Cuba to Christ: Grace Without Borders
Roberto Navia Testimony
Reader’s Version
Good morning, everyone. For those of you who don’t know me, don’t worry—you haven’t missed much. My name is Roberto Navia, and today I’m a little nervous. No, I’m just kidding. I’m here to share some of my story and, more importantly, to tell you how God has done amazing things in my life. Even though I’ll be talking about myself, this is not about me. It is about the glory of God—about His grace and love that I’ve received even when I don’t deserve it. Keep that in mind as we go along: today is about God’s glory, not mine.
I was born in Matanzas, Cuba, in 1986. Since 1959, Cuba has been a communist country. The government embraced Marxism-Leninism under Fidel Castro, which meant religion was heavily restricted. Public gatherings were limited, and openly talking about Jesus was forbidden. So I began life in a place where faith in God was suppressed and even denied.
Like many Caribbean islands, Cuba has a strong African influence, especially in folk religion and witchcraft. Practices such as Santería and Palo Monte, rooted in West African traditions and blended with Spanish Catholic elements, were widespread. In Spanish we call this brujería—witchcraft or sorcery. Even though the communist government opposed all religion, these folk practices persisted and became part of the spiritual atmosphere in which I grew up.
Cuba still carried old Catholic traditions as well, but by the 1990s organized religion was persecuted. Things began to change in January 1998 when Pope John Paul II visited Cuba. His visit opened the door for a little more religious freedom, though the government still tried to keep politics out of it. Only a few months later, in May 1998, my family and I came to the United States. I’ll share more about that turning point a little later.
So again, this was where I was born. To bring it closer to home, there is something I’m not proud to share, but it is the truth. My grandmother was heavily involved in all of these practices. In my hometown, if you asked around, hardly anyone knew her legal name from her birth certificate, but everyone knew who la bruja was—the witch. That gives you an idea of the spiritual environment I was born into.
The first big turning point was leaving that place. On May 12, 1998, by the grace of God, we escaped the island. But before I tell you more about that, I want you to understand what life in Cuba was really like. It will help you see the contrast to how good we have it in Naples, where even something as simple as breathing feels free. I joke about that, but it’s not far from the truth.
For example, how many of you have ever seen livestock butchered and prepared in the bathroom of a second-floor apartment? That was normal for us. You raised animals, hunted them, and prepared them yourself because there were no grocery stores with full shelves like here. The government made it illegal to get food in any way except through state-controlled channels. Buying meat on the black market carried a twenty-year prison sentence.
I remember coming home from school one day when my dad told me to keep my uniform on. He lined my backpack with plastic bags and put me on the back of his bicycle. We pedaled—ten, fifteen, sometimes twenty kilometers—to buy meat. He would pack it in my schoolbag and pedal back, risking twenty years in prison and risking that I could be sent to a detention center for minors. This was life for a Cuban family: survival of the fittest, learning from childhood how to outwit a system stacked against you.
Another memory stays with me. I once looked at the soles of my feet and saw what looked like chicken pox—tiny scars so close together they formed a rough patch. That’s what happens when you run barefoot most of the time, or wear shoes that are barely held together, just the tops to make it look like you have shoes. It may sound like a small detail, but it paints the picture: growing up meant fighting over food, over toys, over anything, because resources were that scarce.
This is the world I came from—a world with no Christ in my family, no Christ in my country, no Christ anywhere around me. Yet even there, God was already at work. In early 1998, after Pope John Paul II’s visit encouraged the government to loosen its grip on religious gatherings, I stepped inside a church for the very first time. I was twelve years old. I didn’t understand a word of what they were saying or who they were talking about, but I remember the feeling. If I had to describe it now, I would simply say it was peace. I walked out without knowing what to do with that experience, but something inside me had begun to change.
Despite the hardships and the darkness of those early years, I stand here today sharing my testimony. That alone is a sign of God’s glory. No matter where we come from, no matter how broken or chaotic our past may be, God is good.
We didn’t grow up with Christmas. We didn’t grow up with Easter. We didn’t grow up with any of those celebrations. The only thing I ever heard of as a child was Lent—not because of a Catholic tradition, but because of something the people of Cuba call the winds of Lent. Fishermen on the island, like the ones in my family, have old traditions that need no equipment or technology. They simply watch the stars and the sea, and they know when Lent arrives because the winds make fishing impossible. That was the only reason I even knew the word Lent.
So I had no knowledge of God at all. Still, subtle things were happening beneath the surface. I stepped into a church for the first time and felt peace. I didn’t know what to do with that, but it marked me. Fast forward to May 1998: we arrived in the United States—a family of four with no money, no English, a pocketful of fears and dreams, and still no understanding of who Jesus really was.
Here’s what I want to emphasize: do not worry about where you come from or how unredeemable your past may sound. God loves you. There is nothing under the sky that He cannot do. As Luke 1:37 says, “For with God nothing shall be impossible.” When you read that verse in context, it’s about the miraculous conception of Jesus—the greatest miracle, which gave all of us a chance to be forgiven. That is the God we serve and honor, and more importantly, the God who loves us. He is capable of delivering anyone from anything.
