Giving up on God!

My family started coming to church about eleven years ago on Easter Sunday with my wifes father and sister. The reason we decided to start coming was due to an illness my daughter had about two years earlier and we nearly lost her. Both my wife and myself had gone to church some in our youth, and we thought it would be a good idea to start going again.

At first we came for a short period and then I started coming on a regular basis. After a couple of months of coming regularly, I started getting the feeling that I needed something, but didn’t know for sure what it was. Then one Sunday, by the end of the service, I thought what I needed was to believe in God and become a better person. So that morning I made a decision to receive God into my life.

Several years later I decided to help with the teen department and also the bus ministry. I did this for several years. During this time I also helped around the church with some of the light building maintenance and stuff. Later I got involved with the Greeters Ministry, Security Ministry and AWANA.

Then I became unemployed and started going through some really hard times. I had alot of people praying for me and my family. I managed to pick up several short term jobs for awhile to make ends meet, but then that also ended. It was at this point that I started thinking about giving up on God and church. During this time, the church went through a difficult valley and my wife and I decided to leave the church and join another. Our kids stayed, because they wanted to stay involved with the youth group.

I was still struggling with unemployment and my doubts about God started again. But I kept telling myself to hang in there, because God will bring me through this. After about eight months my wife and I decided that we needed to get our family back together in one church, so we returned to Mill Road. I continued having doubts about my salvation and still kept telling myself to hang in there and not give up on God. It was at this time that I came to realize that I hadn’t truly given my life to Christ like I thought I had. I came to realize this, after one of our church missionaries preached a sermon one Sunday morning. I went home that day and just sat on the couch thinking about that message and thinking about when I supposedly got saved, realizing I went through all the motions, except I know that I didn’t fully surrender my life to Christ. So that night at church I fully surrendered my life to Him and called out for God to save me.

Since that time I have stopped doubting my relationship with God! And, Praise God, I have gone back to work on a regular basis. So now I realize I must keep trusting and believing that God will bring me through.

Skip Benton
Evansville, IN