You see, in public, I was a model child. Even from kindergarten onward, good grades, good behavior, and so on. It is quite possible as a child to say you’re a Christian and for everyone to assume it’s true. (The same is true of adults.) As for me, I was not born again.

“Did you play college basketball?” I’m asked that question on occasion. I guess it’s a reasonable question considering my height. The story behind my answer though always reminds me how Christ saved me from living for myself that I might live for Him.

“Where will you spend eternity?” It’s a simple, straight-forward, and typical question often asked when presenting the gospel….especially in the south Georgia Christian school I attended during my middle school years. However, this very question would be the one that changed my life forever.

“I got saved,” my friend told me one day when I was about 10 years old.“
Saved from what?” I asked.
“Hell,” he said.
“Who saved you?”
“The preacher!”

As a teenager, I was the last kid anyone thought faith in Christ and gospel ministry was in my future. Today, being happily married to my high school sweetheart with five children and serving the Lord Jesus in the local church and missions is purely because of God’s work of grace.

“If you live under my roof, you're going to church!” My dad told me that more than once while I was growing up in Brunswick, Georgia. By church, he meant Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday. Looking back, I know being raised that way was a blessing. I avoided a lot of the mistakes and problems people outside the church experience as they grow up. I also realized something was missing from my childhood faith – a hunger and a thirst.