I hope you’re still with me, because I want to share how I began to see this God at work. When I was twelve, my sister was eighteen and my parents were in their late thirties and forties. It was then that I witnessed, for the first time, the transformation that happens when Jesus steps into someone’s life. It started with my mother.
Facing all the challenges of being an immigrant—struggling with a new language and a mountain of uncertainty—my mother turned to God. I believe it was the first time she had ever entered a church. It was Baptist Northside Church in Miami, pastored by Pastor Rocana, and it changed her life completely. From that day to this, she still attends that church.
To give you an idea of how dramatic her change was: my mom once had a sailor’s mouth. Then, suddenly, not one bad word came out of her mouth—nothing. Her friends were stunned. They asked, “Who are you? What happened to you?” Her temper softened. Her whole way of living shifted. At the time I didn’t fully understand what was happening, but one thing was clear: I now had someone praying faithfully for me to come to Jesus.
From that point on, my journey with God has been long and winding. I admit I was a rebel. I did attend that church and was given my first Bible, which I still own. It’s in Spanish. But my second exposure to Christianity wasn’t all positive. The church back then had the typical old-school attitude—lots of judgmental stares and plenty of people eager to point out the speck in your eye while ignoring the log in their own. Over time that church has changed a lot, but those early experiences stayed with me.
That anger built up in me—young, angry, totally out of place—and that fueled a lot of bad choices. I hated the church for a long time. If that was what following Jesus looked like, I was not interested. So I walked away for a long time. It was easy to stay away; I didn’t know any better. If you know me, you know I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I can’t stand in front of somebody and judge them for where they are when I’ve been plenty wrong myself—over and over. I’d probably mess something up on the way home tonight.
Life kept happening. I barely made it through high school with all that anger packed inside. Imagine showing up to class where everyone speaks a language you don’t understand. My parents were called into school more than once; I almost got kicked out a lot of times—mostly because of physical fights. Somebody would say something I didn’t understand; I’d take the tone the wrong way and swing. That’s who I was: anger, unresolved pain, ignorance. Still, underneath it all, that tiny thread of peace I felt the first time I stepped into a church never fully left me. There was a longing for something I couldn’t name.
My parents did their best. No abuse—just imperfect people trying to do the right thing. We survived. I made it through high school, and it was work after that—work to survive, not a whole lot of time to chase anything else. Then in 2006 everything changed.
In 2006 I lost someone I considered a brother in a motorcycle accident. I loved him dearly. I was devastated. That loss flipped my life upside down. I went from someone who tried to be happy all the time to someone swallowed by pain. It was during that season that I considered suicide for the first time. I’ll be honest about that because it’s the truth of what grief can do.
Then, in the middle of that darkness, God did a strange sort of thing: my niece was born in December 2006. That tiny life brought a kind of joy that put a pause on the worst of my despair and helped me carry the grief. But the relief didn’t last. In October 2007 she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Everything turned again.
There was no time to wallow in questions. My dad and I suddenly had responsibilities that demanded action. My sister and my mom stopped working to care for her. We managed two households—soon three—because I moved in with someone I met. I met my ex-wife in that season. People who watched that relationship unfold might say she used me to get into school or for other reasons. Maybe. I don’t know. What I do know is that, for me, she felt like a gift from God at the time—someone the Father placed in my life because He knew I couldn’t carry the pain alone.
That relationship wasn’t particularly God-centered. It was messy and far from perfect. Even so, God showed up and loved me through it.
By the time my niece needed a bone marrow transplant—basically the final stage after chemotherapy—things were grim. I remember seeing her so thin, skin and bones. Her pulse dropped down to around twenty at one point; she was essentially unresponsive, sealed inside an incubator in the pediatric oncology unit. We could only look at her from outside that glass. I felt a crushing mix of pain, anger, and helplessness. In the middle of that, I remember crying out, “God, why her? Why not me? If you want to take someone, take me—let her live.”
But then it happened. I remember crying every day—every hour—and then, suddenly, without really understanding why, a calm came over me. From that day on I didn’t cry about it the same way. I just knew with all my heart that she was going to be okay. I don’t know how to explain it. I had longed for something like that before, but I’d never experienced anything like it. All I’d known up to then was pain and survival. Yet the Holy Spirit—whatever you want to call it—told me she would be alright.
How do you tell a grieving mother that everything’s going to be okay? You don’t. You sound stupid. So I kept repeating it—over and over—trying to point out any silver lining I could find. My niece and I now have an amazing relationship. It’s more than I ever expected as an uncle. She is literally one of the greatest blessings and testimonies of my life. I remember my sister snapping at me, “How do you know that?” and I would just say, “I don’t know how, I just know.” It sounds simple, but it was real. She’s turning nineteen this December, and yes—she’s taller than me. Not that it takes much, but still. She’s my living proof.
