Many of you knew me for my concert photography.

I was living a life for me. Drinking, doing drugs, and hurting myself -- both without realizing it, and on purpose. I trusted nobody -- not even myself. My friendships were more harmful than helpful. I was living a 'life' of misery, dispair, and distrust.

Worse than that, when I measured myself against the Ten Commandments, which we're all familiar with, I knew that I had broken quite a few of them. And if the Bible was true, that meant that when I died, I would be judged  'guilty' by God, and would be sent to hell for an eternity.

And I thought about that for quite a while. 

This all occurred to me just after I went through an otherwise 'simple' surgery to remove my gallbladder. The doctor had made some major mistakes, and it had left me with a serious, life-threatening bile leak in my abdomen. The leak started in the middle of the night, about a week after I came home from having the surgery.  For those who don't know, bile is an acid that your liver produces and stores in the gallbladder, to aid in digestion.  If it leaks into your abdomen, it does two things to you: it burns all of the organs and tissues it touches, and poisons you.  My body had leaked over 2000cc (more than a half-gallon) of bile into my abdomen.  Being an acid, it was burning my diaphragm, liver, and both the small and large intestines -- everything in the lower abdomen.  The pain was beyond anything I could have ever imagined, easily a '15' on a scale of 1 to 10...  And despite receiving quite a few shots of some strong painkillers, like Demerol and Dilaudid (for those who don't know, I have been told that Dilaudid is somewhat faster-acting and about eight times stronger than morphine, and about three times stronger than heroin, on a milligram basis.  In short, it's a STRONG painkiller), the shots did absolutely NOTHING to relieve or even take the edge off the pain I was experiencing.  Eventually, they finally knocked me out with a heavy dose of valium, moved me to another hospital, and stopped the leak.  But, the damage was done, and I had to endure months of strong, serious pain... with nothing to do but lay in the hospital bed and think.  

After having gone through such a traumatic event, it didn't take long for me to start thinking about my life, and how it had been going.  So many things were wrong, and I felt like I had literally ruined my life -- I was a mess, and it just looked like things were going to only get worse. In addition to the medical problems, I was going through a difficult, painful divorce from my wife who had been sleeping with other people, both of the companies I had co-founded were falling apart and my business partners had stolen the assets and run -- and in one case, I was stuck with paying a $5000/month retail space lease.  I also knew I was going to have to find a job, but had come to the realization that my recovery process would be slow, and it could months before I could work again.  With my finances in ruin, I knew I was about to lose my home, and I figured that I would probably lose my car too.  My life was a mess, and I needed to figure out what had gone wrong, and how I could 'stop the leak' and start recovering -- as soon as possible!

After weeks of laying in that hospital bed and spending much of the time thinking, I realized that I had turned my back on God at an early age. I had grown up in a Christian family, went to church, and had read a lot of the Bible as a child...but when I went to college, I had rebelled against all of it.  Here I was, years later, regretting that choice to walk away from God.  I cried out to God and told Him how miserable I was. He said, 'Just come to me. I am here, I love you, and I will forgive you if you just turn from your sin."

I used to think the concept of God was for the weak, and that Christians were some of the worst people on earth -- because so many of them have done so many things that are wrong...in the media, and in my own experiences.

But God showed me that He loves us and that He is real. All you have to do is trust in Jesus Christ, like you would a parachute, and repent (which means to turn away) from your sins, and read the Bible ...and you are a NEW person! And I had to admit that just because I've seen a few Christians 'fall' or 'fail' doesn't mean that God isn't for real, and doesn't mean that the Bible isn't absolutely true.

So, I took a little step of faith, and said a quiet prayer to God.  I told Him that I was so sorry for all of the things I had done that were wrong... 

