Rejecting the Fiery Furnace: Fear, Backsliding, and God’s Pursuit
In my last overview, I shared how giving my life to Jesus changed everything, bringing many blessings and six wonderful years of walking in faith. But as I entered a new season, I found myself at a crossroads—seeking God’s plan but struggling to trust His way.
On September 7, 2016, I was in Bend, Oregon. I had recently crossed back over the border from my epic summer trip across Canada. It was my birthday, so I was spending time seeking God for what His plan was for me. After years of incredible travel experiences, I felt a growing restlessness. Surely, there had to be more—I longed to make a difference in the world and in people’s lives.
I made my way to Grand Junction, Colorado, and chose to settle there for the foreseeable future to work on what I now thought God was calling me to do: start Brave Action Ministry. I figured since God had taught me to face my fears, I would help people do the same. The way I saw it, God called people to do great things for Him, but many never answered because they were too scared to.
As I developed the services Brave Action Ministry would offer, I realized I was missing what God thought about the concept I was exploring. I didn’t know the Bible, so I figured I needed someone who knew God better than I did and His Word. I began looking for a pastor to help me.
I’m embarrassed by how clueless I was back then. There’s so much I didn’t know or understand. But I was not just ignorant; I was also still proud, self-reliant, egotistical, judgmental, impatient, and filled with the ways of the world. However, I came across as this faithful believer.
God had blessed me so much and done some work in me, but I was six years in and still a baby Christian on a milk diet (Hebrews 5:12-14).
Invitation into the Fiery Furnace
I met with one pastor only because he was a friend’s brother. He agreed to help me, but after I sent him my content, I never heard back from him. I reached out to him a few times, and nothing. This discouraged me immensely. I didn’t know how to proceed, and I felt like I was heading for another failure.
I didn’t know it back then, but God revealed to me when I finally went into the fiery furnace with him three years ago that when I was in Colorado, He had invited me into it for the first time. I didn’t go into the fiery furnace because the strongholds the enemy had established around all my past business failures led me to a place of fear and anxiety.
I refused to flounder and fail again. I refused to go broke again. I wanted to prevent going through any pain and struggles again. I figured if God wanted me to establish and run Brave Action Ministry, He would have given me the help, support, and resources I needed. If He wanted me to know the Bible, He should have called me to get a theology degree. However, every time I looked at Bible Schools, I felt Him saying, “Not what I’m calling you to do.”
Instead of trusting God and going to where He was leading me, I started looking for orders in the Marine Corps. I tapped out. I couldn’t handle things getting hard again; I was doing everything in my own strength.
I was offered an opportunity to go gap fill the III MEF Deputy G-6 billet in Okinawa, Japan and I took it.
Something Broke in Me
I had a steep learning curve once I got to Okinawa. I hadn’t served for two years or been in this type of active tempo billet. I hit the ground running, but it wasn’t just the pressure, expectations, and requirements, something else was different, I didn’t know what, but something had changed. Once I returned to Colorado, I started saying “Something broke in me.”
I tried to figure out what was broken but couldn’t pinpoint it. I didn’t seek God out to ask Him. I was oblivious that what had broken was me stepping out of God’s will. I decided to take another set of orders and go back to Germany. I had such fond memories of my time there that I thought that would make all things right again.
Backsliding and Dissatisfaction
I drifted back into old patterns of sin, living in the flesh as I had before I was born again. Strangely, I felt no conviction—but I also found no joy. What once had seemed thrilling now felt empty, yet I couldn’t quite understand why. My job kept me too busy so I didn’t have the same opportunities to travel, but it wasn’t just that. Again, I couldn’t pinpoint what it was, but nothing felt or looked the same. I was overlooking the fact that the last time I was in Germany, I was in God’s will and had a good relationship with Him.
I found myself in conflict with others and often feeling frustrated and angry. I was using men for sex again, and totally backsliding into someone I didn’t know.
The Enemy Tried to Kill Me Again. God Made Himself Known
As my time in Germany neared its end, I was driving back from my final training exercise when a lady decided to cut into my lane on the autobahn, I was going over 100mph. There was no way for me to avoid hitting her. All I remember is hitting her and letting go of the wheel. The remainder of what happened is a complete blank until I hit the guardrail and found myself perfectly parked in the breakdown lane. I had managed to cross two lanes of traffic without hitting anyone else. All the traffic in front and behind me had come to a complete stop. It was a very surreal experience. My airbag didn’t even deploy. I was in a BMW X3 M40i. The woman who crossed into my lane, also crossed two lanes of traffic and ended up being stopped from going over a ditch by the guardrail.
By all logic, there should have been fatalities. Given the speed, the traffic, and the chaos, survival—let alone escaping without injury—was unthinkable. But God intervened. In that moment, I knew without a doubt that His hand had protected me. This made me realize He had never left me. That’s when I started communicating with Him again. However, it was still in a way that was aimed at what I wanted and needed from Him.
In the next post, I’ll discuss how God finally got me to get into the fiery furnace.