A few years later I separated from my ex-wife, and if you think things were bad before, well—hold on. Here’s where the testimony gets weird. I’m going to tell Gene he might not like this, but during that dark season I stumbled on a song—not a Christian song—by Thomas Rhett called “Beer with Jesus.” I know we’re in church, but hear me out. In that song the singer imagines a place to talk to Jesus: no clocks, not crowded, no distractions—just a real conversation. He says things like how he’d sit and ask Jesus things, how Jesus might turn the other cheek and save a soul like his.
Think about everything you’ve heard about me so far. I was a loose cannon, a mess, and here I am crying to a country song about Jesus. I didn’t know Jesus the way I do now—I didn’t even know who He was—but that song touched something in me. Maybe the Father meets you where you are. Maybe your past is ugly, maybe your actions have been terrible—even if you’ve considered suicide—your heart can still be crying out for love and that same peace I’d felt twice before can start to show up in your life.
For a long time I blamed a lot of people, but the truth is it was me. I drove myself into everything—sex, alcohol, drugs, illegal schemes to make money—you name it. Miami didn’t help. There’s a macho culture there that excuses a lot of bad choices with “whatever it takes.” But it’s not okay. I ask forgiveness every day because I’ve done some pretty messed-up things. That I never ended up dead or in jail still baffles me.
I was terrified to tell these things. I worried people would look at me differently. I even told Gene I was afraid. But I wanted him and you to know the point of this story: my relationship with God is personal. It’s not about how people judge me. If there’s one takeaway from my message, it’s this: focus on your relationship with God. Get to know Him. Maybe there’s someone here thinking, “This guy’s a nut job,” and that’s okay. I’ve been a nut job. But God loved me while I was a mess—and He loves you the same way.
At one point I realized I couldn’t keep going down that path. I started trying to change habits—small things at first: read more, finish school, go back to gym, try different churches. Those things brought knowledge, but they also brought pain, because sometimes the places we look to for help only add to the hurt. I went to churches where the pastor suddenly disappeared and nobody said a word—one thousand people and no explanation, just silence because he’d fallen in his marriage. That wasn’t handled in a Christian way. I went to another trendy church that looked perfect on the outside—great music, lots of young people—but it was hollow. Looking back, the problem wasn’t only the church; it was me participating in the brokenness.
I buried myself in work to survive—long hours, animal-like effort—because I was terrible at managing life and money. I had to provide for my family, so I worked. But I kept falling back into the same destructive habits.
Still, through all of it, there was one constant: a strange, steady peace. I didn’t know how to pray, so I brought whatever I felt to God—anger, joy, disappointment—exactly as it was. If I was mad, I showed up mad. If I was happy, I showed up happy. That raw honesty became my prayer life, and it stayed with me.
It got so bad that there were multiple nights I sat on the edge of my bed with a loaded gun in my mouth. I prayed—“God, give me the strength to pull the trigger”—knowing I couldn’t do it. That sounds crazy, but I didn’t know how else to talk to whatever had been showing up in my life. I had experienced that peace twice—the first time I walked into a church in 1998 and the time at the hospital with my niece—so maybe that’s what stopped me. Maybe that’s why I didn’t pull the trigger.
When you finally look in the mirror and say, “I need to kill the part of me that is killing me,” it gets real. The enemy sneaks in ways you don’t expect. He takes you by surprise. He’ll bring you to your knees. That was my life: one choice after another that led me to a very dark place. No excuses—accountability matters. But even in that darkness, those two glimpses of peace gave me a thread of hope and the stubbornness to keep trying.
Most of you probably know Mike Tyson, right? I heard somebody say once that if you’re favored by God, you should expect to be favored by the enemy too—because you carry something the enemy doesn’t want to flourish. You can’t wait around to live; you have to live now.
In the middle of all the noise—social media, the chaos of life—little messages kept popping up for me. I don’t know if I read them right, but I felt like God saying, “Hang on. Just hang on a little longer and you’ll meet me. You’ll see who I am. Every tear, every wound, every bit of blood will have been worth it.” Standing here now, knowing what I know, I’d go through it ten times over again.
I moved around a lot—houses, cities, jobs. It felt like never settling. Gene often quotes Scripture for context, and Psalm 139 kept coming to mind: “Where could I go to escape from your Spirit? Where could I flee from your presence? If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the place of the dead, you are there. If I ride the morning winds to the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, and your strength will support me. I could ask the darkness to hide me and the night to become my light, but even in darkness I cannot hide from you. To you the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are the same.” That passage is about God’s protection—His presence even when life feels like a moving target.
For me, that protection felt like accountability. God kept protecting me while I kept living in sin. He kept loving me while I kept choosing things that should’ve destroyed me. The harder truth is: the more God reveals Himself to you, the higher the standard you’re held to. Accountability matters. That was the turning point—standing in front of a mirror and realizing I was holding forgiveness in one hand and the life that made me sick in the other. Eventually you have to choose which hand you’ll keep. That’s the cost of free will: you have to choose Him willingly.
By God’s grace I landed in Naples in January 2024 for work—construction on a project at Naples Beach Club—and I kept seeing the same pattern: my actions had brought me the despair and pain I’d been trying to outrun. For six years I had been trying to kill that man in the mirror. Then, in June 2024, I found C3 Church. I Googled it—“C3 Church for real people”—and thought, That’s me: a real, messy person.
