Why I gave up Atheism and Finally Became a Christian

Looking Back

Looking back, starting my blog with the posts that I did might not have been a great idea. My 20 Life Goals for 2020 included hosting a weekly Christian bible study and praying daily with my children that shocked quite a few people who’ve known me for a long time.

Maybe I should have warned some of those good friends who texted me the following:

Who in the holy f**k is this guy writing a blog? Have you been kidnapped and impersonated?

Friend #1

Dude I’m still reeling on the church thing – you can’t blame me!! [for threatening to cancel visitation plans]

Friend #2

Yeah…so, maybe I should have started with this post (or at least given them a friendly heads up).

I started writing this earlier, but stopped, unsure that I wanted to put all of this out there, online, right in front of family, friends and…everyone else. And now I’m thinking I should have kept going lest the other posts seem disingenuous at best and fraudulent at worst.

My Struggle with Religion

I’ve struggled with religion (or maybe just the “religious”) for a long time. Christianity wasn’t something that was really ever explained to me early in life, or at least not in a manner that I could ever grasp.

Growing up, my brothers and I attended church sporadically at best, usually around Christmas and Easter, while we visited grandparents, and only while we were in elementary school. The truth is, we went so little that nothing ever really stuck and definitely never made any sense. The Bible seemed to be full of stories to teach children morality, or parables to comfort the suffering and give them some understanding of their senseless struggle.

Shortly after I started 8th grade, we were spending nearly all of our weekend time on the coast of Florida, fishing. Looking back on it today, we had a lot of great memories out on the water as a family, all of us catching trout and grouper together, and snorkeling for scallops when the season started. Who would want to give all this up just to spend the morning in church?

As I gradually got older and started college, I distanced myself from religion even more until it was the furthest thing from my mind. My life revolved around my interests: math, science, women and parties. Religion flew in the face of everything academic that I was being taught in school, and only served to remind me how “sinful” I was for all the things I was enjoying doing outside of school.

I found comfort in those that I admired in my studies.

I studied philosophy for pleasure and agreed with the thoughts of atheists such as Seneca, Aristotle and later, Friedrich Nietzsche.

“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.”

Seneca

I enjoyed learning about quantum physics and astronomy so I looked to people such as Richard Feynman, Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov and Gene Roddenberry

“God was invented to create mystery.”

Richard Feynman

Later as I entered the steel making world, I emulated Andrew Carnegie:

“I don’t believe in God. My god is patriotism. Teach a man to be a good citizen and you have solved the problem of life.”

Andrew Carnegie

In his book “On the Genealogy of Morality “, Nietzsche claimed that society’s weakest citizens (slaves) justified their suffering as good and noble in order to feel better about their lack of power in society and dubbed those with wealth and power as evil (masters).

But those I demonized as the “religious” weren’t just weak. They were exemplified by the many hypocritical people I knew that judged others in self-righteousness for the very things they were doing themselves behind closed doors. There were so many other nonreligious folks that were more kind and moral than many of the “Christians” I knew around me.

Did those Christians want to “save me” just so I could support their church financially and become two-faced and judgmental of others along with them?

Sorry, that’s just not me…besides, I’m having entirely way too much fun for all that piousness. In fact, this is the closest I’d probably ever want to come to being an angel:

The Fall

So why did I do a 180 degree turn on a strongly held belief I’ve clung to for nearly my entire adult life?

Quite simply, the work-hard, play-harder life that I was accustomed to living was about to be turned upside down.

Beginning in 2012:

• I got married!
• My two (perfect) children were born one year and 6 days apart.
• I stepped away from a 14 year career to start my own business.
• I lost my mother to cancer.
• I lost both of my Grandmothers in relatively quick succession.
• I saw the failure of my business begin to materialize.
• As the bankruptcy became inevitable, depression set in, and I started feeling anxiety for my inability to provide for my family’s future.

By 2017, a continued barrage to my psyche had me in a pretty dark place. But the real truth is that my fall probably started several years prior.

For the first 38 years of my life I was living my dream. I’m grateful for parents and family that provided me an easy childhood, with most of the comforts of a privileged, upper-middle class life. As I got older and left the house, I had a great job, I took care of myself financially, I traveled the world and was grateful to have wonderful friends that supported me along the way. I had never known (true) failure, or brokenness, and yet, here I was with no one to blame but myself for how fall I had fallen.

All my attempts to “fix” everything by working more hours, putting in more personal capital, and trying even harder weren’t working to save my failing business.

Sure, I had heard about people who failed.

