Without Risk, There Is No Gain: Wyatt's Faith Journey- Part 1

Hi friends! Today we begin Wyatt’s faith journey. I met Wyatt on Easter Saturday at the beach. Some of the men in his disciple group had organized a sunrise service and invited others to join. I was briefly introduced to Wyatt before the service began. Moments later, Wyatt was casually facing the crowd and began to preach. As he spoke about Jonah, I was struck with how well spoken he was, his passionate heart for the Lord, and his quiet confidence. I felt prompted to ask him afterward if he would be willing to share some of his faith journey. I am thankful that he was courageous enough to agree, especially given that he had just met me for the first time less than an hour ago. His story is amazing. Enjoy!

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Over the last four to five years, I have found myself encouraged and inspired by an obscure verse in Romans 16.

I Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord.  (Romans 16:22)

If you are like me, and many others, we may wonder who the heck was Tertius?  Furthermore, why focus on this passage?  I have found the more I studied this passage, the more it made sense to my life. 

Most scholars believed that Tertius was Paul’s scribe.  He was either the one who wrote Romans by Paul’s diction or perhaps Paul wrote it and Tertius edited it afterward. Here in Chapter 16, only a few verses from the end of Romans, God gave this man who had lived behind the scenes a shout out.  He was only mentioned that one time in scripture. 

Tertius was someone who influenced someone who influenced the world.  He got to be part of writing one of the, if not the greatest, theological documents of all time.  At the end of the day, he aided the great evangelist by being a voice behind a voice.  This has been my life over the last few years. 

Today I am 27.  I am in what I would call scene 3 of my life, but let me pause and take you back to my earlier years and what I would refer to as scene 1.  I grew up in Midwest Ohio where we liked to say there were four seasons.  There was winter, almost winter, summer, and then winter’s coming.  We would be driving to school at 5:30 or 6 o’clock in the morning and passed the Amish on the side of the road.  At 6:30 PM, on any given night, we waited an hour and a half at Dairy Queen because all the Amish were there.  I don’t know why they loved it so much.  It was Amish country, straight up.   

My parents both grew up in Ohio before they moved to Louisiana.  They were both teachers for 12-13 years and then had my older sister and myself.  After they had us, they moved us back to Ohio to raise us there.  My siblings and I were five in total.  My older sister, me, and three younger brothers that were born in Ohio. 

The Midwest was very simple.  I have had a chance to travel a lot and I have come to appreciate more just how simple and hardworking people were in the Midwest.  They did not need much to be content.  In some ways it was a really good thing, in another way it was dangerous.  Since Midwesterners did not need much to be content, that could lead to complacency.  I think that attitude was sprinkled into the church as well.

My parents brought us to church, so I was exposed to Jesus at an early age.  When I was 10 years old I went to Vacation Bible School.  Mrs. Poster shared the gospel and invited us to raise our hands if we wanted to accept Jesus into our hearts.  There was something different that day. I was not able to fully put my finger on it, but it was just different.  So, I raised my hand and invited Jesus into my heart at that young age.  I remember running home to my mom after Vacation Bible School and giving her a big hug.  I just started crying and telling her, “Mom, I gave my life to the Lord today!”

Despite this, my childhood was not perfect.  Around a similar age to when I gave my life to Jesus, I was exposed to pornography through one of my friends. 

I had known my friend since kindergarten.  I first met him in the neighborhood when I was playing sidewalk chalk outside in the front of my house.  I had never met him before.  He rode his scooter down the street and then rode right over my sidewalk chalk.  I thought, “This guy.  Are you freaking kidding me?”  I was about to fight this other kindergartener in my neighborhood but instead we became really good friends.  We went to school together and were always at each other’s houses since he only lived four houses down.

Years after we met, I was over at my friend’s house when I first encountered pornography.  His older brother, who was in high school, gave him a Playboy for every birthday as a gift.  Since that was a gift to him, my friend passed it to me as a gift as well.  When I first saw it, I had no idea.  I thought, “What? What am I looking at?”  I was oddly curious and at the same time there was a sense of conviction. 

Sadly, my friend and I kind of looked forward to that day ever year when he got another one.  Once the internet became mainstream, and people had access to it, he showed me things that his brother had shown him.  That was how it came to be that around the same time that I was exposed to the person of Jesus, I was also exposed to pornography.  

People find it hard to believe that their child is being exposed to porn or that they are addicted, but it is not a matter of if your child will be exposed, it is a matter of when.  One in four Google searches are porn based.  A massive study, which came out in 2016 called the Porn Phenomena, is a great resource for anyone who wants to get better insights into the problem.  A recent study came out in 2023 where they examined 4,000 high schoolers in Great Britain.  They concluded that 1 in 5 were addicted.  I believe that is relatively low, but even if it was only 20%, that is a problem that very few are talking about.  The average age that a child gets exposed to porn is anywhere from 8 to 12 years old.  In some studies, the earliest age was around three years old. 

For me, I was around 8-10 years old when I encountered porn.  As a result, Jesus and pornography ran parallel in my life for almost the next decade.  This real addiction led me to live a secret life.  For the next 8 years, all the way up to graduating high school, I wrestled back and forth between Jesus and this addiction.  I went between remembering moments I had with the Lord, to being ashamed of my sin.  Ashamed of this pornography addiction.  I did not have the relationship with my parents where I could have that honest, trusting, and intimate conversation. 

Last year, in January of 2022, a study said that 79% of people got their source of morality and their source of right and wrong from their family.  It was the number one answer.  Looking back to when I was in high school, that was very true of my friends.  When I asked, “Why do you believe what you believe?” the most common answer I received was the statement, “Because of my family.”  I never wanted to be that type of person. 

I was living this secret life in high school and my faith was being challenged.  When I was around 16-17 years old, I remember I came home and asked my mom, “Why do you believe that the Bible is true?”  At that time, she answered, “Well, because it is.”  It was not enough.  I asked again, “Okay mom, but why do you believe the Bible is true.”  At the time, she just did not have a good enough answer for me, and it really turned me off.  It started to press against my worldview.  Even though I had been exposed to Christianity my entire life, I no longer wanted to have anything to do with my faith because I did not receive a solid, firm reason why it was true. 

I was not going to believe something just because my parents believed it. 

(To be continued…)

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