I remember sitting on the second row the first time I came. When Gene got up to preach, I felt like he was attacking me. I hated him for a minute. The next week I came back because my sister had been praying for me for years. It was worse the second time. I felt like the pastor had cameras in my house—like he was calling me out by name in front of a room full of strangers. I thought, Why is this guy ripping me apart?
Then it hit me: I felt convicted not because of the man on stage, but because the Holy Spirit was pointing out the things I’d chosen to keep. I felt called out because I’d already decided to change, but I hadn’t taken the actions necessary to kill that version of myself that was killing me. That day I realized it wasn’t about the guy preaching; it was about the God who is high and mighty—and he was calling me to account.
It’s not about creating a relationship with people. It’s about creating a relationship with God. I don’t care what happens around me. I don’t care if I don’t like the song, or if I don’t like the way the pastor preaches. What matters is that he preaches the truth—the Word of God—and that is exactly what I needed. So I stayed. I realized I’d been running for too long, and I finally said, I’m done. I’m done running.
In a conversation with Gene not long ago, I heard the term progressive sanctification, and everything clicked. It was never me fixing myself. It was God—pushing buttons, removing people from my life, adding others, shifting jobs, finances, and circumstances—answering the prayer I’d prayed over and over: I can’t bear this weight anymore. God is good.
Fast forward six months to October 2024. I was baptized. I’ll confess, I think Lanny held me under the water a little longer than I expected, but I remember telling Gene beforehand that I wanted to be baptized. We sat down together to talk about what this step really meant. He asked if I was ready. I told him, Not by a long shot. But I’m decisive about taking this step. I’m decisive about pursuing Jesus with everything I have. I was terrified—like a child in the dark after a scary movie—but I took the step anyway. The same fear came back when Gene later asked me to share my testimony. I said, I’m terrified. Yet here I am, hoping that by sharing my story someone here will recognize what God can do.
I know I may look foolish opening up about all the chaos in my life, but if one person realizes that God listens—even when life makes no sense—it’s worth it. There’s no handbook for how He answers prayer. His ways may feel strange and unpredictable. So don’t demand clarity. Ask God to change you, and hang on. The process is rough, but He will meet you in it.
Now I’d like you to do something simple. Turn to the person on your right and look at them. Don’t judge—just look. Now look to your left. Look in front of you. Now behind you. Every person you just saw carries a story as real, and maybe as hard, as mine. Every single one of them is fighting battles you know nothing about. And none of them, not one, has it all together. By now you’ve figured out I don’t either.
Whether you’re a long-time Christian or brand new, there is someone here who can help, someone who will pray with you, someone who has walked a road like yours. That’s what I found at C3 Church: a community where people care, where you’re not judged for being different. God created us all in His image, but each of us is unique.
So whatever you’re going through, know this: God wants to meet you where you are. He met me when I was doing all kinds of things I shouldn’t have been doing. He didn’t say, Clean up first, then we’ll talk. He met me right where I was, even when I didn’t know Him.
I know it can feel intimidating to come into church and think everyone else understands the Bible better or has life more together. But that’s not true. I’m living proof. I’m still battling things. In fact, I joked with Evan before this that he should pray I’d get through this testimony without cursing. I did it—but that struggle is still real. There is nothing you can think of that God hasn’t seen.
So is God working in me? Yes. Am I saved? I believe so, and I’m giving it my best shot. But if you doubt your own standing with God, look at me. I’m not pastor material. I’m not church-elder material. Sometimes I question how good a Christian I even am. But I’m here to show what God has done in my life—and to say He can do the same for you.
I’m still dealing with things. I’m still terrible with money—better than before, but still learning. I still wrestle with my words. Yet I’ve also been sober since December 31 of last year—nine months without a drop of alcohol. I intend to keep it that way. God will help me, but it’s also my battle. I have to keep saying no to the bottle and keep becoming the man He calls me to be.
I am a living testimony of progressive sanctification. I have a long way to go, but I am not who I used to be.
God is good—always. So please, come in and understand that. As I said in the beginning, it’s between you and God. Wherever you are today, it’s between you and Him, and He will meet you there as long as you open your heart and let Him in. I promise you—look at me—He will meet you there.
A text that comes to mind is Matthew 11:28: “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” And Mark 2:17: “When Jesus heard this, he told them, ‘Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’” That’s the point: He’s not here for the people who think they’re perfect. He’s here for the sinners, for the broken, for the ones who need repentance. If you’re doubting today—whether you’ve been a Christian a long time or you’re new—understand this: God is good. I don’t have it all together. I’m private about much of my life, but I’ll tell you something I’ve been walking through lately: I lost my job three months ago, and three days later my dad was diagnosed with cancer.
Do I sit here feeling sorry for myself? No. God is good. He’s got my back. I could tell you stories about getting stranded in Miami and the chaos I’ve been through—most people would lose it. But something kept telling me, Keep moving. Every time I took a step, a solution appeared. Every time I turned right, an answer came. Every time I trusted God to handle it, there was a way forward.
