The Story of God’s Providence in My Life

From youthful rebellion and gracious redemption to a renewed calling in pastoral ministry, my story is a testimony of God’s providence.

The Lord Establishes Our Steps

Proverbs 16:9 says, “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.”

I have found that to be true in my own life. I often envisioned the path I would take and the future I would have, only to find that the Lord had different plans. At times, those plans led me to cry out, “Lord, why this? I trust your will, but I don’t understand.” Only in hindsight have I seen what the Lord was doing. “All things work together for good,” but not always in ways we can immediately see (Romans 8:28).

Recently, I was asked to introduce myself and share my testimony. As I considered that, I didn’t want to merely tell my story, but rather the story of God’s providence in my life.

A Godly Foundation in My Early Years

From the very beginning, the Lord blessed me with Christian parents. My father was also my pastor. They were faithful to “bring [me] up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). They taught me Scripture, brought me to church every Sunday, and made clear the difference between truth and error. Most importantly, they made sure I understood the gospel of Jesus Christ.

They also taught me about God’s sovereignty in salvation. Contrary to the teachings of every other system of religion, we cannot save ourselves. No amount of good works will ever be good enough. As sinners “dead in [our] trespasses,” we are utterly dependent on God’s sovereign grace (Ephesians 2:1). “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9).

My parents taught me that the Father chose his people before the foundation of the world, that Christ accomplished their redemption on the cross, and that the Spirit draws sinners to repentance and faith. They gave me a priceless foundation, so when I was later converted, I knew exactly where the praise belonged. All glory be to God for saving a wretch like me.

Yet I wasn’t saved as a child. My parents waited patiently and prayerfully, often with tears, until my twenties.

A False Start and Years of Rebellion

When I was about eleven years old, I was baptized, but not because I was repentant. I wanted to please my parents and do what seemed right, but there was no godly sorrow over sin. In hindsight, I know I wasn’t seeking salvation; I was only doing what I thought was expected.

The next decade proved it. I was not a new creation in Christ. I dishonored my parents, often behind their backs. I stole, cheated, lied, and pursued every kind of immorality. I drank, smoked, and did drugs. By God’s grace alone, I never fell into serious addiction.

Working now in the funeral home industry, I’ve seen how many people my age have lost everything to addiction—some even their lives. I often think, Lord, thank you for sparing me. I know that apart from his grace, I could have shared their fate.

The Parable of the Prodigal Son has always resonated deeply with me. Though I didn’t demand an inheritance, I did what he did: I packed up my belongings, left home, and chased my own desires. After high school, I moved 800 miles to Georgia, the state where I was born, to live near friends and start a rock band. We never made it out of the living room, but music wasn’t really the point. I wanted the freedom to sin without shame, far from my parents’ watchful eyes.

I thought distance would bring peace. It didn’t.

Misery in the Far Country

In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, Jesus describes a young man who leaves home, squanders everything in reckless living, and ends up feeding pigs (Luke 15:13–16). He becomes so hungry that he longs to eat their food. His rebellion leaves him destitute and alone.

My story mirrors his in many ways. In Georgia, I became impoverished in spirit and in life. I never had much money because work interfered with my pursuit of pleasure. I had only a few friends, and I quickly learned that you can’t run from guilt.

Years ago, I read about certain nineteenth-century Baptist pastors who viewed regeneration as a gradual process that culminates in a decisive moment of new birth. They compared it to the way a child is formed in the womb before finally being born. While I wouldn’t entirely agree with their theology, I understand what they meant. In my own life, there was a long season when God quietly broke down my pride, exposed my sin, and prepared my heart for grace. Conviction came in waves. It was never loud enough to convert me, but strong enough that I couldn’t escape it. For a long time, I was miserable, and I knew exactly why.

I remember lying awake at night, the distractions gone, my thoughts turning to God, and shame pressing heavily on me. During the day, I could suppress the truth, as Paul says in Romans 1:18. I could drown conviction in noise—music, television, alcohol, or conversation—but at night, I couldn’t hide.

I share this to encourage parents of wayward children. Unseen conviction may already be at work. My parents’ faithfulness and consistency meant I could never forget what they taught me. Even when my choices led to depression, I knew the cause, which was my rebellion against God.

Jeremiah 2:19 says,

Your evil will chastise you, and your apostasy will reprove you. Know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God.

I knew that bitterness firsthand. My sin chastised me night after night.

Small Encounters, Great Impact

The Lord sent me many wake-up calls, but none of the obvious ones brought lasting change. I was in car accidents, had a gun pulled on me, nearly drove my truck off a cliff, and was arrested three times. Any reasonable person might have said, “It’s time to change,” but none of those moments pierced my heart. Instead, God used two small, seemingly insignificant encounters to turn me toward repentance.

The first came after one of those arrests forced me to return to Indiana. My parents persuaded me to go to church with them. While I was there, a brother in the congregation approached me privately and said, “If I’ve ever done anything to drive you away from the church, I’m sorry.” He had no reason to apologize, but he did. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so small. His humility made my pride feel unbearable.

