How (and Why) I Became a Christian
For my statement of faith, please go here.
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
—Psalm 23
It was early in the summer of 2021 and I was taking a comfortable stroll through downtown Phoenix in my flip flops. It wasn’t that comfortable because Phoenix is Satan’s playground during the summer, but the intense heat was forgivable because of the giant wad of cash in my pockets along with big hopes and dreams that were right on the horizon. I had just taken out several thousands of dollars in cash to move to another bank that day, and as I traversed the mile or so distance between the two buildings I had a little time to myself to reflect and reminisce.
“Finally,” I said out loud, shaking my head and smiling contently. I was finally done. Done with the rat race, done with the nonsense. I had worked so hard in the last 15 years as an entrepreneur and pro athlete that I was totally burned out. In 2018 I was backstabbed by the place I worked at and lost more than half of my clientele, an average annual sales volume of over $100,000 and over two dozen long-term clients. Not a year into starting from scratch, the plandemic went into full force and wiped away any momentum I had gained. No surprise. After all, the last thing people wanted to do during a crazy health emergency was to take ballroom dance lessons.
In response to the growing turmoil, and the foolishness of my heart at the time, I sold my condo and paid off my debt, putting the rest of the money into gold. Trump was going to win, I thought, and “gold would destroy the Fed” was the motto as 2020 would herald a new age of prosperity, love and light. Because I was ignorant of the bible and had no relationship with Christ, my decision to put my faith in man and gold cost me very dearly. We all know the results of the 2020 election, and however you feel about that — for me it was the setup for the final blow to my pride so that I could come home to Christ.
Because I put all of my money into gold, and because 2020 decimated my appointment business, the result was living on credit cards and unemployment waiting for my political expectations to unfold. But they didn’t unfold. At all. Gold stayed the same and even dipped below what I had bought it at because it’s manipulated just like everything else, and everyone is familiar with the clown show that ensued on both sides after November of 2020. When summer of 2021 came around, I was back in debt and living off of loans. And by the time I realized nothing was going to happen with the lies I had put my faith into — it was too late.
In the meantime I had thrown even more money at my online business to pivot away from running a word of mouth dance business to being a personal development coach and content creator. I had spent thousands of dollars on creating more books and courses, getting certifications (like the ones above), maintaining all of the websites and systems for my podcast, trying to reinvent myself and overall just sinking deeper and deeper into the world because my spiritual center was totally misaligned. As time passed, and as my free government money dried up, I became more and more desperate because nothing was working. I had gambled on something that seemed so sure, and yet now I was about to be swallowed up by my mistakes like Jonah and the whale.
A Stranger Approaches
In this vulnerable climate, I met a person that would forever change my life and in a way that I will never forget. Her name was Sisi. At least, I think it was a she. Who knows. I met Sisi on Tinder (don’t judge) and after a lot of chatting and talking she asked me to use WhatsApp for one reason or another. I was skeptical, but my boredom eventually overcame my doubt and I decided to pursue. This was around April of 2021, two months before my casual stroll in downtown Phoenix with all that cash in my pocket.
Over the course of these 2 months, I developed a friendship with Sisi by chatting with her daily. I was naturally skeptical, but the conversations seemed genuine and it was at least something to do. Like a free, online geisha that offered a bit of comfort while the rest of my life was slowly unraveling. I saw pictures of her out and about, and one day I sent her a picture of some very specific Chinese tea I had purchased. I asked her if she recognized what it was and she immediately responded with the name of the tea in Chinese. It was these kinds of things, combined with the gradual letting down of my guard through stupid jokes, talking about senseless things like our favorite movies and the overall ease of the whole thing that made me take the bait on what she did next.
“So cool,” she said one day, showing me a screenshot of her supposed Bitcoin winnings on some app she was using to make daily trades. Thousands and thousands of dollars. Money that would take me a year to make was flowing into her account on a weekly basis. My initial reaction was doubt, because I’m skeptical in general, but the deadly mix of comfort from our growing rapport along with my increasing desperation eventually buckled my skepticism and I took her up on the offer to try the trading platform for myself.
Every night thereafter, Sisi would schedule a time with me and tell me what trades to input into the magical crypto money app machine. I would place them, and I would see the results relatively shortly depending on the time interval the trade was made for. According to her, she was paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to a private tutor in China that would call out what to bid based on his team and algorithms and all kinds of other fancy lies. And because she was just such a sweet soul, she had decided to share this information with lucky old me for free.
Either way, the more I’d bid the more I’d stand to make. Of course it worked the other way too, but overall the winnings were positive enough to lure me in and nurture my greed given the circumstances.
At first I was very weary of the whole thing. Deep down I really couldn’t believe I had agreed to do it because it reeked of a scam. But Sisi had seemed so genuine, and what could a few hundred dollars hurt anyway with my situation? I was already buried in debt, and every business opportunity I had tried in the previous 2 years was a total dud. I had wasted thousands of dollars on marketing, on trying various different business models to make passive income and on all kinds of worthless investments and advice. Anything to be free of the rat race, and yet I wasn’t really free at all. With the current situation, I was completely ignorant of crypto but everyone said it was the future. Maybe this was my shot, I thought.
Maybe God had finally given me a break and this was it.
