His

Young adulthood was a weird time - perhaps for many others as well. Coming out of college, I had great expectations for my life and how it should turn out. But more importantly, as I reflect, I think I was truly looking for one thing - an identity. After all, I had been an overachieving student, a conscientious worker, and an obedient child. But it felt like I had been following a rule book all that time and was struggling to find true meaning and purpose in all of those human accolades and achievements I garnered. 

At the peak of COVID, it all went down hill with the surmounting pressures from people around me. I couldn’t keep up and started questioning if my existence mattered at all. I think it’s quite a common experience everyone goes through as we transition from one season to another. It’s just unfortunate that for me, I wandered off by myself instead of running to people I could trust. 

In the midst of brokenness, God showed up tangibly one evening, picked me up from the ground, dusted off my knees and face, carried me forward and led me back to Him again.

I grew up Christian and know of many things about Jesus and biblical teachings. In fact, I could have quoted scripture after scripture. But experientially? I wouldn’t dare say I had any real Godly encounters like that evening when He showed up. It was as though overnight, I was given this insatiable hunger for His Word and to experience His presence. I quickly realized that God did not just save me from myself so I could live in solitude. He planted me in a local church where I learned to submit and to serve. There I was able to be a part of small groups where I had the front row seat to see how other men were living it out for God. Eventually, He gave me the opportunity to be a part of a brand new church plant in Tampa where I learned how to serve wherever and whoever the church needed. 

In Genesis, we learn of a man named Jacob who wrestled with an Angel of the Lord (Jesus) from nightfall till daybreak. Jacob was a manipulative man, and by his name, a go-getter. He had sent gifts, men, wives and kids to his brother Esau to make peace before arriving himself. However, the wrestling that took place with God changed his destiny.

“And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.””

Genesis 32:24-30 ESV

I think we are all like Jacob. Once we have chosen to wrestle with God, we are given a new name and our identities forever changed. And the way in which we walk will no longer be the same. That is the blessing we have been given. 

I look back today at God’s faithfulness in my life, despite my many failures, and recount of how He has given me a new identity (and it’s not anything that I should do, or anything I could gain; but it is simply that I am His). I recall also how empty and metallic tasting my life before Jesus was. And now I am His, I am adopted into His family and am part of the Body of Christ. And whatever season to come, or whatever assignments I will hold, those will always be secondary. He has since planted me at Refuge Church, where I got to know many frontline evangelists plundering the gates of hell, received Bible-chewing teaching, and the best of all, become a part of community groups that actually care and want to hang out (game nights are always A++).

Not only have I found refuge in Christ before, and will continue to run to Him, He has given me a church family here at Refuge. And I think He has placed you here specifically to experience just that! Get plugged in and be a part of this church family - I promise, we’re all a little weird, and you will fit in just right!