Personal testimony
Growing up: I was born into a Christian family. I grew up going to church. I can’t 
remember a time of not knowing about God, the Bible, and Christianity. Most of my extended family members and people who I knew growing up profess to be Christians. I never really doubted any of it. Even as I grew up; I always trusted it. To me, I always “believed” in Jesus Christ. I always prayed. I never struggled to do so. Some people clearly do. I would pray on my own almost every day. There were certainly activities that I tried to avoid knowing that they aren’t things that Christians should be doing.
There were certainly times when I wasn’t living like I should. There were certainly sins that I was readily able to live with. To pass off as being ok. I didn’t spend too much time ever thinking about God’s will.
College was tough. It was a very unchristian place. I was very glad when my time there was done. When I first moved to Iowa City after college I wanted to find a church right away. During lunch on one of my first days of work I looked through the phone book to try and get some ideas of what churches to check out. I realized this may be a daunting task. A few days later I was setting up a bank account. While making small talk with the bank worker we realized one of my aunts was a good friend of hers growing up. Knowing where I was from, she suggested that I check out the church she attends. It was close by. I did so that Sunday and I was very welcomed. I was asked to join the church softball team before I even made it in the sanctuary. I visited a few other churches but this was going to be my new church home. New Life Community Church. The pastor there was great. Rev. John White also happened to be from Pella. He would preach sermons sometimes that just seemed to speak right to me. It was like he followed me around all week and looked for how I was screwing up the most. Some weeks I wondered if I wanted to attend and hear how I screwed up this week.
Years later I was attending a church leadership conference for our church. I had been a deacon and was an assistant youth group leader. So I attended. Now leading up to this conference I had been doing more Bible reading and study on my own. Before I hardly ever did so. Now we had a new pastor and I hardly got anything out of his sermons. So, I decided I must seek God more on my own. The conference was held on a Friday night and Saturday morning. That Friday night the speaker talked about “being” vs “doing”. I was thoroughly confused. I couldn’t see how they weren’t the same thing. I sensed that this was something very important to know.
Leading up to this conference I had been slowly drawing closer to God. I was trying to get started on building a house for my family. I wanted to build something smaller, energy efficient, and hopefully off-grid. Something that would hopefully be more God honoring. Honoring God was one of the main reasons that I wanted to do it. I was hoping that if it went well that maybe it would lead to me building more similar houses. I couldn’t get anywhere. I was frustrated. I was hoping that I would come away from that conference with an answer as to why things were going so poorly on this front. This was certainly a selfish motive. Still it was something I hoped to get out of it.
I stayed up that whole night trying to meditate on, pray about, and figure out the difference between “being” vs “doing”. Finally early in the morning the answer dawned on me. I saw that I had been guilty of “doing” my whole life. I was trying to be like a slave that tells his master how he is going to serve him. Rather than serving how the master says to do. I realized my whole house building idea was my own idea, that it wasn’t of God, and not according to His plans. I saw that while this had been a life long problem that I wasn’t being shown this out of great anger or something like that. But that I was shown this so that I would now see the solution and take it. The solution was that I needed to fully turn to God and submit myself to his ways. It was actually an energizing and very motivating experience. Not sleeping at all that night didn’t faze me. I was actually very energized that day. I remember listening to “Lord I’m ready now” by Plumb a few times. Now I knew what she was talking about in that song. I didn’t know what it all meant at the time but, I knew it meant I had to figure out how to get on the same page as God.
First off I put away the plans to build a house. (From time to time I look into again and find nothing but road blocks) I knew I had to get into reading my Bible on my own more. This is obviously a main way to come to know God. I needed to re-learn things. I had a strong inward desire to read the Bible, meditate and pray more. A deep desire like I hadn’t had before. The Bible began to open to me more. My other desires of what I do with my free time for fun began to diminish. After my family was in bed I would read my Bible because I sincerely desired to do that rather than play Xbox with friends or watch sports. I found an honest desire to not sin, and to please God. A few months after that conference it hit me. I think that I was just saved that night. I think that is when I was truly born again.