The Setup
Day after day, that tiny initial investment of a few hundred bucks began to grow significantly — at least on my phone. The $500 I threw at it quickly turned into $1000, and pretty soon I was rolling around a couple of thousand dollars per transaction. Of course there were levels that allowed you to bid more — and Sisi had now switched gears from the comforting geisha companion I knew and loved to a pushy car salesman. “You need to upgrade because that’s how you will really make money,” she would say again and again. I didn’t have $10,000 lying around, so I did another smart thing and took out some business loans to pay for my new gambling addiction and fake Internet companion.
One day after several weeks of this adventure I woke up to an interesting surprise. I couldn’t log into my trading account. I immediately asked Sisi about it and she switched back into comforting geisha mode and reassured me that everything was fine. “They are just moving to a better site to grow the business,” she said. Seemed legit. Not within a few moments of that interchange, another account on WhatsApp (the “customer service” for this operation) messaged me and informed me that I was the lucky winner of the drawing I had entered a few days prior.
“You are number 11 and you have won sir,” the agent said politely. By the way, if a deal you’re in ever has their customer service based on WhatsApp — run. And if anyone in the crypto space asks you to sign up for an account where you log in with just a username and password (no seed words or two-factor authentication) — run even faster because it’s most likely a trap. Unfortunately, in my blind greed I had ignored the tag-team that this second account and Sisi were playing with me (in retrospect it was probably the same person), so I went along happily with the final leg of their scam and claimed my prize.
“Can you believe it? They drew number 11,” I said to Sisi. So funny, because we were just talking about life path numbers a few days prior and 11 had come into the conversation. What were the odds? Indeed, what were the odds. In my obsession to make money my savior, I had completely ignored the usual scrutiny and common sense I put into everything I do. And this final bit of the scheme was the best part: because they were moving to a different site, and wanted to apologize to all of us poor investors for all the unsavory delays, out of their pure, authentic generosity they were now offering a chance to double your balance based on what amounts you deposited within the next week. So, if you put in $50,000 you would get an extra $50,000 into your trading account to play with.
Magical, free Internet money never looked so good.
Rock Bottom
So now we return to that comfortable stroll through downtown Phoenix. The calm before the storm. I had decided to sell all of my gold, cash out my loans and move everything to a different bank so that I could wire every last bit to the geisha scammer. It was such a nice day outside. I really didn’t mind the heat because my mind was in full-on vacation mode. I’d even sold all of my expensive dance costumes and teaching gear because I thought I was finally done. No more running, no more chasing. No more jumping around in rhinestones just to earn a decent living. In a few months I’d make enough from the high level bids with Sisi to be able to completely pay off my parents’ house and then by the end of the year I’d be retired and living life large. No more chasing clients, selling packages, traveling to competitions, dealing with a coaching business, selling affiliate products, interviewing people, creating content, writing books and running around like a rat in a flood. I was finally done.
Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails.
—Proverbs 19:21
As you can imagine, my false sense of comfort did not last very long. A few days after wiring away what was left of my life savings, about $60,000, the vibe of the situation completely flipped. Sisi became distant, and her absence was filled with new drama from the (formerly) polite customer service representative — which, again, was probably the same person. Either way. I received an “official” letter soon after I had deposited my funds. It looked like it was typed haphazardly in Microsoft Word a few minutes prior and it stated that I was getting banned because I was connected to Sisi and a scheme she was running with her supposed mentor to rig the system in their favor using algorithms. As a result, all the accounts tied to them were banned and the only way to get your account up and running again was to send them even more money as an earnest deposit of good faith.
I had definitely allowed my greed to drive up until that point, but without anything left — my reasoning began to return.
When I confronted Sisi about all of this her true colors came to the surface. She could care less about my situation and told me to send them the money quickly so that we could trade again. “I sent everything I had, Sisi,” I remember telling her in my futile despair, hunched over my phone sitting helplessly on the side of my bed in the dark. It was true. All the money I had ever saved up and earned in the last decade of hard work and commitment — it was all gone. An entire life’s work and effort. Poof. Gone on a pipe dream, on a total and utter lie. Gone because of my blind greed and gone because I had placed my faith in completely the wrong things over and over again — not just with the geisha scammer but with everything. My priorities, my values, my trying to make it in life without God.
I couldn’t believe it. I sat on my bed, nursing my phone like it was a crying infant, watching the texts go back and forth between us in slow motion. My eyes opened wide and reality came crashing into the room at full force. What the hell did I just do?
Aftermath
Adrenaline washed over my entire body and the realization that I had just lost everything came over me. After everything I’d been through in the last few years of constant financial restarts, now this. I was done, but not like I had thought back in that comfortable summer stroll through downtown. A year prior I had sold my condo and moved in with my parents to weather the storm that was supposedly coming after the election. I thought I had made intelligent decisions and prepared, and now just a year later I was completely penniless and a total fool.
Within the ensuing month many things happened. I filed for bankruptcy and had to sell my car to pay for the lawyer. If it weren’t for my parents I would have literally been homeless. My unemployment expired and my online business came to a complete halt because I couldn’t keep paying the bills for most of my online systems. I had spent just enough money to pivot myself into a new direction but not nearly enough money to advertise and actually start earning on that new direction. So it all came tumbling down like a flimsy house of cards. My other business of teaching dancing also vanished, because all of my old clients had disappeared over the previous 2 years of craziness and I didn’t think advertising for dancing during a pandemic was a smart move.
In either case, everything evaporated overnight and I hit rock bottom.
