He Met Me Exactly Where I Was

For most of my life, I wanted nothing to do with God. I was an atheist. I despised Him. I lived for the flesh, and for fifteen years I was lost to a meth addiction. I tried to get free — I went to rehab twice, and both times I failed miserably. I couldn’t beat it on my own.

About five years ago, I got into trading forex — I was scammed and lost $45,000, everything I had, money I was going to use to start a business. I was on the verge of giving up completely.

But God had already placed someone in my life: my sister. She prayed for me. She gave me the gospel, even when I didn’t want to hear it.

One day I was meditating — new age, not even seeking Him — and I had a vision of Jesus standing in a field. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I heard His voice say, “Follow me.” I was skeptical. But as the days went on, I kept hearing a voice telling me to quit my job. Finally, I obeyed. I isolated myself for a few months and just soaked in His Word.

And He provided — exactly like He said He would. Every time I ran low on money, He met the need. And the addiction I could never beat — the one two rehabs couldn’t fix — God broke in a single week. I won’t pretend the withdrawal didn’t come for me. It did — the cravings, the aching bones, the war in my mind. But this time, every time it rose up, I prayed — and He made it so I could handle it. He didn’t spare me the fire; He carried me through it. In seven days, the chains that held me for fifteen years were broken. What years of my own effort could not do, He did in one week of leaning on Him. That’s how I know it was Him.

He renewed me. After about a year, He brought me the woman who is now my wife — and here is how faithful God is: she was my sister’s friend from high school, someone we had lost contact with for twenty-one years. I found her on a Christian dating site and sent her a message. Only God could have brought the two of us back together across all that time.

My life is wonderful now. He has been faithful even when I was not. He met me exactly where I was — in the pit, in the addiction, in the unbelief — and He did not leave me there. Today I have a Kingdom-minded wife, a restored relationship with my family, and a calling I cannot put down: to advance God’s Kingdom and help others find the One who found me.

If you are reading this and you are broken, lost, addicted, or on the edge of giving up — I was there. I couldn’t save myself. He reached me anyway. He can reach you too.

Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. There is no other name by which we are saved — and the same God who met me in my darkest place is reaching for you right now.

— Bao