Not long after that, I was having dinner with one of my sisters. She looked me in the eyes and asked, “Jeremy, when’s the last time you were truly happy?”

I brushed it off, saying, “I’m happy enough.”

But she pressed, “No, you smile and joke, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen you genuinely happy.” Her words sank deep, because I knew she was right.

Those two brief conversations—so gentle, so ordinary—accomplished what years of turmoil had not. They exposed the emptiness of my life and the distance between me and God. And through them, the Lord began drawing me home.

The Night God Saved Me

I was twenty years old, sharing an apartment with a friend who happened to be gone one evening. As I passed through the living room to turn off the lights, something stopped me. In an instant, I became vividly aware of my spiritual deadness.

The apostle Paul describes the unregenerate person as “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). That night, I felt it. It was as if my soul stood outside of itself, finally seeing the truth that I was “without hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). Panic swept over me, and I collapsed to the floor. Instinct, shaped by years of my parents’ teaching, drove me to pray.

I don’t remember every word, but I remember the desperation. I wasn’t thanking God or politely asking for help. I was pleading for mercy, unsure if forgiveness was even possible, yet sure that I needed it. I cried, “Lord, I surrender,” again and again, until I was sobbing uncontrollably. Every sin I’d ever committed seemed to pass before me, each one heavier than the last. “Lord, save me from me,” I said.

Then everything grew still. I stopped crying, stopped rocking back and forth, maybe even stopped breathing for a moment. A cool calmness washed over me. I could feel myself changing, becoming, as Paul says, “a new creation” in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). The crushing weight I had carried for years suddenly lifted. I was free.

Every time the church sings Charles Wesley’s words—

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quick’ning ray,
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light.
My chains fell off, my heart was free;
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

—I’m taken back to that moment on my living room floor. There was no preacher in the room, no open Bible, just a merciful God who had been guiding every step of my life to that night. Through faithful parents, painful detours, and frequent convictions, he brought me to my knees and raised me a new man.

The next morning, I found an old Bible buried in my closet and began to read. I devoured it. I couldn’t get enough. Though I already knew the basics of the gospel, I wanted to understand more about the God who had saved me.

A Calling Begins to Take Shape

Not long after my conversion, my hunger for Scripture grew into a desire for conversation. I wanted to share what I was learning and discuss it with others. My parents’ church didn’t have many people my age, so I turned to my friends, even though none of them were believers.

I organized a weekly Bible study that quickly turned into a mix of debates over morality—whether drinking or smoking pot was a sin—and my attempts to explain the gospel. Eventually, my unbelieving friends lost interest, but other Christians began to join. Over the next year and a half, the study grew steadily.

My father, who was also my pastor, noticed my growing zeal for the Word. My mother had long believed I would one day become a preacher, though I never shared her conviction. Then one day, my father invited me to preach a Wednesday evening message at church.

It didn’t go particularly well. My sermon lasted maybe fifteen minutes, and though it was sincere, it was not especially insightful or dynamic. But something stirred in me that night. I knew I would do it again.

Like most pastors, I didn’t have a burning-bush moment or an audible call from heaven. Instead, there was a quiet but persistent pull in that direction. Over time, doors opened, opportunities came, and the church encouraged me to continue. Paul writes, “If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task” (1 Timothy 3:1). That aspiration grew in me, and the church affirmed it.

Among Primitive Baptists—the denomination I belonged to—seminary training was rare. Young ministers were expected to learn under older pastors and by practical experience. For several years, I did exactly that, preaching regularly and learning by doing.

In March 2008, I was ordained and soon after began serving a small church in Etna Green, Indiana, as an interim pastor. I was there every other Sunday and spent most of my off weeks traveling to fill pulpits across the country. Many of those churches had no pastor, and I was sometimes invited as a potential candidate.

Then, in October 2009, I accepted the call to pastor a Primitive Baptist church just south of Raleigh, North Carolina. I arrived eager and optimistic, determined to serve faithfully for decades to come. But God’s providence would lead me through yet another unexpected chapter.

Lessons in Providence Through Ministry

When I began pastoring in North Carolina, I imagined staying there for life. I told my soon-to-be wife that I hoped to serve that church for the next fifty years, but God’s providence had a different plan.

Primitive Baptists, by and large, aren’t known for expository preaching. Most sermons move from one theme to another rather than walking through a passage verse by verse. Yet that’s exactly what I felt compelled to do, preaching through entire books of the Bible, letting the text shape the message. Over time, this approach led me into theological convictions that didn’t fit neatly within Primitive Baptist tradition.

Primitive Baptists hold to many doctrines of grace—total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, and so forth—but with a distinct Hyper-Calvinist bent. In their system, faith isn’t considered a means of salvation. God saves whomever he wills, entirely apart from whether that person believes in Christ. To them, belief might follow salvation, but it isn’t necessary for it.

At first, I accepted that framework because it was all I knew. But the more I studied Scripture, the more uneasy I became. For instance, in John’s Gospel, we read:

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12-13)

Some emphasize verse 12—human responsibility—and others, like the Primitive Baptists, emphasize verse 13—divine sovereignty. But the two aren’t in conflict. They belong together. Salvation is entirely of God, yet he brings it about through the means of faith.