Since that time, I can understand the Bible on my own. I can see deep level things in Scripture. I can make complex connections and catch some errors in what people teach right away. I can be reading the Bible and all of a sudden BAM I see something what is there. It is like it was just unlocked. Like blinders just came off. This naturally makes an impact on me, changes me to some degree inwardly.
I’ve experienced the following changes the last few years: Hardly ever swear. Basically just when something dramatic happens that catches me off guard. Don’t have a potty mouth. Stopped playing violent video games. Don’t watch any TV shows or movies that have violence and sexual stuff in them. I am not governed by watching sports. I haven’t had Iowa football season tickets the last three years. Watching Iowa football in Kinnick Stadium is my favorite thing to do. I’ve been to some of them; just certainly not all. I realized I should really spend some of that time and money on other things. I have honestly desired to do so. Sometimes I start watching a football game, or other sporting event, while writing a card(s) or letter. By the end of the game I will have been so engrossed with writing I hardly watched any of the game. My giving has increased. Time spent actually coming along side people to help them has greatly increased. I use to not just hate wickedness but have great anger or hatred for the people guilty of it. I have seen Ephesians 6. Now I see why people are doing what they do.
I feel sorry for them and sincerely realize we all need to know Jesus Christ. There will still be some frustration there when dealing with these people; the amount depends upon whether or not I am abiding in the Lord. What I think about has changed. I use to mostly think about: sports, video games, and future plans for myself and family. Now I spend the majority of it thinking about things of God. Thinking about and prepping for the various church groups, and people I personally help out with as well. I feel very grateful towards God; I desire to please him with how I live my life. That was a general and incomplete list.
I would say that those changes have happened spontaneously, or naturally. I haven’t mustered up a bunch of self-will and came up with a good plan to “fix” those things. They have just happened by seeking and coming to know the Lord more bit by bit. There are some days when some of these things aren’t true. When God isn’t on my mind or heart. Most days these changes are true.
Over the last few years I have learned to “call upon the name of the Lord.” I have experienced the resurrection life of Jesus Christ in some powerful ways. A few years ago my dad died unexpectedly. God had sent me a vision telling me my life was about to change. When he died I turned to him hard from my heart. I “saw” Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, those who are the called according to His purpose.” It brought me the greatest peace I have ever experienced. I had great compassion for others. I know I couldn’t have mustered them up from out of myself. They got me through that first week. I wrote the message for my dad’s funeral. I was comforting the other people that came to my dad’s visitation and funeral. Before the funeral we had a family time of prayer. We all sat around waiting for somebody to get up and lead prayer. Finally, thanks to this strong inward urge, I got up and did so. I don’t even like to speak publicly. Yet I was able to pray in a very calm and sensible manor at that time of heart ache. I remember one particular incident at a private family visitation time. Seeing my cousin Levi staring at my dad’s body off by himself. I was filled with so much compassion for him. I went up to him and just hugged him and talked to him about how much my dad cared about him. There were no thoughts about myself and my personal situation. The focus was on Levi. Sometimes I write cards to people and will “call upon the name of the Lord.” The words will just flow out of me for what to write. A co-worker shot me in the arm with a nail 
gun due to his carelessness.
Just before he shot me I had noticed that he was going along carelessly. When he shot me it felt like I got stung by a hornet or something like that. Something that hurts worse than just a bumblebee. When I “called upon the name of the Lord” the anger within me that was welling up towards my co-worker for carelessly shooting my arm just disappeared in an instant. Instead I now had compassion for him. The pain was still there, yet anger wasn’t. I saw an opportunity to be a witness for God to him in this situation. I was able to not sin against him. I calmly asked that he get me a band-aid and tape. My other co-workers all gave him a hard time about it. Not me, not the guy who actually got shot by the nail gun.
This is how I have come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. How I continue to come to know him more and experience His life. I am still far from being perfect. I just keep seeking to know God more. Keep slowly coming to know the Lord Jesus Christ in a real inward way more and more.
Sincerely,
Jason Laverman