Matt Calderon – A BloG

It was another weekend, another drink, another smoke. It was a long week full of work with a weekend full of bar hopping. From going to Eskimo Hut to buy IPAs or going to Costco to buy bottles of alcohol for a party, the enticing world of fun never ended for me. But what lay underneath was a broken man who was mad at the world. A man who hated women, was angry at God, and who was lost in hopelessness.

I remember in my 20s that most of my life was finding every way to get to peace without the Lord Jesus in my life. I was always drinking or smoking without a direction towards peace. I told myself the church rejected me because of my past. I knew that was a lie. I also found happiness in never changing. But that feeling was not joy. It could never last.

But I remember wanting to change jobs and move. My mother invited me to Odessa. I found a job and moved. I was so worried about being alone that my grandmother would tell me to go to church and find peace in my heart through Jesus. My uncles also encouraged me to go to church. My mother said if you stay with me in my house I have to go. So I went.

And the first one I went to I didn’t feel God convicting me to change. So I went to a second church. There I got kicked out because I didn’t fit the rules they had about assembly and I just wanted to go sit and they wouldn’t let me. Can’t have a coffee, communion is happening, tv is being aired. And then my uncle tells me to search up the local area for a small church. I get on Facebook and find Kingdom.

I started going to Kingdom in November of 2019. I remember going into service and just feeling the love of God. I remember in that moment that Christ was for me. Christ was a person and he wanted to have a relationship with me. I learned that salvation was easy and not hard. So I made the choice to dedicate my life to the Lord.

If I learned anything it’s to not wait. What was I waiting for? God is only looking for our yes. He changed me from the inside out. I didn’t need to get my life in order to come to Christ. Everything I was looking for was in Christ all along. Real peace, real joy, real love, all found in knowing Jesus.