I had told so many lies to so many people, which meant I was a liar ("Thou shall not lie"), I had taken things that were not mine, which meant I was a thief ("Thou shall not steal"), and I had lusted after women (Jesus said that if you even just look at another person with lust, you have committed adultery in your heart), which meant that I was an adulterer ("Thou shall not commit adultery"), and I had hated some of the people in my life (Jesus said that if you have hatred for another person, you have committed murder in your heart), so although I had never physically taken another life, in God's eyes I was also a murderer ("Thou shall not kill").  Taken together, that meant that I was a lying, thieving, adulterous, murderer.  And since God says that if you've broken one of the Ten Commandments, you've broken them all, I was guilty of breaking ALL of the Ten Commandments.  That meant that without God's grace, I would spend an eternity in hell.  But because of God's love for us (after all, He created us), and His desire to save us all, He sent His only son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross, to pay the price for my sins, your sins, and the sins of everybody (the Bible says, "For ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" - Romans 3:23).  Then, by being raised from the dead on the third day, Jesus conquered death, which gives us the ability to have eternal life.

I learned that repenting of our sins (which again, just means to turn away from them...to try to not do them anymore), and trusting Jesus like I would trust a parachute while jumping from a plane, and taking some time to read the Bible every day (praying is not enough... prayer is US talking to God.  The Bible is God's words to us, so it is Him talking to US.), those three things are ALL we have to do in order to accept God's free gift of His grace.  If we trust in Jesus, repent from our sins, and read the Bible, we will be saved from an eternity in hell, and will receive eternal life with God.

Since that time, God restored my life.  I got a great job at a major medical association, where I worked for over five years...  I've gotten married to a wonderful woman, and we've made a little family together...   God has restored my finances, my health, and my mind.  And most of all, God has taught me that I can trust Him as I would trust a parachute -- I can trust Him with my very life -- and He will never let me down. 

No, He's not a magic genie that gives me all of my wishes... And no, He's not likely to make you win the lottery, or suddenly become famous.  No. While those things are possible, they're just not necessary.  God has given me the most important, most valuable thing in all of the world: true salvation and my life is now focused on living for Him.  When you're totally surrendered to Jesus Christ, your life is totally different and completely new!  And while my life still has the 'ups and downs' of anybody's life, the difference is that I have a powerful, loving, and living God that I can turn to when things get tough.  He cares for me, provides for my needs, and has never, EVER let me down. 

It is important to know that a true, authentic Christian doesn't have a 'perfect' life, and doesn't have a life free of challenges, problems, or even disappointments and pain.  No, the thing that is different with a Christian's life is how he or she responds to the things that happen in life.  A true Christian also doesn't live a flawless, sinless life.  While, with God's help, they will try to not sin, they will make mistakes, and will get tripped-up and sin again (and again).  The thing that separates a true Christian from others is not being free of sin, it is how they respond to that sin -- what they do when they make a mistake.  A repentant heart seeks forgiveness, both from God and the person or people they have hurt.  It took me a long time to understand those things.  And before I realized that, I thought Christians were just hypocrites and fools.  But when you give your heart to God, and trust Jesus Christ, He reveals Himself to you, becomes VERY real in your life, and gives you a new perspective on life, living and dying, people, love, and forgiveness.  

I can promise you something... if you consider whether God would judge you as guilty and send you to hell if you died today, and if you decide to put your trust in Jesus, repent from your sins, and read the Bible daily, I can promise you that God will reveal Himself to you.  He IS real... He IS so powerful, yet loving and caring to His children... and He WILL give grace to you, too, if you say an honest prayer of repentance...tell Him that you're sorry for having broken His law, that you want to turn away from your sins, and that you want to put your complete trust in Jesus Christ.  Then just get a Bible if you don't already have one, read it daily, and do what it says...  If you do those simple things, God tells us that you will be saved.

"For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son (Jesus Christ), so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but will have eternal life."  John 3:16

Please take a moment and write to me. I'd be happy to tell you about my personal experiences and tell you all about my life and how God changed it all. Drop me a note and I'll write back to you. Don't let another day go by without meeting Jesus.