But now God was telling me, “Stop. Just stop. You be still and trust me.” It was indeed meant to be, but it was up to him. I felt he was teaching me dependence, faith, and the idea of abiding in him, though abiding was another concept I hadn’t yet discovered.
Looking back, I realize I was abounding in ignorance. But the Spirit of God was with me now, and finally I felt the wind at my back.
Drugs were never my problem; drugs were only the symptom. Ultimately, there’s one true addiction and only one path to breaking free from it.
In John 8, Jesus told a group of people that anyone who sins is a slave to sin. But “if the Son sets you free, you really will be free” (v. 36). I had been a slave to sin. Sin was the problem. And I needed more than detox. I needed the Son of God, Jesus Christ, to set me free.
And now, he had.
I believed I had broken through, or more precisely, someone had broken through on my behalf. God did for me what I was incapable of doing for myself. He set me free from the bondage that had shackled me for years.
That bright morning I walked into the kitchen with a big smile on my face, and there was Dad, sitting at the breakfast table. He looked up and said, “What are you so happy about?”
“God is calling me into the ministry to be a preacher, Dad!”
I was a bit surprised to hear those words come out of my mouth, but I realized that, yes, this was what I was feeling. This wasn’t just about being a believer—God had specific plans for me. I was sure of that. When you’ve had a burning bush experience like I’d just had, you have to do something with it. Silence is not an option.
Dad studied me for a moment, trying to figure out if I was still on drugs, but he saw that I was dead serious. His brow wrinkled and he said, “You’re going to be a priest? How will you ever get married, if you do that?”
“No, Dad,” I laughed. “Not a priest. A preacher!”
I realized he had no frame of reference for what I was talking about. In the Catholic environment I grew up in, crazy, Road-to-Damascus conversions weren’t typical. There were priests on a pedestal above, and then there was everybody else.
It would be a while before Dad really grasped what I was talking about, before he saw that his son had been set on fire.
Somehow I was going to be a preacher. God had stuff for me to do. Time to go figure out what it was.
Chapter 13
Baby Steps
The day after I committed my life to Jesus, I found my Bible on the shelf, dusted it off, and sat down to read it with new eyes.
I thumbed through the huge volume. There were hundreds of pages of tiny print, made up of smaller books with names like Leviticus and Lamentations, Obadiah and Ephesians. History, psalms, prophesies—where was the section for beginners?
I thought about the songs I’d learned in our Christian band, back in my college days. I could remember all the words, but they didn’t offer much guidance to a new believer. I prayed, but I wasn’t even sure how to do that. My go-to prayer had been, “Please don’t send me to hell.” Even I knew there was more to it than that.
What should I say to God? How would I hear what he said to me?
I guess most of all I needed someone to talk to about the whole thing. My life felt different, but I didn’t know any truly committed followers of Jesus. I had lots of energy and lots of questions. Still, I knew I was at peace, filled with hope, and deeply grateful to be forgiven. The turmoil and desperation were gone, and it felt like the quiet after a storm. It was time to reboot my life.
I had to start with what I knew for sure: My old lifestyle was done—finished. My old friends would encourage my old habits. Besides, once drugs were taken out of the equation, what did I really have in common with that crowd? Not much. I’d even dumped my whole music collection in the trash.
My old friends began to call, one by one. They’d heard the rumor, but they wanted to hear it from me. Word on the street was that I’d had some freaky conversion experience. I wasn’t Robby anymore—at least the Robby they knew.
“It’s true. I accepted Christ,” I told my friend Rick. “My life is completely changed, and God is calling me into the ministry.”
“Really, Robby? You, of all people, a Jesus freak? You can’t be serious.”
“Absolutely.”
“Robby, we never had a question about who you were. You had our trust. This is nuts.”
“You can still trust me, Rick. I’m more trustworthy now. I’m just no longer interested in getting high.”
“Couple of guys are saying you’ve turned informant. That you’re an undercover cop. You gonna rat us out?”’
“You know better than that, Rick. I wouldn’t hurt my friends—not in a million years. You guys are family to me. Don’t you remember all those times we talked about getting clean? I’ve done it now, that’s all. I’d love for all you guys to do it, too, but I’m no cop, and I’ve talked to no cops. You’ve got my word on that.”
Conversations like this went on and on with different friends. I wasn’t trusted now, and maybe that was for the best. My bridges were burned to the ground. As a new Christian, I was on an island.
Most people become Christians in some kind of social context. Friends lead them to Christ, as Jeremy had once tried to do with me. But I was all
