Adam’s Story

I am so messed up.

I was so confused and insecure in high school. I was confused and insecure about who I was. I think back to that time period and am so ashamed about that guy. It’s part of the reason I’ve sort of erased those years from my memory. I was self-absorbed and cocky with an overdeveloped sense of moral superiority and yet so confused, insecure and as morally bankrupt as the next guy. Everything I did was driven by insecurity and the desire to somehow prove myself. I found things I was good at, girls to use/make out with, and some church stuff to do to make me better.  I tried so hard to get other people to like me and to be different or stand out at the same time. I felt like that stuff made me someone and yet I had no idea who that someone was.

You’d think 12 years of Catholic school would help, but I was just as insecure and confused about God. What would really happen to me if I died? I knew God was supposed to love me… but did he like me? Was he just putting up with me? I could fool everyone else but I knew I could not fool God. If he really knew everything then he was probably pretty frustrated with me. So I would try harder at religion. Do more stuff for God his way and he’d have to like me more.

I had heard all the “Jesus loves you and died on the cross for your sins” stuff. (blah… blah… blah…) Honestly, hearing that just made me feel worse when I blew it. “Sorry Jesus.” I put you up there again.

But why death, why did he have to die for me? Why not something else? I knew it was the ultimate sacrifice – supreme love – but there was something I’d missed all those years of school and church.

My freshman year at Iowa State it all came together. After my first night at college where I went to ten house parties (literally), I sat on my bed at 2AM in my dorm room and felt like there had to be something more to college than getting trashed and more to God than some dull, guilt-ridden duty.

So I put myself out there and I met some people who knew God in a way I had never seen before.  First, they were cool. I wanted to be their friends. They knew who they were; they had fun and I didn’t have to impress them. They also had this life about them. Christianity was not a boring religious system. There was no guilt for their junk but a sense of freedom and transformation that came from somewhere else than their own will power. Mostly they talked about and experienced God like he was so real and so relevant to their life.

What they understood and I came to understand is that apart from Christ we should be more than insecure. I have no ability on my own to be good enough for God to accept me. Saint Paul says, “The wages of sin is death, but the free Gift of God is eternal life.” My sin earns me spiritual death and separation from God. I can’t do anything about it. That’s why eternal life is a free gift. It does not come from me. It comes from Christ. Jesus had to die. Because death is the penalty I owe God for the junk in my life. He did not deserve death; he never earned it like me, but he chose to die so he could substitute himself for me. Paying the debt of death I owed God.

Going to heaven and being secure in God has nothing to do with me. Christ did everything. I just had to accept God’s free gift for myself and put my faith in what Jesus did for me instead of my worthless attempts to do stuff for God.

When I got that, it changed everything. If he did that for me when I was so lost, how much more must he be for me now that I’ve been forgiven!?! I’m fully accepted by God I know he really likes me. I’m his son. No more guilt. Instead there is gratitude that Jesus would do for me what I could not.

I’m not a perfect guy but I don’t have to pretend anymore. I don’t have this all figured out. It’s a journey and I still have a long way to go but I have more hope and peace and adventure in my life now then I could have ever dreamed.

Why? Because I’m more secure in him and accepted than I could ever imagine.

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