"You're going nowhere, Joey. Just like your dad." At first I
was confused and it took a second for the words to sink in. I repeated the
words in my head. "You're going nowhere Joey. Just like your dad." Did he just
say that? In my 10 year-old mind I struggled to understand what had caused one
of my best childhood friends to say those words to me while we were standing in
church about to start worshiping God, the God who gives us grace and second
chances. Confusion swept over me and I wracked my brain for a reason. I didn't
know what to say. So I tried to ignore it.

I often look back and think about my friend's words in that
brief and painful conversation. And when I do a flood of emotions and past
experiences rush through my mind, sort of snapshots of my life, starting from
when I was young...

First to come are the memories of when I truly don't
remember having a care in the world:

• Fond memories of memorizing Bible verses with my
  dad and brothers, and Dad giving us baseball cards every time we remembered a
  verse. Pictures of going to Cubbies in pre-school and Awana in elementary
  school (sort of like a Christian version of boy scouts for those of you who
  haven't heard of it), and being at a church that taught the Bible to us kiddos
  even when we were young. And how God used those classes to plant the gospel in
  my heart at a young age, how His truth began to take hold of my heart. 
• The journey my family embarked on when I was in
  4^th grade, when my parents decided to sell our house, buy a motor
  home and travel around the US for 10 months...to see our country...to grow closer
  as a family...the amazing experiences we had on that trip...the love we had and
  still have for each other.

•  After we returned from the trip and experienced
  serious financial difficulty and instability. My dad's devotion to our family
  and outstanding commitment to work hard and take care of mom, brothers and me, even
  though that didn't mean he always had the cushy job.
• The family conversations when, after two years
  of dad's unemployment, my older brothers wanted to know how many months, weeks,
  days of finances we had left. The denial I had in my heart, when I plugged my
  ears so that I couldn't hear my parents' answers to my brothers' questions.
•  The emptiness and depression I felt when I tried
  to fill the dissatisfaction in my heart with that which doesn't satisfy - girls,
  pornography, popularity, finding my identity as an athlete, then not making the team in 9^th
  grade, losing "friends." 
• The difficult year spent in 10^th grade, when by an act of God, I was pulled out of public school with its influences and placed in a school where I was the only kid in my grade. How in my loneliness he began softening my heart to begin having compassion for those who I'd previously rejected.

 Then I consider God's faithfulness
throughout my life:

•       How He always met every need, sometimes in ways
  I didn't expect, but always for my good and His glory. God always being
  faithful, even when I was faithless, when I was unfaithful (2 Timothy 2:13). In
  9^th grade when I was so deeply sickened and distressed by the weight
  of my sin to the point that I cried out for Him to take me home. Him sustaining
  me, covering me with grace, and carrying me through. Him giving me life. Him
  restoring the joy of His salvation in my heart (Psalm 51).

And finally, God restoring me to pursue continual repentance
and lasting trust in Christ personally, while encouraging others to do the same:

• God's sovereign plan prevailed when - after I
  intended to go down to Southern California for college to a Christian
  University, because I thought that was best for me - He closed the door because
  of finances and guided me to a very secular, public university (the University
  of Washington)
  to finish my undergraduate degree and begin reaching out to those who didn't
  know Christ, to atheists, drug addicts, gays and lesbians, and those who were
  bitter with God. All people who need God's grace and love...just like you and me.

Then I go back to my
friend's words, "You're going nowhere, Joey. Just like your dad." In all
reality, without God, I am. My dad is too. Proverbs 14:12 says, "There is a way
that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death." My dad, my mom, my
brothers, you, me, and everyone in this world, on our own we are headed nowhere.
We are headed ultimately toward death.

BUT, "For God so loved the
world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to
condemn the world, but to save the world through him" (John 3:16-17).

"When you were dead in
your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with
Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal
indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away,
nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he
made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross" (Colossians
2:13-15).

AND BECAUSE OF WHAT JESUS DID WE CAN PROCLAIM: "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting...thanks
be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1
Corinthians 15:55, 57)

Our lives are going somewhere, because of Jesus!

(Below is a picture of me in my kindergarten Sunday school class. I'm in the bottom right).