I had heard about people struggling with depression.

I had heard about people who were anxious for the future.

But those people were just losers, they were like Nietzsche’s slaves, just looking for someone else to blame, right? Why couldn’t they just pick themselves up by their bootstraps and get on with life? Toughen up you sissies!

And then suddenly one of those very same losers was staring right back at me each morning from the mirror. And I didn’t know how to cope.

But I wasn’t ready to simply give up and let religion WIN, was I?

Not before I tried a few other things first:

• Drowning myself in alcohol
• Overindulging in (some really good) food
• Not sleeping and putting in more and more hours at the office…
• or…sleeping and trying to pretend it wasn’t happening
• Isolating myself
• Continuing to focus only on myself and trying to rebuild my ego

The Turning Point

I recently heard a commencement speech by David Foster Wallace titled “This is Water” during which he told a parable that summed up the the religious spectrum like this:

There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness. While they’re old friends, they have very different ideas on God—one is a priest and the other is an atheist. They begin arguing about the existence of God.

The atheist says, “Look, it’s not like I haven’t given God a chance. I even tried the prayer thing. It didn’t work.”

The priest asks with some incredulity, “Did you really pray? When did this happen?”

“Just last month,” replies the atheist. “I got caught away from the camp in a terrible blizzard. I was totally lost and I couldn’t see a thing. It was 50 below, and so I prayed. I fell to my knees in the snow and cried out ‘Oh, God, if there is a God, I’m lost in this blizzard, and I’m going to die if you don’t help me’.”

The priest looks at the atheist with a puzzled expression and exclaims, “Well then you must believe in God now. After all, here you are, alive!”

The atheist rolls his eyes and says, “No way, that’s not how it happened. A couple of Eskimos came wandering by and they showed me the way back to camp.”

David Foster Wallace

The religious might tell you that God comes to rescue the broken when they are finally ready to receive Him. Atheists and agnostics might tell you that only the broken NEED a God to rescue them. Having spent time in both camps, let me tell you…they’re both right in their own way.

After trying unsuccessfully to eat, drink and sleep my way back from depression and anxiety, I thought it might be in the best interest of my family for me to try something different.

Maybe when you’re drowning it’s OK to reach for the line that’s been thrown to you. Maybe it was time to finally swallow my pride and accept the help that had been offered so many times before from close friends and family.

But my transformation and coming to faith didn’t happen overnight. In fact, I still struggle with religious doubts every single day. Surely there has to be something more tangible than simply FAITH that rules our lives, right?

The whole definition of faith is having a firm belief in something that can’t be confirmed and I had lived my whole life believing in ONLY that which could be validated beyond any doubt.

Well, before I could find out if this was my correct path forward, I’d have to dive in head first and really start understanding Jesus and his teachings. Luckily, I’d been gifted a Bible from my father-in-law shortly after accepting Christ as my savior so I could start there…I guess?

The fact is, there’s a much wider chasm between Agnostics/Atheists and Christians than most could understand if you haven’t been fully one or the other. And working to find your way through a church for the first time, in Texas, at 41 years old, isn’t exactly a walk in the park. I just didn’t fit in. I felt like I was an outsider, an outcast, a…heathen.

Besides, at my age, you’re already expected to know things as a Christian like:

• How to read the Bible
• Know many of the stories, letters and parables by heart
• How to pray out loud
• How to find religious humor funny

I struggled at first, mostly because I was simply too ashamed (or prideful) to ask for help for something so simplistic as how to begin reading the Bible. I remember trying to find passages in the Bible that everyone knew by heart…(John? 3:16? Is that page 316? Where are the page numbers?) and not being able to find them for the life of me. Those around me knew instinctively how to go from Philippians to Proverbs and back to Romans to keep pace with the lessons. I struggled to keep up, and felt like a child again, except possibly more lost than I had ever been before.

People would look at me funny when I admitted that I did NOT, in fact, know the stories of Jonah, or David, or Daniel.

I would shrink in fear when I might be asked to close out a Bible session with prayer, or even say a blessing before a meal.

But I continued to move forward on my spiritual path searching for more answers and committed to seeing what the excitement was all about…and more selfishly, to see if it could finally bring me the peace that was promised.

In the midst of my walking, some funny things happened. Einstein himself said that:

There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle

Albert Einstien

Coincidences, odd occurrences, even good luck might be attributable to what I now deem minor miracles, but certain prayers of mine were answered, in some very strange, un-explainable manners.

“You made a way, when there was no way. And I believe, I’ll see you do it again.”

