November 25, 2024 • 11 mins
Rick was radically saved and a leader in his church when a personal crisis upended his life. Instead of running to God, he returned to the sins of his past, and cut off all contact with anyone who tried to intervene. In this episode, he describes how God rescued him from his folly and restored what was broken in him.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Snapshot Testimony podcast. I'm your host, Ali Domercant.
In this podcast, I ask my guests to share one
pivotal moment that helped shape their faith in Christ. In
this episode, you'll meet Rick. He was radically saved and
even a leader in his church when a personal crisis
upended his life. Instead of running to God, he returned
(00:21):
to the sins of his past and cut off all
contact with anyone who tried to intervene. His life was
in absolute chaos, but God, in his mercy, rescued him
from his folly and restored what was broken in him.
Here's a snapshot testimony from Rick. You're in a you're
(00:46):
in a church service. And what was said that drew
you to come forward for prayer?
S2 (00:54):
Um, we had had an extended time of worship, and
it was, uh, if I recall correctly, uh, Joe was
teaching that day just on the redemptive aspects of the cross.
And so I'm sitting there and I'm just I wish
I could tell you what exactly it was that got
me out of my seat, but it was almost like
(01:15):
there was a pin. And I just stood up and
got in line and went up and prayed to get prayer.
And as I'm standing there, I began to weep. Um,
and I'm I'm thinking of this recent past of my
falling and and just the train wreck that my that
my life had become for a period of time. And
(01:38):
and Joe looks at me and my former pastor looks
at me and he goes, Rick, you don't need to
carry the shame anymore. God doesn't want you to carry it.
He wants to take it from you forever. And I
just broke. It was just the flood of the Holy Spirit.
Just wave after wave of healing. Deep, deep, deep within
(01:59):
my soul.
S1 (01:59):
Wow. Okay, so let's start to unpack a little bit.
What had brought on that shame. You mentioned a falling away.
You had gotten saved. Uh, 1975, was it?
S2 (02:13):
Yeah. It was. I was in the Navy and my
division chief was a believer. Um, and, you know, he
invited me on a retreat, um, in Majorca. We were in, uh,
we were on a med cruise, and he had reserved
a church in Palma, Spain, in Majorca. And he invited me,
and I was like, man, what the heck? I got
nothing better to do. And so, you know, as a sailor,
(02:35):
you know, I was like 19 years old. So, you know,
I go and, uh, we're in this church and, and
he's doing these simple teachings on what it means to
follow Christ and his love for us. And I just
realized how far away I had. I had gone from
God and how much I needed him. And I began
(02:57):
to repent. And at that point, I wept for maybe
four hours. Just the immensity of of my past life,
my past sin, I, had pretty much broken every commandment.
I was a poster child for don't let your daughter
date this. Um, you know, I was not a nice person.
I was. I was a terrible person. And God just
(03:20):
looked through all of it, and he just rescued me. Wow. And.
And my character was still broken. Um, it took a while.
I got out of the Navy, and I ended up
moving out here, and I got married, and that family, uh,
the mom and dad were, like, wonderful believers. And they
sowed into my life. And I ended up beginning to
go to a church in Arlington Heights. And just between
(03:43):
the teaching and the ministry of the church and becoming
a disciple and having somebody pull me under their wings,
and the teaching and the growth, and God began to
heal my character and to change my life. And I
began to walk with him. I became a home group leader.
And and they had invited me to to be an elder. Um,
and about that same time, my, my wife had come
(04:04):
to me and she had said to me that she
didn't love me anymore and that she wanted a divorce.
I fell off the edge. Yeah, I fell away for
about a year and a half. Just fell into gross sin. And, um.
I ended up desperate. I ended up moving away from
the northwest suburbs. We ended up getting divorced, and I
(04:25):
met another woman, and, um, she was pretty adamant. She said, well,
if we're going to be together, we're going to be
in church.
S1 (04:32):
During that time of of falling away because you'd been
you'd been in, uh, in leadership in church. And, uh,
what were your what did you think about God during that,
that time, or was it just you tried to run
as far away from anything related to God as you could?
S2 (04:51):
I was running, I had my fingers in my ears yelling,
na na na na na! I don't want to hear
from you. God. Um, you know, my my pastor, associate
pastor had reached out to me. I told him to
leave me alone. I would handle this. I would get back,
and then I just cut off all association with anybody
that I knew was a believer. Wow. And I was
(05:12):
really broken and. Yeah. And you know, once again, you know,
the scripture where it talks about that a dog returns
to its vomit. Well, you know, I returned to the
sin that I knew. I knew I returned to the
sin that was familiar to me. And. Yeah. And once again,
in his mercy, you know, I was brought through a
set of circumstances where I was up against the wall
(05:34):
and it was like, you can go to jail or
you can follow me. Your choice.