My only income at the time was about $200 a month of content royalties from some of the online things I had done in the past — just enough to get a little food and not starve to death. I had to tell my parents about the bankruptcy because I had to sell the car, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell them I had gotten scammed out of my life savings by someone I met on a hook-up app. My dad had paid a $20,000 down payment for that condo to snag it back in 2010 when real estate was dirt cheap in Phoenix. It was a gift from his heart and the shame of losing that gift was too great to admit, so I said that I had put my money into a crypto project that didn’t count for bankruptcy purposes and that I had an opportunity to get rid of my debt. Partly true, and cleverly evasive.
In the span of a year I went from being debt free and having over $50,000 in my bank account to being bankrupt with zero savings, no health insurance, barely any income, no car and living with my parents as an adult in my late 30’s. Ouch. This was on top of the other concerns I was wrestling with like persistent episodes of insomnia, incessant muscle twitching all over my face and body, and being exhausted most days to the point that my lifestyle had collapsed compared to when I was training hard every day as a pro athlete and coach.
To say that my pride took a hit from all of these things is a severe understatement. I was utterly humiliated. I couldn’t believe that I fell for such a blatantly obvious scheme — but in the depth of that humiliation God nurtured a seed that He had sprouted several years before. It was the seed of faith, and I had ignored watering it all of this time because of my selfish ambition. The catalyzing moment where that seed began sprouting happened with such serendipity that it is worth sharing. It was while I was sick as a dog and stuck on a cruise in the middle of the Caribbean ocean, right before the craziness of 2020 changed everyone’s lives.
And the LORD will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.
—Isaiah 58:11
The Seed
At the end of 2019, right before the madness hit, I was hired to go on a dance cruise by a group that a friend of mine had put together. I had never been on a cruise before, and the opportunity to make some extra cash while I was usually doing nothing was enough to get me to try something new. A few days into said cruise I came down with what I think was one of the first cases of COVID, because there were many Europeans on the cruise and most likely I had gotten something from across the ocean. It was totally horrible and I wanted to die. I felt my immune system just raging, and all of my plans to teach and earn some money were dashed to smithereens.
During the day sometime into this unfortunate adventure I decided to go up to the balconies and grab a snack, walk around and just try to clear my mind. I was so pissed off and bitter at my circumstances that I just couldn’t accept my situation. Scarcity was taking over my mind and I wanted desperately to go home. Too bad. The sardine can of a room you’re sharing with another dude is your home now, I thought. Forget sleep and forget comfort, and for sure forget money because you’ll be sick for the rest of this cruise. What luck, I grumbled.
While biding my time on the elevator to the top floors, I noticed a woman enter at one of the stops wearing a curious t-shirt. In fact, the design of the shirt was very plain. It was just a black shirt with a large bible verse number — Isaiah 58:11 — printed in white on the front. The contrast was just enough to catch my eyes, and in my state, keep me curious long enough to see if there was anything written on the back. Maybe the universe had a message for me that day, I thought. Eventually she did turn around, and indeed there was something written: “Where God guides, He provides.”
Although I believe God’s choice to save someone has been determined before the ages, from our perspective we can identify meaningful moments when His plan unfolds in our lives. In some sense it is always unfolding and every event is meaningful, but if I were to pick one in my own life then I would say that this is the moment God’s seed of faith sprouted in my life.
Ironically, I had written an entire book and course program on gratitude just a year before this experience, called The Gratitude Map. It had been a successful program influencing thousands of lives, but the missing piece was God. Despite all of my personal growth work, all of my effort and writing and supposed expertise on the topic, I was still making the deadly mistakes I was warning others about on a regular basis. I was still attached to money. I was still in love with the world and driven by scarcity. I was still complaining and still very angry. I had no sense of faith because I had no true object of faith. My New Age beliefs and practices had made me idolize the universe, myself and, literally, nothing instead of the living God who created all things.
Like most people today, my spirituality entailed no accountability other than to myself. I had followed the world’s advice and I was teaching the world back what it had taught me. It was a downward spiral of spiritual failure despite spending thousands of dollars on personal growth, leading workshops, reading many books and writing several of my own, coaching people extensively and interviewing over 150 experts throughout the world on how to “hack” life for success and happiness. In the end none of these things mattered, it was just the same old rat race everyone else was running but in a spiritual package.
I say that this innocuous little event on the cruise was the day that God’s seed of faith sprouted in my life because it was the day I began to pivot away from all of my selfish New Age personal growth mentalities and actually acknowledge God again as a person in my life. Interestingly, while writing my 5th book, The Way Home, I went through an old journal I had put in storage and realized something very important. I was actually going to throw the journal away, but I think the Holy Spirit stopped me and made me look through it so that I could see what I needed to see.
The journal started in the fall of 2016 shortly after I had ended an engagement with someone I cared very much for. It was painful, especially because the decision to bring it to an end wasn’t something I necessarily wanted — nevertheless things had gotten so tense that it was what I needed. We had just moved in together, which only made things worse, and after the fallout the only choice I had was to practice a new mindset or spiral into misery. Indeed it was this very journal that began my practice of gratitude in the first place by helping me build a habit of writing and reflecting on what I was grateful for. This eventually led to a blog, then a podcast, a book, a course, organizing events and eventually a whole new life as an author and personal growth “expert.”