Elevation Worship – Do it Again

When I stepped back, took the time to be still, and focused on the present, “NOW”, I learned to find the margins in my prayers. When I stopped trying to prescribe the solution and just waited patiently, answers came to some questions that I had been asking for years.

The media seems content to focus on our differences and use labels to drive us further apart from one another. Republican vs. Democrat. Christian vs. Atheist, Faith vs. Facts.

What I found when I began to dig in deeper into Christianity, past the surface, was a group of loving, caring people that didn’t fit the mold that I tried to put them into. They were honest about their faults and shortcomings and they had pains much deeper and darker than I could even imagine, let alone compare. They extended their hands and arms to me in comfort and grace, never mind the fact that it should be ME showing THEM that kind of empathy and love.

Faith or facts? I guess you could say my children opened to door and allowed me to believe in many things again. So yes, I believe in faith. I believe in hope. I believe in love. I believe in forgiveness. I believe in grace. And that means I also believe in Jesus and the Good News he believed should be shared and I think I get “it”.

“I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours.”

Mark 11:24

I may not agree with everything that is preached from the pulpit, but I can respect and enjoy the perspective. I may not agree with your personal interpretation or the translation but if we can agree that, at the heart of it all, we should love one another, than I’d be interested to have that conversation.

The funny thing is that my walk along this path taught me some very important things:

• Those that aren’t interested in helping you learn and understand Christianity, aren’t the people you want helping you anyway
• Those that judge you for being “un-Christian” or not Christian ENOUGH are likely projecting their own religious insecurities onto you. At the very least, they themselves have much to learn about what Christ was attempting to teach the world.
• The “Christians” that had given Christianity a bad name for me and driven me away from the church as a young adult weren’t the ones attempting to truly live out a Christ centered life.
• At the end of it all, it comes down to a personal relationship that you define and foster.

The Acceptance

I’ve finally decided that my life has become better on this path than it was trying to do it with just the scientific facts and my ego alone.

Let me walk you some of through the things that I’ve learned as I’ve attempted to follow a Christ centered life myself:

I’ve Learned to Surrender

I used to believe that coming out waving a white flag meant giving up. Now I believe it means the start of a path forward together. Life shouldn’t be a constant battle that is simply won or lost but something that is experienced with calmness, peace and joy.

Once you’ve gotten to the point of having to be right, you’ve already lost. The Ego is the only part of you that’s interested in being right and proving others wrong. You won’t find any real peace until your ego has been sufficiently snuffed out and you’ve learned humility, found a way to laugh at yourself and reached out to others to help them through a similar situation.

I spent countless years attempting to feed and grow my ego and several more attempting to rebuilding my ego when it was broken. Letting go and surrendering was the one thing I refused to try because it had always symbolized weakness. But once I let go, I was finally free from suffering.

I’ve Learned That There is Knowledge in Silence

One of the first things that I do each morning upon waking (at 4am) is to read a quick devotional Bible message and then contemplate that message in silence for approximately 45-60 minutes. If you’ve never tried to sit by yourself in silence for that long, you’ll find that it’s amazingly difficult. Your mind wanders everywhere to distract you from simply NOT THINKING. However, the simple act of bringing your attention back to your breath time and time again is like lifting weights for your brain.

It’s unbelievable how much more calm, better focused, and attentive this has made me.

And that knowledge that’s found in the silence? When you give your brain a chance to rest, the problems you’ve contemplated for days, or weeks, or months will simply be answered. Inexplicably and out-of-the-blue, the answer downloads to your brain while you’re sitting there. The non-religious surely won’t attribute it to God, but I’ve found I’m now okay in doing just that.

I Found What True Inner Peace REALLY means

As a classic “Type A” personality, I have always put myself under a constant stream of pressure to perform. I thrived in this environment for years. I likely had low-grade anxiety for most of my life and simply accepted it as part of my personality and make-up.

I would have told you that this was part of the REASON for my success and drive in life. I believed it propelled me forward and kept me on task. My drive was propelled by making decisions that lessened the continual tightness in my chest. The only other things that reduced that stress were sex, alcohol or prescription drugs…and its no surprise that when I couldn’t force success, I turned to the others in increasing fashion to my detriment and destruction.

Thankfully, after breaking free of dependence, the inner peace I’ve found with Christ is undeniable. It didn’t come overnight, but it crept in slowly…and stayed. It didn’t retreat, leaving emptiness, shame, guilt or a nasty hangover.

