TESTIMONY

I grew up in Galveston, Texas. My dad ran a service station and garage, so I've been around cars for as long as I can remember. I guess that's how I ended up in the battery business.

But I inherited something else from my dad - drinking. On Saturday afternoons at about two o'clock, he would set up a little bar in a back room of his business. Many of his commercial customers would stop by to pay their account and then go back there and have a drink and he would join them. I remember him saying he just wanted to have a little fun. Often along about eight o'clock some of his employees would have to help my Dad home and put him to bed. Well, I followed in his footsteps and started drinking in junior high school. I can't remember not setting fun and partying as my major game plan, so I gravitated around the type of people who drank a lot. This was easy to do in Galveston, because it was a tourist spot, a big party town.

Somehow I made it to college and just went on partying, only I began to drink more. I never had been much of a student, so it wasn't long before I started thinking about dropping out and moving on. But, I realized that once I was out I would be competing against people who had finished school.

So I completed college, got married, and eventually ended up with Interstate Batteries, working a distributorship with my dad and brothers out of Memphis, Tennessee. Two and a half years later I went to work directly for Interstate, returning to Texas with Interstate's National Office located in Dallas. That meant that I was on the road a lot, traveling across the country. That first year I was away from home more than 8 months, which freed me up to just keep life simple; drinking, partying, and selling batteries.

After several years, my wife had decided that sooner or later she was going to leave me. She grew up around a lot of drinking, so she knew what she was up against.

Now remember, I'd been getting loaded at least once a week for twenty years, often drinking to the point of blackout. Fridays were the worst, as I would always drink and party on the plane ride home. In fact, once I'd had two or three drinks I'd want to go until everything shut down and/or the bottle was empty. Later I'd feel badly about it, but drinking seemed to ease a pressure that would build up in me every four or five days.

One night back in 1974; I ended up drinking as usual until the bars closed, which was two o'clock in the morning. Afterward, as I was driving home, I got pulled over by the police. I already had two DUI's, but somehow I talked my way out of getting arrested. When I woke up the next morning all hung over, I called in sick to work. Then as I lay there in bed, the truth overwhelmed me. I was an alcoholic. I'd lost control of my life - just like my father before me. That was a frightening realization!

"At the very instant I realized I had become an alcoholic - I blurted out in a half-yell desperation, "God help me! I can't handle it!" I'll never forget those words, because He took the compulsion away completely. It was over right then. I realize it doesn't happen that way for everyone, but it did for me and I'm eternally thankful. The weird thing is that if you'd asked me the day before - if I believed in God - I would have told you I didn't know, that I hadn't given much thought to it.

But alcohol is not the only thing that can enslave a person. It enslaved me, but you may be the prisoner of something else. Maybe gambling. I know guys who can't get through a week without laying down serious money on a game somewhere. Their life is out of control and they're miserable. But they're hooked. Or how about drugs? Or pornography? Or even food and tobacco?

My point here is not to preach or lay a guilt trip on somebody. It's just that I believe a lot of people can point to some place in their life where they're not doing what they want - they're not free. They're caught up in a life wrecking compulsion. Something else is in control. When I was drinking, for instance, my problem wasn't that I didn't want to drink; I just didn't want to drink too much! But I always did. The stuff had me. I wasn't free.

Now here's where the greatest gift in the world comes in. Living the way I was, you can understand that I almost never went to church. Religion meant nothing to me. But, along about this time a friend of mine started telling me what the Bible had to say about life and living it. I quickly cut him off: "If you can show me how I can believe the Bible is THE TRUTH, logically with my brain, then I'll pay attention to what it has to say. Otherwise, as far as I'm concerned, it's just another old book, a bunch of people's outdated philosophies or whatever, and I don't need it."

I thought I was throwing a big challenge at him, but he met me head on and got me some documented books and I began to research the validity of the data supporting the Bible as God's truth. It was objectively overwhelming. Three major areas: from archaeological discoveries; from the history and weight of manuscript authenticity; and most of all, from the proven fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy in the New Testament - hundreds of years later. I went over and over that. The supporting evidence was so strong that I began reading the Bible on my own and also attending a Bible study.

Important verses for me were: "Seek and you shall find...." (Matthew 7:11) - I told God if He was for real I was a "seeker" and that I wanted to find the TRUTH. So I kept on studying and going to the Bible study.

Scripture says that, "Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life," (John 14:6) and it teaches that we're all "slaves," (II Peter 2:19) not just to alcohol or drugs, etc..., but overall to what the Bible calls sin. That each of us has sinned against God - gone our own way - independent of Him, either through outright rebellion or simple apathy to just go our own way. Scripture teaches that we all have sinned in our lifetime and have fallen short of the Glory of God. (Romans 3:23)

I knew that was true for me! But the good news is "the Truth shall make you free" (John 8:32) and Christ is the Truth! So I accepted Him just as the Bible teaches: as my Lord and Savior - as payment for my sins (I Peter 2:24) - as God's only begotten Son. In whom is the forgiveness of sin and the power of self control in being freed from the bondage of sin. Jesus is the gift of freedom, the power for living, and He gives eternal life! (John 3:16)

You can accept Him right now, just like I did, by repeating this prayer and making it the commitment of your heart. Just pray.....

"Dear God - I want freedom from the slavery of my sin. I believe Jesus is the Truth and I accept Him now as my Lord and Savior.....and, I ask You for forgiveness of my sins.....because He paid for them for me. (II Corinthians 5:21) Please give me the power to live a life pleasing to You. Thank you for this gift of a new and eternal life in Jesus' name, Amen!"