As I looked through the journal and read a few of my old entries — I saw something I didn’t expect. In many of my reflections I expressly thanked God or even “the Lord” for my life and for the many blessings He’d given to me. I couldn’t believe it. I had totally forgotten that God was actually a big part of my life for many years. Despite going to college and forgetting about religion, despite being entrenched in the materialistic and vain dance industry, despite having my share of the party life — God was still the One I went to in my time of trouble and He was still the One I thanked when I began my journey with gratitude.
Unfortunately, every good thing that God does in our lives is immediately attacked by the enemy in an attempt to subvert it. This is described in Jesus’ famous parable of the Sower (Matthew 13). Because I hadn’t really been born again at that time, my practice of gratitude was slowly and patiently diverted into something self-serving. My old relationship had devoured my identity and also my free time, so the newfound freedom allowed me to reconnect to things I hadn’t done in many years: playing the piano, writing, speaking and creative projects. But because God and scripture weren’t at the center of my life, these pursuits eventually engrossed me into worshiping the world and worshiping myself through New Age philosophies.
Over the ensuing years up until that fateful day on the cruise, I drifted away from God as the object of my faith and into increasingly more dangerous waters. God became “the universe” and eventually my “higher self” who was giving me “downloads” so that I could find spiritual enlightenment. Drugs like weed, ecstasy and psychedelics only made these lies even more real, and having friends, success, money and good experiences made the journey I was on feel right and fulfilling. But despite this good looking outside my spiritual life was a whitewashed tomb. I did not have a new heart and I did not have Christ. Today I look back at these and other periods of my life and am stricken with awe and gratitude that the Lord did not let me die in my sins and foolishness, but instead continued to nurture me even as I rebelled.
The simple message on that lady’s shirt in the elevator was, like all things God does, perfectly timed. One of my friends, Ruben, told me once that when you hit rock bottom you realize God is that Rock at the bottom. Perhaps that is why the bible refers to Him in this way countless times. Nevertheless the bible says that faith comes from hearing the word (Romans 10:17), and I believe this also applies to reading, since you are hearing the word in your head.
The jolt of this event came at the perfect time to realign my life back to where it needed to be, because New Age personal growth wisdom can only get you so far. The message that rescued me that day wasn’t some hippie mantra like “Believe in Yourself” or “the Universe loves you” — rather it was the truth. The truth that I was taken care of, guided and given everything that I needed by a personal, loving and all-powerful being who created me. There was intention in my life, and that intention had a conscious Source who wanted a relationship with me.
I realized that day that the universe didn’t care about my life — God cared. God was the provider, and He had been there all along. Over the course of my life, I had experienced:
Multiple near-death experiences, like almost being run over by a train or being a few feet away from a gang shoot out
Debilitating anxiety attacks and an eating disorder
Being so poor in college I slept on a mattress I bought off Craigslist that had blood (and other) stains on it
Serious abdominal surgery and walked around with a colostomy bag
Hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, SIBO, adrenal fatigue, insomnia, depression and burnout
A violent gang breaking into my home, assaulting me and robbing my stuff
Being cheated on and betrayed multiple times
Being backstabbed by an employer who I considered a friend, being threatened with a a lawsuit and having to sell all my things
On and on and on. In all of these moments it was always God who I turned to instinctively. When I had to have emergency abdominal surgery as a kid in the boonies of Romania, and they gave me a spinal tap, God was there. When I almost choked to death, He was there. When gangsters drove past me one night flashing their gun, I felt the Holy Spirit’s hand move my head away so that I wouldn’t make eye contact and let them keep driving. God was always there, from before I was born to the day I hit rock bottom. He was who I needed to turn to, just like I had instinctively done at every serious point in my life in the past. He would always make sure I had what I needed and there was nothing to worry about other than developing and maintaining my relationship with Him.
A New Life
What happened on that cruise elevator was such a significant moment in my spiritual journey, but not surprisingly the enemy attacked my newfound relationship with God and sidetracked me yet again. Outside of beginning to see God in my life in a more personal sense, not much really changed in my behavior. The pandemic that shortly followed that cruise obliterated my dance teaching career and I again ran to the world’s wisdom for safety instead of running to God. I chased reinventing myself, writing more books and trying to create passive income with my business instead of building a habit of prayer, finding strength in suffering and reconnecting to Jesus Christ — the 3 goals of my book, The Way Home.
For another year and a half my pride took the reins until God decided it was enough and brought everything to a complete halt so that I could see the truth: that I was nothing without Him, that Jesus Christ was real (and that He is coming back) and that nearly everything I had been told about spirituality and personal development had been a lie.
My world came crashing down the night I realized Sisi had scammed me out of my life savings, but in the aftermath I remembered that little experience on the cruise when my seed of faith began to sprout. I also remembered that God had delivered me from countless evils and many evil people. He had always given me something good to eat, money for what I needed, great relationships, family, friends, memories, a unique career and a safe childhood free of abuse or danger. I was relatively healthy and free of any major diseases and I was still alive.
In my humiliation, warm tears watered that little sprout and it finally began to grow, because true faith can only begin with repentance. Although my eyes were watery, I started to see clearly again after being blinded by the false light of my pride for so many years. God had been there with me every single step of the way. Always. It wasn’t me, my luck, other people or a mechanical universe that deserved the credit. It was Him. A personal, loving being so loving and wise that it was beyond any possible understanding. A being that created the heavens and the Earth with His mere words, and a being that knit me with purpose and intention in my mother’s womb. A being that orchestrated the countless events of my life in the proper order and timing with such poetry that it is incomprehensible — all so that one day I might finally come home to Him.