The peace came along with another eight “bonus” fruits of the spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control). No, I’m not perfect at showing those “fruits” or emotions all the time, but I feel them in my heart and hope to cultivate them externally a lot more for my wife and children.

I Felt the Meaning of Unconditional Love for the First Time

It takes time to filter through the nonsense and noise of religious hypocrisy found in some churches and to navigate around those that believe they’re Christians simply because they attend a certain fashionable church on Sundays to see or be seen.

But once you find people that are truly interested in living a Christ centered life and spreading the Good News to help others, they will help you feel welcomed. They will extend their arms to you in compassion and allow you to know what mercy and grace and forgiveness look like firsthand.

You will not be judged by true Christians because those that believe, also understand that they too are imperfect humans who make mistakes and have distanced themselves from God at times simply because that’s what we do. The goal is only is to do that LESS, simply ask for forgiveness when you do, and try to become a better man or woman today than you were yesterday.

I Finally Found Acceptance

I’ve always believed in my personal values. I’ve held firm to them and still do to this day. They were good, wholesome Christian values even when I didn’t identify with Christ. But I was always trying to PROVE how good I was to others. “I’m NOT a bad person…look at all of the wonderful THINGS I’ve done to help others! Surely, THIS will get me into a heaven (if there is one) even if I DON’T believe in God!” was my thought process.

Thankfully, I found acceptance, and comfort, in knowing that I was enough. I no longer had to justify myself, to anyone.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.

Ephesians 2:8-9

I’ve Learned that Faith, and Prayer, has Power

Faith, along with prayer, are the two pieces that I’ve always struggled with the most. They are the parts that can’t ever be proven and frequently doubted by even the most fervent believers.

As Christian children we were taught to believe in Santa, and in the Easter Bunny. In elementary school they taught us that we could become anything in life we wanted, from astronauts to firemen, policemen, doctors, or pilots. Slowly, that trust was eroded as we learned that Santa wasn’t real and our socioeconomic status wouldn’t let us attend medical school and our vision was too poor to let us fly fighter jets like Tom Cruise in Top Gun.

Without faith and belief, what do we have? Where do we begin if we don’t believe? Belief is the foundation for every great athlete, every entrepreneur, and every success story ever written. Maintaining faith in the face of adversity is the hardest thing, especially when faced only with the cold, hard facts.

But who can predict what will happen tomorrow? The weatherman rarely gets it right, even with all the latest technology. Who can predict what circumstances will appear before you tomorrow? Who knows the people that will cross your path? Believe in yourself, your abilities and your dreams. Because only by believing they can come true will you ever take the next steps into MAKING them come true.

My Personal Resurrection

My recovery from depression certainly wasn’t easy, and much like my path to faith, it definitely wasn’t overnight. I would take a few steps forward then ten steps backward, give up, and have to start all over again.

I am definitely still a work in progress, and will be for the rest of my life.

I’m thankful for the friends that stood by me at my deepest depths and ushered me forward. The ones that answered my calls or responded to texts in the middle of the night.

I’m also thankful for the ones that planted seeds much earlier in my life and told me about the peace and treasures that could be found by accepting Christ and really attempting to live out the messages he taught as part of my life. They don’t know today that their words had an effect on me so many years later…but I intend and hope to rectify that shortly.

So what are some tangible steps that I took that really helped me break through my depressive state and bring me back to normal again?

Finally taking a break from alcohol

It’s no surprise that giving up a depressant makes you feel better, but getting over the stigma of “not drinking” can be a lot harder than it sounds, especially when it was such a huge part of my life for nearly twenty-five years.

Annie Grace and her book, This Naked Mind helped ease the transition away from alcohol and make it easier. But make no mistake, I had several setbacks before I got everything back under control.

Meditation

I owe a large part of my success and forward momentum to meditation. It’s ironic to me that Christ went off by himself frequently to pray in the Bible, yet “meditation” can be such a touchy subject with some Christians. To me, silent prayer and meditation are virtually interchangeable.

Headspace and Insight Timer are two tools that I used to really further my progress and helped quiet my mind. As I continued to progress, I found The Mind Illuminated, by John Yates, helped give me a deeper understanding of how to progress further along my meditative path, while simultaneously bringing me closer to God.

Finding the right church

Finding a church where I had fun, felt accepted, enjoyed the music, and finally helped me understand the message wasn’t easy. I was also fortunate to find a church with a large men’s group that supported me in my walk as a husband and father as well.

Building a community

Making new friends and building a community of like-minded people around me was important. Part of finding a church was also getting plugged into small group Bible studies to help me understand everything a lot more.