S3 (05:40):
Wow.
S2 (05:41):
And so I repented. I told my wife everything. Let
her know what was going on. Yeah. Now I'm, you know,
back in church, we had a pastor who was just
on fire for Jesus. Just just the journey. And God
began to teach me about redeeming the past. Yeah. That
(06:01):
he doesn't just redeem me and my soul, but that
he was going to begin to go back in my life,
and he was going to restore all that the rust
and the cankerworm had restored or had eaten away. That
was the specific scripture that God began to speak in
my heart. Wow. And it was because my character was
so broken that he needed to heal my character in
(06:25):
order for me to be able to get the disciplines
to follow him and to serve him. And it was
just it was incredible acts of grace. And I'd be
driving up somewhere for an appointment and God would speak
to me. He goes, do you remember when? And I
was like, oh, Lord. He goes, I'm redeeming this today.
I'm taking it back. And this is made new. And
(06:49):
it was thing after thing, place after place and friendship
after friendship. And once again, I was back praying for
revival in the church in Chicago. And I was beginning
to minister again. And God began to move in my life,
and it was just incredible.
S1 (07:03):
Wow. The shame is such a such a tough one.
Because you sure you knew all the scriptures? And when
you when the Lord brought you back and but you
still carried the weight of that, of having fallen away,
of having returned to past sin. And in a moment, though,
(07:26):
that that release must have felt like almost like being
born again.
S2 (07:32):
Again it was, and it was because I was carrying
this sin with me. I wouldn't let myself get away
from it. It was like, you need to remember how
bad you are. You need to remember how much you
screwed up. You need to know what a mess you are.
You need to know what a bad person you are. Literally,
those were the things and I would get to minister
(07:54):
to a point and and then I would stop because
I was I was looking at myself through, through the
eyes of my sin. And Jesus just was like, no, see, I've,
I've I've redeemed you from that. I've taken that and
I've given you a new heart. And I'm beginning to
heal your character. And I'm beginning to teach you things
(08:15):
you never knew. And I'm restoring you to what I
created you to be. And it was only in that
that I could begin to come out of this. And
and it was literally it was like a rainstorm. Have
you ever been in a storm where it was raining
so hard that you couldn't believe how hard it was raining? Yeah.
And you were so drenched there was no dry part
(08:37):
of you left. That was how I felt in that
moment with his spirit.
S1 (08:42):
Wow. What have you learned from your own life? Your
own story about the grace of God. Maybe that it
took you some time to understand.
S2 (08:53):
How it worked. How it worked. I was a quid
pro quo kind of guy. Well, if I do this,
God will do that. You know, and it says in Scripture,
if I do this, I'll get that. And there is
a principle of sowing and reaping, and I know that
it's true, but that's not how grace works. Grace is
(09:16):
his incredible love expressed to us through the cross for free.
Kind of the holy exchange of gifts. His life given
on the cross for me and my life given gratefully
back to him. Not so that I can do what
I want, but so that I can be his ambassador.
(09:38):
I can be his envoy into a world that is
that that needs to know about his kingdom. And and
so that grace I can't buy, I can't buy it.
There's nothing I can do to persuade God other than
to say, Jesus, I love you, I follow you, I
(09:58):
believe on you, I will serve you. I will give
you my life just because of your incredible love for me.
And that's grace. Nothing I can do to earn it.
I could be I could have been a good kid.
I could have been a good young man. I could
have gone to church all the time. I could have
walked old ladies across the street, you know, all of
(10:19):
those things. And none of it would have mattered. Because
I wouldn't have known the grace of God, which was
the free gift through the cross and the resurrection. So yeah,
I've learned. I was always a pay as you go
kind of guy.
S3 (10:33):
And I can't.
S2 (10:35):
I can't buy what I've gotten. Yeah.
S1 (10:38):
Rick, thank you so much for taking the time to
share your story on the podcast today. I really appreciate it.
S2 (10:44):
Oh, thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to share,
and I hope that somebody is listening out there that
will maybe just catch one word or one phrase about
a relationship with God, how much he loves you and
how much he cares for you, and how how relentless
the Holy Spirit is in tracking you down.
S1 (11:07):
Amen. Thank you so much for hanging with me for
this week's snapshot testimony. If you enjoyed the episode, please
take a minute to leave a review. Your feedback really
helps these stories reach more ears. Plus, I like hearing
from you. I'm your host, Ali Domercant, and together we're
sharing the moments that shape a life of faith in Christ.