I will share with you now yet another fascinating detail about my journey and God’s work in my life. Many years ago I graduated a well-known Jesuit high school in Phoenix called Brophy College Preparatory. The irony today has not evaded me, since I talk about the Jesuits and their evil schemes in history and how the Catholic system is the Beast prophesied by Daniel and John. Yet if anything these details are proof that God uses all things for the good for those who love and trust in Him (Romans 8:28).
Nevertheless, my grandmother had bought me a ring for graduation as a way to remember her, and I have worn it pretty consistently throughout my life. For our graduating class, the rings said “Follow Me” on one side, and for a great deal of time I thought the “me” referred to me. I thought it was about my leadership and my taking life by the horns and being a good and successful little Jesuit preppy boy. I thought it was about me making it, inspiring others and leaving a legacy. Just as the world had taught and reinforced for me over and over again through adulthood.
And yet as I began picking up the pieces to my life following the events I’ve relayed to you, I realized at some point in time that the “Follow Me” on that little ring were the irresistible words Jesus spoke to each of His Apostles moments before they dropped everything and joined Him.
It had been there my entire adult life, a call from Christ, and yet I had ignored it all of this time because of my pride and selfish ambition. Despite being an altar boy as a kid and going to Christian schools, despite being president of my church youth group as a teenager and growing up in Christian communities, despite praying to God every time I needed Him and thanking Him when good things blessed me, despite surviving many near-death experiences and crazy situations, despite the countless signs — I didn’t realize the simple truth of who Christ really was until I lost it all.
In God’s infinite genius, He used a despicable scammer to humble me so that I could finally see the truth while also freeing me from my worldly debts in the process. As Joseph famously said to his brothers in Genesis 50:20, “You meant it for evil but God meant it for good.” Because I had nothing, the banks got nothing. I was able to write off the $60,000 or so I owed and move on, which was about the same amount of money I had lost in the scam.
In fact, looking back on my situation I later realized that if I hadn’t of gotten scammed it would have turned out worse. The debt I had accumulated during my anticipation of a golden age would have cost me much more had I needed to pay it off because of interest, and bankruptcy would not have been an option either if it weren’t for the scam because of my assets. As crazy as it was, getting scammed was the best thing that could have happened — and in the end I didn’t really lose anything but rather gained that which money could never buy.
For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul?
—Mark 8:35-36
A New Journey
As my journey began after this difficult experience, I wrote my fourth book, Don’t Let the Devil Boil Your Frog: A Christian’s Guide to the Great Awakening. Since the madness started in 2020, I had been front and center arguing with my friends and family about vaccines, the lying media, occult secret societies and everything in between trying to wake people up to the truth. Yes, I was that crazy conspiracy theorist friend that you either loved or hated. Like most people during the plandemic I had plenty of newfound free time to research what was going on. This provided rich and fertile soil for a new book, and it was through the combination of this research into the truth, and the events previously described, that I came back to the ultimate truth — that Jesus Christ is Lord and that He is returning to Earth, probably soon.
In my hunger as a research author to learn the truth, I realized that not only was the world ruled by the devil literally everywhere you look, but that Christ was really who He said He was. I realized that Christianity was actually an incredibly evidence-based belief system, that there was a plethora of archaeological evidence for the bible and also for Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. I realized the bible is not only consistent, beautiful and full of wisdom — it is incredibly supported by history and evidence unlike any other religious text. Despite being written by dozens of authors over many centuries, each from different backgrounds, the bible’s message is incredibly consistent through cross-references, typology and a singular message about God and His plan of salvation. The bible also predicted countless things with incredible accuracy, and as I studied bible prophecy it became clear that man could not have been the only author of this very special book.
In this new journey I also realized that I had been wrong in my pursuit of New Age personal growth ideas and that they were at best half-truths with ancient origins designed to deceive man from a saving relationship with God through Jesus Christ. The world is at war with Christ and will do anything to prevent you from knowing the truth. The devil is a master of duality and uses it to take you off the narrow road. Interestingly, the bible warns not to swerve to the left or to the right many times, and I believe this is because the enemy uses dialectics and dualities to pull you away from learning the truth.
If he can’t get you with bitter atheism, the devil will get you with New Age philosophies. If he can’t get you with selfish ambition, he will get you with selfish indulgence. As Jesus brilliantly revealed in the parable of the sower: some lose faith because of tribulation while others lose faith because of the cares of this world. Today I know that such events happen because people never had a truly saving relationship with Christ to begin with, because the bible teaches that Christ cannot lose anyone whom He saves (John 6), yet nevertheless this is why true faith is a matter of repentance — not spiritual experiences as is the norm and fashion in today’s overly-Charismatic mainstream Christianity.
Because repentance is often birthed from our deepest moments of hopelessness and suffering, this is why these events are necessary in our walk back home.
As time went on following my metldown, things came suddenly and developed quickly. Soon after finishing my book I wanted to know more. I watched countless hours of theology videos, bible studies, arguments for various doctrines and against them, the history of the Church and its evolution into what it is today as a fragmented body, whether I should celebrate the Sabbath and when, what to look out for in the end times, why Christianity is true and why other religions aren’t, arguments against atheism and arguments against all of the things that I used to base my life and income around as a New Age personal growth entrepreneur.