I could talk about this for hours, but I’ll keep it short. I stayed at C3 because someone told me to “come as you are.” I was a mess—a complete mess—about a year ago. If you’re new or you’re going through hard times, please hear me: God wants to meet you where you are. If the Father would turn the other cheek to save a sorry soul like me, He can do it for you. None of this is about me; it’s about God’s glory in my life. Thank you.
Roberto Navia Testimony
Reader’s Version
Good morning, everyone. For those of you who don’t know me, don’t worry—you haven’t missed much. My name is Roberto Navia, and today I’m a little nervous. No, I’m just kidding. I’m here to share some of my story and, more importantly, to tell you how God has done amazing things in my life. Even though I’ll be talking about myself, this is not about me. It is about the glory of God—about His grace and love that I’ve received even when I don’t deserve it. Keep that in mind as we go along: today is about God’s glory, not mine.
I was born in Matanzas, Cuba, in 1986. Since 1959, Cuba has been a communist country. The government embraced Marxism-Leninism under Fidel Castro, which meant religion was heavily restricted. Public gatherings were limited, and openly talking about Jesus was forbidden. So I began life in a place where faith in God was suppressed and even denied.
Like many Caribbean islands, Cuba has a strong African influence, especially in folk religion and witchcraft. Practices such as Santería and Palo Monte, rooted in West African traditions and blended with Spanish Catholic elements, were widespread. In Spanish we call this brujería—witchcraft or sorcery. Even though the communist government opposed all religion, these folk practices persisted and became part of the spiritual atmosphere in which I grew up.
Cuba still carried old Catholic traditions as well, but by the 1990s organized religion was persecuted. Things began to change in January 1998 when Pope John Paul II visited Cuba. His visit opened the door for a little more religious freedom, though the government still tried to keep politics out of it. Only a few months later, in May 1998, my family and I came to the United States. I’ll share more about that turning point a little later.
So again, this was where I was born. To bring it closer to home, there is something I’m not proud to share, but it is the truth. My grandmother was heavily involved in all of these practices. In my hometown, if you asked around, hardly anyone knew her legal name from her birth certificate, but everyone knew who la bruja was—the witch. That gives you an idea of the spiritual environment I was born into.
The first big turning point was leaving that place. On May 12, 1998, by the grace of God, we escaped the island. But before I tell you more about that, I want you to understand what life in Cuba was really like. It will help you see the contrast to how good we have it in Naples, where even something as simple as breathing feels free. I joke about that, but it’s not far from the truth.
For example, how many of you have ever seen livestock butchered and prepared in the bathroom of a second-floor apartment? That was normal for us. You raised animals, hunted them, and prepared them yourself because there were no grocery stores with full shelves like here. The government made it illegal to get food in any way except through state-controlled channels. Buying meat on the black market carried a twenty-year prison sentence.
I remember coming home from school one day when my dad told me to keep my uniform on. He lined my backpack with plastic bags and put me on the back of his bicycle. We pedaled—ten, fifteen, sometimes twenty kilometers—to buy meat. He would pack it in my schoolbag and pedal back, risking twenty years in prison and risking that I could be sent to a detention center for minors. This was life for a Cuban family: survival of the fittest, learning from childhood how to outwit a system stacked against you.
Another memory stays with me. I once looked at the soles of my feet and saw what looked like chicken pox—tiny scars so close together they formed a rough patch. That’s what happens when you run barefoot most of the time, or wear shoes that are barely held together, just the tops to make it look like you have shoes. It may sound like a small detail, but it paints the picture: growing up meant fighting over food, over toys, over anything, because resources were that scarce.
This is the world I came from—a world with no Christ in my family, no Christ in my country, no Christ anywhere around me. Yet even there, God was already at work. In early 1998, after Pope John Paul II’s visit encouraged the government to loosen its grip on religious gatherings, I stepped inside a church for the very first time. I was twelve years old. I didn’t understand a word of what they were saying or who they were talking about, but I remember the feeling. If I had to describe it now, I would simply say it was peace. I walked out without knowing what to do with that experience, but something inside me had begun to change.
Despite the hardships and the darkness of those early years, I stand here today sharing my testimony. That alone is a sign of God’s glory. No matter where we come from, no matter how broken or chaotic our past may be, God is good.
We didn’t grow up with Christmas. We didn’t grow up with Easter. We didn’t grow up with any of those celebrations. The only thing I ever heard of as a child was Lent—not because of a Catholic tradition, but because of something the people of Cuba call the winds of Lent. Fishermen on the island, like the ones in my family, have old traditions that need no equipment or technology. They simply watch the stars and the sea, and they know when Lent arrives because the winds make fishing impossible. That was the only reason I even knew the word Lent.
So I had no knowledge of God at all. Still, subtle things were happening beneath the surface. I stepped into a church for the first time and felt peace. I didn’t know what to do with that, but it marked me. Fast forward to May 1998: we arrived in the United States—a family of four with no money, no English, a pocketful of fears and dreams, and still no understanding of who Jesus really was.
