I grew up with a distorted view of God. I thought the “grace of God” was little more than the sum of a few theological points; a concept that offered me no comfort. This was because the leaders in my church enforced the Law rather than the grace of God. For example, when I was in tenth grade my spiritual leaders told me that I could not be a true Christian because they thought I had too much pride. One of them also sat my friends and me down around his desk and proceeded to tell each of us what he thought our worst sins were and that we needed to repent. He said my worst sin was pride and that I had better lose it quickly! To survive, I learned the art of looking “humble.” I thought, “If a ‘man of God’ sees me this way, then surely God must.” I spent hours on my bedroom floor weeping and picturing this big fist coming out of heaven to crush me. But God lifted the veil that had been placed over my eyes, and I heard him say to me, “Never doubt your salvation again. You are mine.” It was as if God pulled the plug on the ocean in which I was drowning. I was free. But I still did not understand what it meant to be free.

When I was in college, God began to re-educate me. He showed me that many of the things I grew up believing were not true. I made many friends from different backgrounds; each had a heart for God and a relationship with Jesus Christ. But I still struggled with a judgmental attitude because I had been taught that if you didn’t believe all of the same things that we believed, then you really could not be a true Christian. But I learned differently from my friends.

In January 1993, I transferred from Oglethorpe University to Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama to study Music Theory and Composition. I continued to struggle with being judgmental. I still lived in the fear that God would not bless me if I did anything wrong. I still did not understand what it meant to be free.

Then, in April 1994, God introduced me to a beautiful, young woman from Memphis, Tennessee. Her name was Rebecca Walton. It was pretty much love-at-first-sight for me. We started dating and a month later I knew I would marry her. (She took a little longer to come to the same conclusion, but at least she did come to it!) In the early months of 1995, though, our relationship began to sour. As we discussed the problem, we discovered that I had crushed her spirit with my judgmental attitude. I was trying to live up to an impossible standard to please God; and, in the process, I was placing the same expectations on her. I quickly realized that I had to lose my judgmental attitude or else lose the woman with whom I knew God wanted me to spend the rest of my life. I began to scramble for some understanding. My mom recommended a book that she found helpful, Transforming Grace, by Jerry Bridges. As I read the book and studied the Scriptures, I began to discover the grace of God as I had never seen it before. One thought in particular freed me, “There is not one thing that I can do to make God love me more; and there is not one thing that I can do to make God love me less.” For the first time I discovered that God shows his grace to me not just by saving me from my own disobedience, but also by giving me the will and the strength to live for him daily. God used Becky to teach me that lesson. To him and to her I am eternally grateful.