My life, desires and behavior truly changed in a way that they never had before, and that’s because God was doing the work this time instead of me.
Over the ensuing months I gained many new friends through the body of Christ, and I lost a handful of formerly close ones that just couldn’t relate to me anymore. It is what it is and I pray that they may come to the truth because awareness of the cross is something only God can open your eyes to. I once had a missionary come to my house to share the gospel with me, and I dismissed her arrogantly, telling her I was too busy “living in the now” to worry about an afterlife. Today I cringe at this memory, but it proves the bible true when it says in 1 Corinthians 1:18 that the cross is foolishness to those who need it the most.
Another great shift in my life was with my podcast. After years of hard work, I decided to stop interviewing people because it no longer felt relevant to waste my time on worldly things like success, mindset, entrepreneurship or anything else. What good would it do anyone if they weren’t saved? The world was ending and Jesus was coming back, and here I was with a platform talking about useless things that won’t matter on the most important day of human history, especially since nobody knew if they were going to wake up the next morning. Things had to change, so I stopped and redirected my efforts to just talking about my newfound journey with the Lord and how I was learning to take life one step at a time.
Satan Strikes Again
A few months into my budding journey as a Christian podcaster I was inspired to make a few faith-oriented videos, one of which was a 5 hour film that took quite a bit of work. Shortly after publishing that film, my newfound Christian fire hit a dead end as my larynx was mysteriously injured and I could no longer use my voice. After recording some other content for one of my royalty-earning sites, I developed a tight soreness throughout my throat and speaking no more than a few minutes per day was the new norm.
In the days following whatever happened, I also had several heated arguments with various people in my life for stupid reasons and something in my throat just broke. The abrupt change meant that the one thing I had relied on for my life purpose, or even any chance at a regular income, was now out of the picture. Speaking was what had given me a sense of direction, a way to express my newfound faith, spread the Good News and be a productive follower of Jesus. It was a gift God had given me, and although I had misused that gift many times, I was excited to finally do it justice in the service of the Lord. Of all the times my voice could have blown out but didn’t — why now? The enemy had done it yet again.
I will not lie, this was the final straw for me and a real test of my faith. It just seemed as if my life had entered a season of trial after trial after trial, and I really wondered why God would let something like this happen to me — especially after revealing so much truth and lighting my heart on fire with an entirely new direction. My lifestyle, which was already pretty mundane after the bankruptcy, now reverted even more. I was barely teaching any clients and my online business was just a shell of what it used to be with a few measly royalties here and there. Not that I cared much anyway at that point, but in either case I had no car, no money, nothing to do and plenty of annoying problems to complain about. It was crushing not to be able to speak, and on top of everything else I just felt defeated.
“I shall not die, but I shall live,
and recount the deeds of the Lord.
The Lord has disciplined me severely,
but he has not given me over to death.”
—Psalm 118:17-18
There are many things I have learned in the intense period of time since the beginning of 2020, several of which I share regularly on my podcast and in my books and articles, but among a few of them are the following: you never know when and how God will act in your life, and the greater your faith grows the more you will be tested. I have a list in my phone of about 30 times that could have ended very, very poorly had it not been for God’s loving hand in my life, but these were isolated events — not seasons. As I grow older, I see and also hear from others that seasons get longer and longer.
This is where we need endurance as believers and why strengthening your faith in suffering is one of the main topics of the book I was prompted to write when my voice was taken away.
The losing of my voice right after the high of being born again, which followed the ebbs and flows of my faith that I relayed to you, was a roller coaster ride that really challenged my endurance. I tend to be stubborn and persevering by nature, but we all have a breaking point and that is when true faith really begins. When I used to compete professionally we practiced getting ourselves to the point of exhaustion and then giving it all we had again during those final rounds as if starting fresh. This was the only way to expand one’s capabilities, because the mind plays tricks on you when you get worn out. The same goes with your faith. I had an expectation for significance and momentum with my newfound identity as a “real” Christian, but I made a critical error: I based my sense of progress on worldly measurements instead of spiritual ones.
The same mentality that had led to my sleep and stress issues — the notion that I “needed” to do certain things to be valuable — was the same mentality that had crept into my walk with Christ shortly after I became born again. Instead of my entrepreneurial to-do lists I now had Christian to-do lists. I felt that it was my “duty” as a good Christian to stand for truth, use my platform and gifts to serve God as much as possible and be productive so that I could help the poor, make an impact and do as much as I could for the faith. While there’s nothing bad with any of these things in and of themselves, the reality we must remember is that God doesn’t need anything from us.
He doesn’t need our downloads, our content, our likes, our sales, our interviews, our charity work, our impact in the world or anything else. God does not need you to build His kingdom because He will inaugurate it Himself when He returns, and the kingdom is within the hearts of those who truly believe. Nothing we can ever do will impress God, change His mind, alter His plans or add to Him in any way — and the greatest things we do in life are always things that He does through us anyway. He is sovereign and will accomplish all that He wants without even lifting a finger, so the notion that we “need” to do anything for Him is flawed and based on the personal growth rat race of the material world.
I didn’t have to run that race anymore because I finally saw the truth, yet in my zeal this was still one thing I had to learn.
