I Thought I Knew God. I Was Dead Wrong.

Fair warning: this gets messy before it gets beautiful.

I’m not a pastor. I’m not a theologian. I don’t have letters after my name or a seminary degree.

What I have is this: At 40 years old, I had an encounter with God that broke me wide open. Then rebuilt me into someone I didn’t recognize.

For years, I was the guy white-knuckling through life. Sexual addiction that controlled me. Pornography I couldn’t quit. Substance abuse I used to numb the shame. A sinful lifestyle I was exhausted from defending & underneath it all, a religious system that had taught me I had to perform my way into God’s approval.

Then God showed up. Not in a church service. Not through a twelve-step program. Just…showed up. When I cried out to Him, He met me and in one moment, what I’d spent decades trying to fix through willpower, He dismantled with grace.

Was I instantly perfect? Hell no.

But I was instantly free. Free from the addiction I’d had since I was 14. Free from the shame that told me I was too dirty and broken to be used. Free from the religious performance that kept me distant and empty.

And that freedom launched the most radical, most uncomfortable, most beautiful process I’ve ever experienced: unlearning everything I thought I knew about God, myself, and how this whole faith thing actually works.