Here’s what I want to emphasize: do not worry about where you come from or how unredeemable your past may sound. God loves you. There is nothing under the sky that He cannot do. As Luke 1:37 says, “For with God nothing shall be impossible.” When you read that verse in context, it’s about the miraculous conception of Jesus—the greatest miracle, which gave all of us a chance to be forgiven. That is the God we serve and honor, and more importantly, the God who loves us. He is capable of delivering anyone from anything.
I hope you’re still with me, because I want to share how I began to see this God at work. When I was twelve, my sister was eighteen and my parents were in their late thirties and forties. It was then that I witnessed, for the first time, the transformation that happens when Jesus steps into someone’s life. It started with my mother.
Facing all the challenges of being an immigrant—struggling with a new language and a mountain of uncertainty—my mother turned to God. I believe it was the first time she had ever entered a church. It was Baptist Northside Church in Miami, pastored by Pastor Rocana, and it changed her life completely. From that day to this, she still attends that church.
To give you an idea of how dramatic her change was: my mom once had a sailor’s mouth. Then, suddenly, not one bad word came out of her mouth—nothing. Her friends were stunned. They asked, “Who are you? What happened to you?” Her temper softened. Her whole way of living shifted. At the time I didn’t fully understand what was happening, but one thing was clear: I now had someone praying faithfully for me to come to Jesus.
From that point on, my journey with God has been long and winding. I admit I was a rebel. I did attend that church and was given my first Bible, which I still own. It’s in Spanish. But my second exposure to Christianity wasn’t all positive. The church back then had the typical old-school attitude—lots of judgmental stares and plenty of people eager to point out the speck in your eye while ignoring the log in their own. Over time that church has changed a lot, but those early experiences stayed with me.
That anger built up in me—young, angry, totally out of place—and that fueled a lot of bad choices. I hated the church for a long time. If that was what following Jesus looked like, I was not interested. So I walked away for a long time. It was easy to stay away; I didn’t know any better. If you know me, you know I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I can’t stand in front of somebody and judge them for where they are when I’ve been plenty wrong myself—over and over. I’d probably mess something up on the way home tonight.
Life kept happening. I barely made it through high school with all that anger packed inside. Imagine showing up to class where everyone speaks a language you don’t understand. My parents were called into school more than once; I almost got kicked out a lot of times—mostly because of physical fights. Somebody would say something I didn’t understand; I’d take the tone the wrong way and swing. That’s who I was: anger, unresolved pain, ignorance. Still, underneath it all, that tiny thread of peace I felt the first time I stepped into a church never fully left me. There was a longing for something I couldn’t name.
My parents did their best. No abuse—just imperfect people trying to do the right thing. We survived. I made it through high school, and it was work after that—work to survive, not a whole lot of time to chase anything else. Then in 2006 everything changed.
In 2006 I lost someone I considered a brother in a motorcycle accident. I loved him dearly. I was devastated. That loss flipped my life upside down. I went from someone who tried to be happy all the time to someone swallowed by pain. It was during that season that I considered suicide for the first time. I’ll be honest about that because it’s the truth of what grief can do.
Then, in the middle of that darkness, God did a strange sort of thing: my niece was born in December 2006. That tiny life brought a kind of joy that put a pause on the worst of my despair and helped me carry the grief. But the relief didn’t last. In October 2007 she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Everything turned again.
There was no time to wallow in questions. My dad and I suddenly had responsibilities that demanded action. My sister and my mom stopped working to care for her. We managed two households—soon three—because I moved in with someone I met. I met my ex-wife in that season. People who watched that relationship unfold might say she used me to get into school or for other reasons. Maybe. I don’t know. What I do know is that, for me, she felt like a gift from God at the time—someone the Father placed in my life because He knew I couldn’t carry the pain alone.
That relationship wasn’t particularly God-centered. It was messy and far from perfect. Even so, God showed up and loved me through it.
By the time my niece needed a bone marrow transplant—basically the final stage after chemotherapy—things were grim. I remember seeing her so thin, skin and bones. Her pulse dropped down to around twenty at one point; she was essentially unresponsive, sealed inside an incubator in the pediatric oncology unit. We could only look at her from outside that glass. I felt a crushing mix of pain, anger, and helplessness. In the middle of that, I remember crying out, “God, why her? Why not me? If you want to take someone, take me—let her live.”
But then it happened. I remember crying every day—every hour—and then, suddenly, without really understanding why, a calm came over me. From that day on I didn’t cry about it the same way. I just knew with all my heart that she was going to be okay. I don’t know how to explain it. I had longed for something like that before, but I’d never experienced anything like it. All I’d known up to then was pain and survival. Yet the Holy Spirit—whatever you want to call it—told me she would be alright.