Although God does not need anything from us He does want our hearts. Instead of focusing on my relationship with God after He revealed Himself to me, I jumped the gun and went back into work and productivity mode. I just wouldn’t give myself a break, so I believe that God did me a favor by forcing me to stop so that I would finally learn what I needed to learn. It is funny making a career out of selling things like “stillness” and “alignment” and “presence” — yet never being able to fully slow down yourself. We always say that hindsight is 20/20, and indeed the more I look at the poetic irony of losing my voice it was so that I could learn to speak and listen to God through prayer. It was so that I could finally divorce having to do, chase and achieve anything in my life and just focus solely on my relationship to Him.
Walking Home
Naturally without having anything going on, I grew bored and drifted off into distractions and eventually my sleep got worse because I’d stay up later and later. I’d wake up at noon and then wouldn’t be able to sleep again until 5 or 6 in the morning. It was insane. And because of all the other things I was dealing with and the general unpredictability of my sleeping patterns overall, exercise was limited to just walking or occasionally riding my bike. Any bit of exercise I would do would throw my body off, give me crazier muscle spasms and invite insomnia to play ping pong in my head at night. As a former pro athlete it drove me absolutely nuts to be engrossed in such sloth and unpredictability, and eventually I became too disgusted with myself to continue bouncing around hopelessly.
There had to be a way to get back to some sense of normalcy. I couldn’t do much with all of my limitations, but I could do one thing: I could pray and I could be disciplined about it just like I had been disciplined as an athlete and musician with practicing. Maybe that’s what God wanted out of me all of these years. So, I started praying. I prayed at first just by giving thanks before I ate, and then slowly I added to my routine various things. Today I try to pray several times per day both through a routine and spontaneously. I discuss these strategies in the book, but nonetheless it has transformed my life to spend more time with God throughout the day and on a regular basis — including the Sabbath every week as an intentional day of rest and mindfulness.
I believe there is always more time we can spend with God, and for me it is a constant dance to be mindful of Him throughout my often busy days.
Eventually through discipline I was able to work some light exercise into my routine, and as I made a habit of waking up earlier my sleep and energy levels began to stabilize. And by a chance meeting with one of my dance friends from college, who is now an osteopath, I connected with another osteopath in town that I ended up trading dance lessons in exchange for osteopathic sessions (something I could never afford at the time) to heal my throat and stabilize my body from all the stress I had been through. Some way, somehow, God found one of the most talented therapists I’d ever met and made sure they wanted something extremely specific, that is, dance lessons, in exchange. Truly, God works in mysterious ways.
About 9 months later, toward the end of 2022, my voice started to feel a little better. By “better” I mean that I could talk for an hour or so instead of just a few minutes without pain building in my throat. Around the time a friend of mine sent me an atheist meme that he wanted my take on, and so I decided to create my first video podcast to debunk it. I was weary of video, because it was so much extra work and I had grown comfortable with audio podcasting, but by the grace of God I took the plunge and it has only grown since then.
Today I love doing videos and look forward to them, but like with everything it takes time to find your groove. It was difficult at first to do one hour (or more) podcasts with my voice, but before each podcast I would pray for strength and for wisdom and it always turned out. I had times where the enemy would strike me through technological issues, like having to re-do a 3 hour podcast because it never recorded, which was brutal, yet these moments of pain and frustrating helped me refine my craft and lean more into God as my provider and sustainer.
Learning to reuse my voice has been a journey of trust and patience, both of which for someone who is as “type A” as I am, and who came from the personal growth New Age movement, has been a real growing experience. As of this writing my voice is still healing, but it has improved quite a bit and I’m grateful to God for not only giving me my strength back — but truly giving me a new voice with my platform. Dr. Bonnie, my osteopath, unfortunately had to move out of state right when I was hitting the 70-80% mark or so in my healing, but I trust God’s plan and timing will work things out one way or another. I have always had the strength to do what I need and I’m in awe at how much I’ve been able to produce with so little compared to when I was spending so much and was walking alone.
Today my podcast is thriving and I am more fulfilled doing what I do than I ever have been. When I was doing my personal development stuff, it had become a chore and a burden — which was part of the burnout I experienced — but with the gospel and the bible it is an energizing and life-giving source of inspiration that I look forward to every time. I’m also making money from my podcast for the first time ever, whereas before I was spending more money than I want to think about just trying to keep it afloat.
When Alignment is Present, Movement is Natural
For years my mantra was something like, “When alignment is present, movement is natural.” This is because in dancing, and really anything, alignment is the key. Too often in our consumerist, independent-minded world we want action. We focus on the obvious rather than focusing on the non-obvious. Yet life is such that when we respect alignment, energy flows the way it is supposed to.
If you have poor posture you will not get the most out of your workout. If your digestive system is misaligned you will not get a lot out of your healthy eating habits or supplements. If your mind is misaligned by anxiety or depression or self-centeredness, it will be difficult to be present and focused on the things that matter. Movement, action, results and success always come naturally when we respect alignment. This works in dancing the way it works in life, and the greatest realization I’ve had is of the need for our alignment to God through being born again. When we are realigned to our Creator, who is the Source of all things, life as it should be happens naturally. This doesn’t mean roses and butterflies only, but it does mean a newfound sense of purpose, peace, joy and strength.
As I enter my 4th decade on this Earth, this longer season of life has taught me that the more I connect to God, the better my life becomes. This is again not to say that only blessings come from God, because He tests us as well, but tests are also gifts in disguise. It is also important to read the bible, because the more you read and spend time in gratitude or awe at God’s words or plan, the more your problems will melt away or at the very least balance out from perspective — since many of our worries are a result of simply being too self-absorbed.
