For the past several years, I’ve shared a thread on Christmas about the implications of Jesus. Last year’s is below.

This year I want to get personal about my unexpected journey from ardent atheism to faith that shook the foundations of my life and changed it forever. https://twitter.com/BrentBeshore/status/1209831542576549889

Everyone's journey is different and if what I'm getting ready to say seems ridiculous, I get it. 10 years ago I would have said the same thing, and probably less tactfully.

---

From a young age, I’ve been curious about the big questions.

Why am I here? What’s the point?

I can vividly remember sitting in vacation bible school as a young kid thinking all this talk of Jesus and His blood made no sense.

But, everyone else seemed to be into it and they had tasty snacks, so I might as well roll with it.

At 9, I told my mom I didn’t believe in God. We were driving by Carl Richard's bowling alley in Joplin, MO. My little brother in the back seat started crying.

On the topic of faith, I'd say I finished high school confused but curious.

I took religion classes in college, all of which were taught by atheists or agnostics.

As I started law school, I became obsessed with money and achievement. I got into reading “new atheist” authors and quickly adopted their condescending views of religion and faith.

Religion was for the weak and stupid.

Smart people, like me, weren’t distracted with feel-good fairy tales.

Humanity was the random product of Darwinian evolution, descendants of pond scum and apes, so therefore we should try to be good people.

As the Beatles sang, “Love is all you need.”

Life’s purpose is to make your own meaning, have fun, and fight for what’s right.

My cause was whatever was fashionable, whatever made me look look good, got me praise, or opened doors. Good works were a stepping stone to success.

If that sounds like a confused string of non-sequiturs, that’s because it is. My life lacked coherence.

I didn’t know what love was, but “loved” the slogan. And frankly, I didn’t do the hard work of contemplating the logical conclusions of my atheism, despite reading Nietzsche.

My 20s were a blur of failures and successes, both personally and professionally.

I got lucky a few times in business and ended up in my late 20s with a successful and growing firm, a beautiful wife who loved me, and a gnawing sense of emptiness, anxiety, and frustration.

It didn’t take me winning the superbowl like Tom Brady ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=172&v=UHSfiKAtPzk&feature=emb_logo), or becoming an international sensation like Jim Carrey () to realize that there must be more to life than just achieving and accumulating.

Around that time, I met some smart, well-read, successful people whose lives looked different than mine. And to my surprise, they were devout Christians.

They broke all my assumptions. They were funny and loving, kind and humble.

They had courage and largely lived without the fear, anxiety, and malaise I felt and saw clearly in my friends. They lived with a freedom that I had never experienced.

They helped the helpless with no desire for recognition or expectation of reciprocity.

I realized I needed to search and understand if there was something more. I struggled with some basic questions:

Wasn’t Christianity just a convenient white Western man’s religion? (It’s not.)

Aren’t all religions basically the same? (They’re not.)

If I can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday, how could I ever have confidence that 2000-year old events were accurate and probable? (You can.)

Didn’t becoming a Christian make you a stick-in-the-mud bigot? (Oh, heck no and, frankly, the opposite.)

From there, I started a slow, research-intensive process of 2 steps forward, 1 step back.

I had a patient group of mentors who were much further along in their journey, much wiser, and far better read than me. They started feeding me books and taking me to lunch.

Hundreds of books and conversations later, my heart moved from the impossibility of God, to plausibility, to the probability that the Bible was true, and eventually to a trust in, reliance upon, relationship with, and love for who I believe to be the Creator of the universe.

Who He is and what He’s done for you and for me is the best news (the “good news”) in the history of the world.

Do I still have doubts? Absolutely.

Am I very much still a work in progress? Just ask anyone who knows me, especially my wife, kids, and co-workers.

But has my life been unmistakably and positively impacted? Yes, and in ways I couldn’t have even imagined.

My journey was one of head, then heart. But I can vividly remember the first time I prayed to God as if he was real.

I awkwardly poured out my fears and hopes and doubts. And while there was no grand event, something changed. God changed me and, gratefully, that work continues.

If you're where I was 10 years ago, anxious and frustrated, full of doubt, with a yearning for something more that you can't explain, I'd encourage you to find a quiet spot and pray to God as if he's real. Pray out whatever is on your heart and ask God to reveal himself.

Merry Christmas my friends.

Just know that the Creator of all humbled himself, took on human flesh and died so that you may have abundant life. He loves you more than you'll ever know and wants a relationship with you.

He's our light in the night. https://info.thecrossingchurch.com/light-in-the-night-columbia