How do you tell a grieving mother that everything’s going to be okay? You don’t. You sound stupid. So I kept repeating it—over and over—trying to point out any silver lining I could find. My niece and I now have an amazing relationship. It’s more than I ever expected as an uncle. She is literally one of the greatest blessings and testimonies of my life. I remember my sister snapping at me, “How do you know that?” and I would just say, “I don’t know how, I just know.” It sounds simple, but it was real. She’s turning nineteen this December, and yes—she’s taller than me. Not that it takes much, but still. She’s my living proof.
A few years later I separated from my ex-wife, and if you think things were bad before, well—hold on. Here’s where the testimony gets weird. I’m going to tell Gene he might not like this, but during that dark season I stumbled on a song—not a Christian song—by Thomas Rhett called “Beer with Jesus.” I know we’re in church, but hear me out. In that song the singer imagines a place to talk to Jesus: no clocks, not crowded, no distractions—just a real conversation. He says things like how he’d sit and ask Jesus things, how Jesus might turn the other cheek and save a soul like his.
Think about everything you’ve heard about me so far. I was a loose cannon, a mess, and here I am crying to a country song about Jesus. I didn’t know Jesus the way I do now—I didn’t even know who He was—but that song touched something in me. Maybe the Father meets you where you are. Maybe your past is ugly, maybe your actions have been terrible—even if you’ve considered suicide—your heart can still be crying out for love and that same peace I’d felt twice before can start to show up in your life.
For a long time I blamed a lot of people, but the truth is it was me. I drove myself into everything—sex, alcohol, drugs, illegal schemes to make money—you name it. Miami didn’t help. There’s a macho culture there that excuses a lot of bad choices with “whatever it takes.” But it’s not okay. I ask forgiveness every day because I’ve done some pretty messed-up things. That I never ended up dead or in jail still baffles me.
I was terrified to tell these things. I worried people would look at me differently. I even told Gene I was afraid. But I wanted him and you to know the point of this story: my relationship with God is personal. It’s not about how people judge me. If there’s one takeaway from my message, it’s this: focus on your relationship with God. Get to know Him. Maybe there’s someone here thinking, “This guy’s a nut job,” and that’s okay. I’ve been a nut job. But God loved me while I was a mess—and He loves you the same way.
At one point I realized I couldn’t keep going down that path. I started trying to change habits—small things at first: read more, finish school, go back to gym, try different churches. Those things brought knowledge, but they also brought pain, because sometimes the places we look to for help only add to the hurt. I went to churches where the pastor suddenly disappeared and nobody said a word—one thousand people and no explanation, just silence because he’d fallen in his marriage. That wasn’t handled in a Christian way. I went to another trendy church that looked perfect on the outside—great music, lots of young people—but it was hollow. Looking back, the problem wasn’t only the church; it was me participating in the brokenness.
I buried myself in work to survive—long hours, animal-like effort—because I was terrible at managing life and money. I had to provide for my family, so I worked. But I kept falling back into the same destructive habits.
Still, through all of it, there was one constant: a strange, steady peace. I didn’t know how to pray, so I brought whatever I felt to God—anger, joy, disappointment—exactly as it was. If I was mad, I showed up mad. If I was happy, I showed up happy. That raw honesty became my prayer life, and it stayed with me.
It got so bad that there were multiple nights I sat on the edge of my bed with a loaded gun in my mouth. I prayed—“God, give me the strength to pull the trigger”—knowing I couldn’t do it. That sounds crazy, but I didn’t know how else to talk to whatever had been showing up in my life. I had experienced that peace twice—the first time I walked into a church in 1998 and the time at the hospital with my niece—so maybe that’s what stopped me. Maybe that’s why I didn’t pull the trigger.
When you finally look in the mirror and say, “I need to kill the part of me that is killing me,” it gets real. The enemy sneaks in ways you don’t expect. He takes you by surprise. He’ll bring you to your knees. That was my life: one choice after another that led me to a very dark place. No excuses—accountability matters. But even in that darkness, those two glimpses of peace gave me a thread of hope and the stubbornness to keep trying.
Most of you probably know Mike Tyson, right? I heard somebody say once that if you’re favored by God, you should expect to be favored by the enemy too—because you carry something the enemy doesn’t want to flourish. You can’t wait around to live; you have to live now.
In the middle of all the noise—social media, the chaos of life—little messages kept popping up for me. I don’t know if I read them right, but I felt like God saying, “Hang on. Just hang on a little longer and you’ll meet me. You’ll see who I am. Every tear, every wound, every bit of blood will have been worth it.” Standing here now, knowing what I know, I’d go through it ten times over again.
I moved around a lot—houses, cities, jobs. It felt like never settling. Gene often quotes Scripture for context, and Psalm 139 kept coming to mind: “Where could I go to escape from your Spirit? Where could I flee from your presence? If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the place of the dead, you are there. If I ride the morning winds to the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, and your strength will support me. I could ask the darkness to hide me and the night to become my light, but even in darkness I cannot hide from you. To you the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are the same.” That passage is about God’s protection—His presence even when life feels like a moving target.