Leaning into and aligning with God has helped me lean out of my trials, and while there are always things to deal with, it was learning to measure my progress through spiritual benchmarks rather than material ones which also made a significant difference. Asking myself questions like, “Did I pray or give thanks today?” instead of ones like, “How much content did I create today?” have been important ways to gauge my alignment rather than measure my progress. Of course, I am a dopamine addict and love progress because that is the way God created me, but this is the dance. I never thought in my life that I would read the bible daily or have a habit of prayer like I do today, yet here we are. This is the healing power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and it is something immediately available to anyone who calls on the name of Jesus Christ and surrenders their pride.
Sometimes we have to have a Damascus road experience to be humbled enough, and sometimes it’s a series of smaller experiences in a season of life that finally crack us open. Because the enemy is relentless, our journey is often one of ups and downs, failure and return. Yet God is always there, even when we aren’t. So wherever you happen to be in your walk today — or perhaps you have yet to get started — I hope that my testimony will edify and strengthen you.
There are so many things I look forward to developing, both within myself and through my work, but I thank God for the intense progress He has made in my life ever since that fateful night when I lost it all. I have learned more truth and precious wisdom in the last few years than in the 15 or so of chasing my own tail as a personal growth junkie. I also thank Jesus every day for always having His hand over me even when I didn’t care about Him. It truly is amazing. Being born again has been more life-changing than all of the personal growth and New Age work I have done in my entire adult life. Nothing even comes close, because nothing else is the full truth.
How to Create a Life You Love
At the 5 year anniversary of my podcast, in January of 2023, I looked back and realized God’s poetic timing yet again. The very first episode I ever published, as part of a new year’s resolution in 2018, was titled “Taking Action to Create the Life We Love.” The entire theme and drive of my podcast was based on this idea, to create the life I loved. The impetus for beginning this new journey was partly because my teaching career at the studio I worked at was becoming stale and meaningless. I was getting sick of selling dance lessons and going through the motions with my students just to make someone else’s wallet fat. I wanted to work with people in my own way, to get past the formalities and straight to the transformative power of what dancing could do as a healing modality, and also to speak freely as a coach rather than as a paid monkey that had to walk on eggshells for political correctness’ sake.
These weren’t very friendly ideas for a worker bee, and my restlessness needed a creative outlet. Another major impetus for beginning my podcast was having the free time to do it. Recall I had ended my engagement about 2 years prior in 2016, and by the time January 2018 came around I had dabbled with all sorts of creative things that, although they were fun, lacked any meaningful direction. I wanted to do something important, to fill the void I was in my heart from fruitless work and an increasing disinterest in the superficial world I had made my profession.
So, I did what all the cool kids do and I started a podcast.
Throughout the majority of those 5 years I spent a lot of effort on building my show and creating authentic content. At one point I had virtual agents booking their clients on my show 6 months in advance, and I was doing 2 interviews a week fairly consistently with very successful people. Yet despite being rich in the world’s wisdom, I had created nothing of true value. By the time Sisi took all of my money I had created debt and a bunch of meaningless, fancy sounding ideas that could not deliver me from the pit of despair and the problems of life.
After my new journey with Christ began, and even today, I have looked back at this first episode fondly. God had put it into my heart to chase the dream of creating a life I loved, so that I would fail and ultimately realize that only He could do it for me. Pretty brilliant if you ask me. Today my life is far from perfect, yet from another lens it is indeed very perfect. I have everything I need, and above all I have Christ. I have the truth. I have meaning and purpose which drive me in a way that none of the things before Christ ever did. I have faith, and I have hope — a hope that surpasses anything the world can provide because the world is dying and so are we every single day.
Truly God has created a life I love, and only He can do so because only He knows what is truly good or evil and when. I have prayed for wisdom and discernment, not to be deceived and not to deceive anyone through what I do. God has blessed my work to reach many people and open many eyes, and I am excited to see what He has in store as this journey unfolds into the climax of the final moments of the book of Revelation, which I believe will play out within our lifetime. What a time to be alive, and I owe it all to Jesus — my Lord, my Savior, my God, my Redeemer, my Creator and my Friend.
May He keep you and strengthen you, and if you have not come to the foot of the cross I invite you through this testimony to consider the love of the Savior and His redeeming power, for He is indeed the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Life can sometimes be overwhelming and the journey we walk with God is often filled with difficulties, setbacks and discouragement. It is during these times we need to lean into prayer, build a habit of gratitude and meditate on the words of scripture which remind us of God’s glory, promises and love.
If you or someone you know needs some biblically based, loving encouragement, check out my free compilation of recordings designed to bolster your faith and encourage you during difficult times.
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Hi Tudor,
Thanks for sharing that. Many similar themes in my life, as the world is just rigged that way. I luckily
hooked into the Aviation Business out of college, but it has been a rock and roll life all over the world.
I won't go into the details, but I've been to the fire empire and shook Satans hand too.
I think you should take your Revelations series and turn it into a book. It's pretty much written already.
I know books don't have much reward these days, but alot of people like myself still seek them out.
Keep up the good work.
John
Thank you for such an honest account. I had many, many similar things happen too + similar worldly beliefs which had to go. It’s been a very intense period of true spiritual growth and education. X