Thanks for listening.
Welcome to the Snapshot Testimony podcast. I'm your host, Ali Domercant.
In this podcast, I ask my guests to share one
pivotal moment that helped shape their faith in Christ. In
this episode, you'll meet Rick. He was radically saved and
even a leader in his church when a personal crisis
upended his life. Instead of running to God, he returned
(00:21):
to the sins of his past and cut off all
contact with anyone who tried to intervene. His life was
in absolute chaos, but God, in his mercy, rescued him
from his folly and restored what was broken in him.
Here's a snapshot testimony from Rick. You're in a you're
(00:46):
in a church service. And what was said that drew
you to come forward for prayer?
S2 (00:54):
Um, we had had an extended time of worship, and
it was, uh, if I recall correctly, uh, Joe was
teaching that day just on the redemptive aspects of the cross.
And so I'm sitting there and I'm just I wish
I could tell you what exactly it was that got
me out of my seat, but it was almost like
(01:15):
there was a pin. And I just stood up and
got in line and went up and prayed to get prayer.
And as I'm standing there, I began to weep. Um,
and I'm I'm thinking of this recent past of my
falling and and just the train wreck that my that
my life had become for a period of time. And
(01:38):
and Joe looks at me and my former pastor looks
at me and he goes, Rick, you don't need to
carry the shame anymore. God doesn't want you to carry it.
He wants to take it from you forever. And I
just broke. It was just the flood of the Holy Spirit.
Just wave after wave of healing. Deep, deep, deep within
(01:59):
my soul.
S1 (01:59):
Wow. Okay, so let's start to unpack a little bit.
What had brought on that shame. You mentioned a falling away.
You had gotten saved. Uh, 1975, was it?
S2 (02:13):
Yeah. It was. I was in the Navy and my
division chief was a believer. Um, and, you know, he
invited me on a retreat, um, in Majorca. We were in, uh,
we were on a med cruise, and he had reserved
a church in Palma, Spain, in Majorca. And he invited me,
and I was like, man, what the heck? I got
nothing better to do. And so, you know, as a sailor,
(02:35):
you know, I was like 19 years old. So, you know,
I go and, uh, we're in this church and, and
he's doing these simple teachings on what it means to
follow Christ and his love for us. And I just
realized how far away I had. I had gone from
God and how much I needed him. And I began
(02:57):
to repent. And at that point, I wept for maybe
four hours. Just the immensity of of my past life,
my past sin, I, had pretty much broken every commandment.
I was a poster child for don't let your daughter
date this. Um, you know, I was not a nice person.
I was. I was a terrible person. And God just
(03:20):
looked through all of it, and he just rescued me. Wow. And.
And my character was still broken. Um, it took a while.
I got out of the Navy, and I ended up
moving out here, and I got married, and that family, uh,
the mom and dad were, like, wonderful believers. And they
sowed into my life. And I ended up beginning to
go to a church in Arlington Heights. And just between
(03:43):
the teaching and the ministry of the church and becoming
a disciple and having somebody pull me under their wings,
and the teaching and the growth, and God began to
heal my character and to change my life. And I
began to walk with him. I became a home group leader.
And and they had invited me to to be an elder. Um,
and about that same time, my, my wife had come
(04:04):
to me and she had said to me that she
didn't love me anymore and that she wanted a divorce.
I fell off the edge. Yeah, I fell away for
about a year and a half. Just fell into gross sin. And, um.
I ended up desperate. I ended up moving away from
the northwest suburbs. We ended up getting divorced, and I
(04:25):
met another woman, and, um, she was pretty adamant. She said, well,
if we're going to be together, we're going to be
in church.
S1 (04:32):
During that time of of falling away because you'd been
you'd been in, uh, in leadership in church. And, uh,
what were your what did you think about God during that,
that time, or was it just you tried to run
as far away from anything related to God as you could?
S2 (04:51):
I was running, I had my fingers in my ears yelling,
na na na na na! I don't want to hear
from you. God. Um, you know, my my pastor, associate
pastor had reached out to me. I told him to
leave me alone. I would handle this. I would get back,
and then I just cut off all association with anybody
that I knew was a believer. Wow. And I was
(05:12):
really broken and. Yeah. And you know, once again, you know,
the scripture where it talks about that a dog returns
to its vomit. Well, you know, I returned to the
sin that I knew. I knew I returned to the
sin that was familiar to me. And. Yeah. And once again,
in his mercy, you know, I was brought through a
set of circumstances where I was up against the wall
(05:34):
and it was like, you can go to jail or
you can follow me. Your choice.
