I’m 25 years old. I have a home, a beautiful wife, and our first child (a girl!) on the way. I’m almost done with my Bachelor’s degree in Public Relations. I plan on getting an MBA shortly after. I’d say things are going very well for me, right now. They say most humans spend 90% of their conscious hours thinking about themselves. With everything going on in the world right now, I’m almost ashamed to say I’m a statistic.
I was born and raised a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. A Mormon. Growing up, church wasn’t much of a choice but rather a mandatory 3 hours of painful boredom enforced by my parents. When I became a teenager and moved out, I wasn’t under their roof, and therefore I wasn’t under their rules. I didn’t have to go to church anymore. “Halleluiah!” From the time I was 14 to about 21, I never rejected my affiliation with the church, but it was safe to say that I was thoroughly inactive. My friends, music, girls, games, and good times were much more important. I believed in God, but obviously not enough to show any conviction to change my bad habits, and even worse attitudes. Even as my college career progressed, it was still so important to me to wear my Chuck Taylors, my studded belt, my ratty old hat, and spend every dime I had (or didn’t have) on good times and nice stuff. God was in the background.
I had no job. I started school. I started dating. I broke up. Started dating again. Got a job. I got married. Quit school. I got divorced. Lost my job. Started School. I started dating again. I broke up. Quit school. Got a job. Started dating again. Broke up again. Kept my job…for a while.
I was beginning to think I was bound for failure. My love life always ended in failure, my college career was a failure, and my financial situation was a complete disaster. At the time, it was pretty easy for me to play the Blame Game. Life took a steaming dump on an otherwise great guy!
I was lost. I mulled through life by the strength of my own arm, and stuck in my teenage mentality. I was perfectly content listening to the most vulgar music (which was reflected in my foul language), watching the most vulgar movies and television (or worse), playing the most vulgar video games, and participating in very unbecoming activities. I did whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Funny thing is, even with all my freedom in the world, I could feel the bondage.
They say hindsight is always 20/20. I know why I failed and failed again. The answer is simple: I was on the wrong side of the fence. All the time. I put myself there, and I kept myself there.
As a Mormon, I professed to have an understanding of who Jesus Christ is, what he’s done for me, and what my relationship to him is. I’m ashamed to say my actions did not mirror my beliefs. It wasn’t until I started to repent and draw nearer to God that I began to understand. We live in tumultuous times. Satan is a very real adversary that continuously strives to blur the lines of right and wrong. He works very hard to get us to compromise here a little, and compromise there a little. He wants us so close to the fence of what’s right and wrong because he knows that if he can get us sitting on it, he’s winning.
I was sitting on that fence for years. I figured that my crimes weren’t so egregious that I was beyond salvation. I was a generally good guy. I didn’t regularly compromise my own personal standards. I could still do what I wanted and “love” God, right? Wrong. “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”
Long story short, in a world that increasingly yields to destruction of families, destruction of mind, destruction of body, and destruction of their personal relationship to their Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, when the choice is put before me, I know which side of the fence I’ll be standing.
