves, He cares;

Nothing this truth can dim.

He gives the very best to those

Who leave the choice to Him.”