S3 (05:40):
Wow.
S2 (05:41):
And so I repented. I told my wife everything. Let
her know what was going on. Yeah. Now I'm, you know,
back in church, we had a pastor who was just
on fire for Jesus. Just just the journey. And God
began to teach me about redeeming the past. Yeah. That
(06:01):
he doesn't just redeem me and my soul, but that
he was going to begin to go back in my life,
and he was going to restore all that the rust
and the cankerworm had restored or had eaten away. That
was the specific scripture that God began to speak in
my heart. Wow. And it was because my character was
so broken that he needed to heal my character in
(06:25):
order for me to be able to get the disciplines
to follow him and to serve him. And it was
just it was incredible acts of grace. And I'd be
driving up somewhere for an appointment and God would speak
to me. He goes, do you remember when? And I
was like, oh, Lord. He goes, I'm redeeming this today.
I'm taking it back. And this is made new. And
(06:49):
it was thing after thing, place after place and friendship
after friendship. And once again, I was back praying for
revival in the church in Chicago. And I was beginning
to minister again. And God began to move in my life,
and it was just incredible.
S1 (07:03):
Wow. The shame is such a such a tough one.
Because you sure you knew all the scriptures? And when
you when the Lord brought you back and but you
still carried the weight of that, of having fallen away,
of having returned to past sin. And in a moment, though,
(07:26):
that that release must have felt like almost like being
born again.
S2 (07:32):
Again it was, and it was because I was carrying
this sin with me. I wouldn't let myself get away
from it. It was like, you need to remember how
bad you are. You need to remember how much you
screwed up. You need to know what a mess you are.
You need to know what a bad person you are. Literally,
those were the things and I would get to minister
(07:54):
to a point and and then I would stop because
I was I was looking at myself through, through the
eyes of my sin. And Jesus just was like, no, see, I've,
I've I've redeemed you from that. I've taken that and
I've given you a new heart. And I'm beginning to
heal your character. And I'm beginning to teach you things
(08:15):
you never knew. And I'm restoring you to what I
created you to be. And it was only in that
that I could begin to come out of this. And
and it was literally it was like a rainstorm. Have
you ever been in a storm where it was raining
so hard that you couldn't believe how hard it was raining? Yeah.
And you were so drenched there was no dry part
(08:37):
of you left. That was how I felt in that
moment with his spirit.
S1 (08:42):
Wow. What have you learned from your own life? Your
own story about the grace of God. Maybe that it
took you some time to understand.
S2 (08:53):
How it worked. How it worked. I was a quid
pro quo kind of guy. Well, if I do this,
God will do that. You know, and it says in Scripture,
if I do this, I'll get that. And there is
a principle of sowing and reaping, and I know that
it's true, but that's not how grace works. Grace is
(09:16):
his incredible love expressed to us through the cross for free.
Kind of the holy exchange of gifts. His life given
on the cross for me and my life given gratefully
back to him. Not so that I can do what
I want, but so that I can be his ambassador.
(09:38):
I can be his envoy into a world that is
that that needs to know about his kingdom. And and
so that grace I can't buy, I can't buy it.
There's nothing I can do to persuade God other than
to say, Jesus, I love you, I follow you, I
(09:58):
believe on you, I will serve you. I will give
you my life just because of your incredible love for me.
And that's grace. Nothing I can do to earn it.
I could be I could have been a good kid.
I could have been a good young man. I could
have gone to church all the time. I could have
walked old ladies across the street, you know, all of
(10:19):
those things. And none of it would have mattered. Because
I wouldn't have known the grace of God, which was
the free gift through the cross and the resurrection. So yeah,
I've learned. I was always a pay as you go
kind of guy.
S3 (10:33):
And I can't.
S2 (10:35):
I can't buy what I've gotten. Yeah.
S1 (10:38):
Rick, thank you so much for taking the time to
share your story on the podcast today. I really appreciate it.
S2 (10:44):
Oh, thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to share,
and I hope that somebody is listening out there that
will maybe just catch one word or one phrase about
a relationship with God, how much he loves you and
how much he cares for you, and how how relentless
the Holy Spirit is in tracking you down.
S1 (11:07):
Amen. Thank you so much for hanging with me for
this week's snapshot testimony. If you enjoyed the episode, please
take a minute to leave a review. Your feedback really
helps these stories reach more ears. Plus, I like hearing
from you. I'm your host, Ali Domercant, and together we're
sharing the moments that shape a life of faith in Christ.
Thanks for listening.
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