Exercise

Putting that half-marathon on the calendar was an important step for me. Just saying “exercise more often” isn’t a SMART goal. Make sure you have concrete, tangible goals that you can track your progress towards.

I also made the decision to post my 20 Goals for 2020 to hold myself accountable for next year and I’m doing my best to get a jump on those goals now.

I now run daily and workout with a men’s fitness group focusing on HIIT training and speed work 3-4 times per week to build and tone muscle. Not only is this helping me get back in shape, but it’s helping grow friendships as well.

The Ketogenic Diet

As I struggled through my bankruptcy and depression, I completely let exercise go by the wayside and turned to food and alcohol to escape. My weight soared to nearly 240 pounds and I struggled to get into 40″ jeans. Something had to change. The Ketogenic (Keto) Diet was a life changer for me.

I had tried the South Beach Diet in the past and was relatively successful with it, but was frequently hungry. In the first year alone on Keto, I lost nearly 50 pounds and was almost never hungry. I’ve now been living and eating this way for nearly two years, dropping close to 70 pounds in total while also adding muscle.

I know there’s a lot of negativity related to this diet, but I can only speak for myself: my blood pressure, blood sugar and every other health related metric is better than it’s been since my twenties.

Journaling

Getting my thoughts out of my head and down on paper has been transformative for me. Not only does it allow me to keep track of my thoughts better, it’s cleared space in my head for more complicated tasks. As I’ve gotten older, my memory isn’t quite the same as it used to be and it’s allowed me to keep my focus clear and my priorities straight.

It’s also allowed me to analyze trends over time, from thoughts to improvements in both weight training and track workouts.

But the best part of journaling has been a greater shift towards positivity. Starting each day with three or four items I’m grateful for each day reminds me how fortunate I am in spite of the minor annoyances that pop-up in each of our lives as well.

Books I’ve been reading:

• The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod
• The Mind Illuminated by John Yates, Ph.D.
• Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender. By David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D.
• This Naked Mind – by Annie Grace

Final Thoughts

For those Christians that have read this and think I’ve got it all wrong, or worse, believe for a second that I think I have it all figured out, I simply ask, please be patient, God is not finished with me yet.

I know that I am, and will always continue to be, a work in progress. I’m still making my way through the Bible, one book at a time and I have a lot to learn about my walk with Christ. In my journey forward, I will stumble, I will fall, and yet, I will get back up and move forward once again. To err is human, it is in our God-given nature to be selfish and we will succumb to that nature from time-to-time. I’m doing my best to reduce that frequency in an attempt to better my impact to this world.

Because I know that I am imperfect, I also know that others are also imperfect and most are trying their best, fighting their own battles that I’m completely blind to. I hope to always remember to love them, even when it’s the last thing I want to do. I hope to forgive them when they don’t believe they’ve done anything wrong and be humble enough to ask for forgiveness for my own shortcomings even when I don’t believe I’ve had them.

My ongoing prayer is that I will be able to listen more frequently to the silence and wait patiently for understanding in difficult situations. I pray for continued trust in my faith, for remembering to always lead with my heart and loving others more.

Special Thanks

I wouldn’t be where I am today without the help of some very special people in my life:

• Charlie Sternberg – You were the first friend of mine that witnessed to me in a manner that I could receive it. Charlie, I’m not sure if you remember, but I still think back frequently to Ben’s wedding in Nashville when you first told me about the secret and power that was waiting for me when I finally accepted Christ.
• Rodney McGee – My Father-in-Law. The most patient man I know. I’m thankful every day that he’s been in my life.
• Levi Holder – The right friend at the right time. I’m thankful for your friendship and our accountability. I wish you were closer my friend.
• Nathan and Lacey Steel – Cultivate Relationships – one of the first Christian ministries that came into my life and their realness and honesty helped me immensely.

Conclusion (TL;DR)

After spending nearly 35 years hovering between Gnostic and Agnostic Atheism, I finally decided to believe in a higher power defined by Jesus Christ. This process wasn’t a sudden revelation, in fact, I actively fought it for years. In the end, I found some things that made my life infinitely better: inner peace, unconditional love, community and friendships. Whether you believe that Jesus was God’s only begotten son sent to earth to die and save you from eternal damnation, or that the Bible is nothing more than a collection of children’s stories, there are lessons that we can all learn from the Bible and the wisdom of Jesus’s teachings. These lessons have the power to miraculously transform your life and bring you everlasting peace.

📚 See my full reading list → 24 books that rebuilt my life, each with a personal note on why it mattered.