Jesus' birth is the beginning of Jesus' announcement that God has become king. We're invited to be a part of God's Kingdom on Earth, starting w/ the birth of the real,Inspired by @BrentBeshore, I thought I'd share my testimony and what drives me.

Growing up in the Bible Belt (Houston), we went to church some, but because Christianity is the norm, that often means people are 'Christian' as a social norm more so than they believe it. I remember going to church thinking that the only person that really believed this stuff

was the pastor (and maybe not even). I remember being 5 or 6 and thinking this stuff seemed hard to believe, and that the adults only went to church for the social gathering after and to be seen by the community. (Kids are more perceptive than we often think!)

I stopped going to church around 8 years old, and lived a pretty normal life focused mostly on sports. Football essentially defined me growing up, and I remember thinking the parents and kids at school who focused on God and church to be extremely weird. It made me

uncomfortable because I thought (rightly or wrongly) it was disingenuous. I remember learning the Lord's Prayer in a football huddle before a game from one of my coaches in ninth grade, and thinking that prayer was pointless and weird. Why does any of this matter?

Things changed when in 10th grade, my two best friends who were far more talented than me athletically began using and selling drugs (far more hardcore stuff than just weed). I always had a strong 'moral compass' and thought the point of religion was just following the

10 commandments. Even if this wasn't true, sort of like Pascal's comments, if God exists following the 10 commandments would be enough to be a 'good person' and be covered.

But, there was a huge problem in my mind with my friends starting to get into serious drug use and selling: they would ruin their chances at college scholarships for football (which ended up happening later), and their parents would not be able to afford college.

So, thinking that the music that we were listening to was glorifying all of the wrong things, I started to search around for 'more positive' music to listen to. This started with @LupeFiasco's music, who seemed to rap about more positive things. This then led to listening to

some of @lecrae's music, who is a Christian rapper. He talked about things that I had never heard or considered before. (I often say that Lupe Fiasco's music was my "gateway drug" to Christianity.)

Lecrae rapped about how the gospel was about God taking us as we are, and coming to God with our imperfections and Jesus changing our hearts and making us new -- even if we are imperfect to begin with. We don't need to come to God perfect. The entire point of the gospel is that

God takes us at our imperfections and makes us clean by his son's sacrifices. I had never considered that or heard that, and thought that the gospel was about just following the 10 commandments.

I then started following some of the other "Christian rappers," and saw someone share this clip by William Lane Craig:

I thought that science could explain everything in the world, and this clip by @WilliamLaneCr showed me that there were other plans of reasoning in the world that were outside of the empirical scientific method: philosophy and theology.

This led me to listening to some sermons and more of Craig's philosophy, along with Alvin Plantinga, and then something changed when I was sitting in my room the January of 10th grade. I was sitting on my couch and thinking, and then had probably the most important moment

in my life that I can't fully explain. I was just hit with the belief that Jesus was God, and felt something overtake me that I can't fully explain -- it seemed like even my physical vision changed in a moment, and my entire view of reality changed in a moment.

In the next year, hungry to learn, I listened to about 500 sermons and later started to learn Ancient Greek (I was terrible in school) and would go to a library every day after football practice to read philosophy and theology.

Ordering books on philosophy and theology from Oxford University Press and Harvard UP, I had a desire to learn and understand the world from first principles given this bizarre experience. Using Bonhoeffer's words in the unfinished "Ethics," I think we are here to make

God's reality the world's reality: helping the least of these, making disciples, and helping the world become God's reality through pursuing justice, truth, and following Jesus' teachings.

This led me to study philosophy at Baylor and then Oxford, and try to find my calling first maybe in ministry, then politics, and then through capitalism with the underlying desire to help 'make God's reality the world's reality'.

This all starts with Jesus' birth where God announces he is king, which we are all invited to be a part. /fin