As my convictions changed, ministry became exhausting. Each week, I tried to preach faithfully while balancing what I believed Scripture said with what the church expected to hear. My theological shift was gradual, and I had few people I could safely talk with aside from my wife.

After seven years, I could no longer continue in good conscience. I resigned, knowing it would mean giving up everything familiar—my ministry, my livelihood, even the denomination I had grown up in. I felt disoriented, as if I were losing my identity as a pastor and disappointing my family. Still, I knew the Lord was leading me. “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps” (Proverbs 16:9).

What I couldn’t see then was how carefully he was already preparing the next chapter of my life.

New Beginnings and the Lord’s Guidance

About a year or two before I resigned, a visitor attended one of our services—a man who had once been a teaching pastor at another church nearby. He was searching for a congregation with firm Calvinistic convictions and decided to visit our Primitive Baptist church, though he was wary of its Hyper-Calvinism. To his surprise, he found me preaching a sermon series on evangelism, a topic not often heard in those circles. He realized I wasn’t a typical Primitive Baptist pastor, and in God’s providence, that meeting would soon change both of our lives.

When I finally stepped away from the Primitive Baptists, he didn’t want to remain there either. He reached out and suggested that our families begin gathering for worship in his home until we discerned what to do next. We did, and before long, others began to join us. Some came from my former church, others from his, and still others from the surrounding area. Within months, forty people were crammed into his living room each Sunday.

Eventually, we officially constituted a church, adopted the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, and started searching for a larger place to meet. During that season, I wasn’t receiving full-time support from the church, so I took a part-time job with a friend who was a funeral director. His funeral home needed help with services and transfers—an opportunity I couldn’t yet appreciate as fully as I would later.

As our congregation looked for a new meeting space, we learned that another Baptist church nearby had recently adopted the 1689 Confession as well. Their commitment to those doctrines had caused about half their members to leave, leaving them with a building but fewer people. We were a church of forty without a building; they were a church of forty with one. After much prayer, we decided to merge.

The merger was peaceful and fruitful, but I was weary. I had never taken a sabbatical or paused to recover from the struggles of the preceding years. After two and a half years of pastoring the new congregation, I felt it was time to rest. My wife, an Indiana native, had long hoped to return home, and I agreed that the time was right. So, after ten years in North Carolina, we packed up and moved back to Indiana.

I didn’t have a job waiting for me. Hoping for part-time work, I sent letters to local funeral homes, and one of them unexpectedly offered me a full-time position as their chaplain. That kind of role is rare in the funeral profession. Yet it not only provided for my family, it also gave me regular opportunities to speak the hope of Christ to grieving people. What began as a temporary arrangement has now been nearly seven years of ministry within that vocation.

Meanwhile, our family joined Grace Fellowship Church in Bremen, where Pastor Jon Hueni and the congregation became an immense source of healing and encouragement. After years without a pastor of my own, I found what I hadn’t realized I’d been missing—shepherding, accountability, and rest under faithful preaching. Pastor Jon even baptized me again, since my first baptism had taken place before my true conversion. That act of obedience was humbling but profoundly meaningful.

Over time, I began preaching and teaching again under the elders’ guidance. Then, on October 12 of this year, I was installed as the third, albeit bi-vocational, pastor of Grace Fellowship Church.

Gratitude for God’s Wise Providence

After I was installed as pastor, a brother in the church asked me, “Do you feel vindicated?” He meant, after all those years—leaving ministry, wrestling with uncertainty, finding my way back—did I feel redeemed by being restored to pastoral service?

Vindicated isn’t the right word. I feel deeply, humbly thankful.

I’m thankful for the foundation my parents laid, and even for the Primitive Baptist churches that shaped my early ministry. I’m thankful for the congregation in North Carolina that helped me grow when I was still a young pastor, and for the men who opposed me but ultimately sharpened my convictions. “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17).

I’m thankful for the brother who became my co-elder when we left the Primitive Baptists and for the families who gathered in that living room and encouraged me through a difficult transition. I’m thankful for the funeral director friend who opened a door that led to both financial provision and unexpected gospel opportunities.

I’m thankful for Pastor Jon, Pastor Colin Horne, and the entire body at Grace Fellowship, who welcomed my family with grace and love, and for the years I was able to sit, rest, and be ministered to.

And of course, I’m thankful for my wife, who walked with me through every valley and joy, supporting me with unwavering faithfulness even when the path ahead was unclear.

But above all, I’m thankful to God. Looking back, I see how every piece of my story fits within his wise providence. He wasted nothing. He braided together faithful parents, painful corrections, seasons of rebellion, unexpected work, refining losses, loving churches, and countless mercies until, in his perfect timing, he placed me where I am today.

Yes, there were challenging and confusing seasons, but each was for my good. Perhaps the greatest lesson I’ve learned through them all—the one I didn’t know I needed—is humility.

Paul writes, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

My story may not be extraordinary, but it is a testimony of God’s steadfast providence, and the same is true for every believer. Even when we cannot see it in the moment, he is guiding every step.