For me, that protection felt like accountability. God kept protecting me while I kept living in sin. He kept loving me while I kept choosing things that should’ve destroyed me. The harder truth is: the more God reveals Himself to you, the higher the standard you’re held to. Accountability matters. That was the turning point—standing in front of a mirror and realizing I was holding forgiveness in one hand and the life that made me sick in the other. Eventually you have to choose which hand you’ll keep. That’s the cost of free will: you have to choose Him willingly.
By God’s grace I landed in Naples in January 2024 for work—construction on a project at Naples Beach Club—and I kept seeing the same pattern: my actions had brought me the despair and pain I’d been trying to outrun. For six years I had been trying to kill that man in the mirror. Then, in June 2024, I found C3 Church. I Googled it—“C3 Church for real people”—and thought, That’s me: a real, messy person.
I remember sitting on the second row the first time I came. When Gene got up to preach, I felt like he was attacking me. I hated him for a minute. The next week I came back because my sister had been praying for me for years. It was worse the second time. I felt like the pastor had cameras in my house—like he was calling me out by name in front of a room full of strangers. I thought, Why is this guy ripping me apart?
Then it hit me: I felt convicted not because of the man on stage, but because the Holy Spirit was pointing out the things I’d chosen to keep. I felt called out because I’d already decided to change, but I hadn’t taken the actions necessary to kill that version of myself that was killing me. That day I realized it wasn’t about the guy preaching; it was about the God who is high and mighty—and he was calling me to account.
It’s not about creating a relationship with people. It’s about creating a relationship with God. I don’t care what happens around me. I don’t care if I don’t like the song, or if I don’t like the way the pastor preaches. What matters is that he preaches the truth—the Word of God—and that is exactly what I needed. So I stayed. I realized I’d been running for too long, and I finally said, I’m done. I’m done running.
In a conversation with Gene not long ago, I heard the term progressive sanctification, and everything clicked. It was never me fixing myself. It was God—pushing buttons, removing people from my life, adding others, shifting jobs, finances, and circumstances—answering the prayer I’d prayed over and over: I can’t bear this weight anymore. God is good.
Fast forward six months to October 2024. I was baptized. I’ll confess, I think Lanny held me under the water a little longer than I expected, but I remember telling Gene beforehand that I wanted to be baptized. We sat down together to talk about what this step really meant. He asked if I was ready. I told him, Not by a long shot. But I’m decisive about taking this step. I’m decisive about pursuing Jesus with everything I have. I was terrified—like a child in the dark after a scary movie—but I took the step anyway. The same fear came back when Gene later asked me to share my testimony. I said, I’m terrified. Yet here I am, hoping that by sharing my story someone here will recognize what God can do.
I know I may look foolish opening up about all the chaos in my life, but if one person realizes that God listens—even when life makes no sense—it’s worth it. There’s no handbook for how He answers prayer. His ways may feel strange and unpredictable. So don’t demand clarity. Ask God to change you, and hang on. The process is rough, but He will meet you in it.
Now I’d like you to do something simple. Turn to the person on your right and look at them. Don’t judge—just look. Now look to your left. Look in front of you. Now behind you. Every person you just saw carries a story as real, and maybe as hard, as mine. Every single one of them is fighting battles you know nothing about. And none of them, not one, has it all together. By now you’ve figured out I don’t either.
Whether you’re a long-time Christian or brand new, there is someone here who can help, someone who will pray with you, someone who has walked a road like yours. That’s what I found at C3 Church: a community where people care, where you’re not judged for being different. God created us all in His image, but each of us is unique.
So whatever you’re going through, know this: God wants to meet you where you are. He met me when I was doing all kinds of things I shouldn’t have been doing. He didn’t say, Clean up first, then we’ll talk. He met me right where I was, even when I didn’t know Him.
I know it can feel intimidating to come into church and think everyone else understands the Bible better or has life more together. But that’s not true. I’m living proof. I’m still battling things. In fact, I joked with Evan before this that he should pray I’d get through this testimony without cursing. I did it—but that struggle is still real. There is nothing you can think of that God hasn’t seen.
So is God working in me? Yes. Am I saved? I believe so, and I’m giving it my best shot. But if you doubt your own standing with God, look at me. I’m not pastor material. I’m not church-elder material. Sometimes I question how good a Christian I even am. But I’m here to show what God has done in my life—and to say He can do the same for you.
I’m still dealing with things. I’m still terrible with money—better than before, but still learning. I still wrestle with my words. Yet I’ve also been sober since December 31 of last year—nine months without a drop of alcohol. I intend to keep it that way. God will help me, but it’s also my battle. I have to keep saying no to the bottle and keep becoming the man He calls me to be.
I am a living testimony of progressive sanctification. I have a long way to go, but I am not who I used to be.
God is good—always. So please, come in and understand that. As I said in the beginning, it’s between you and God. Wherever you are today, it’s between you and Him, and He will meet you there as long as you open your heart and let Him in. I promise you—look at me—He will meet you there.
A text that comes to mind is Matthew 11:28: “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” And Mark 2:17: “When Jesus heard this, he told them, ‘Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’” That’s the point: He’s not here for the people who think they’re perfect. He’s here for the sinners, for the broken, for the ones who need repentance. If you’re doubting today—whether you’ve been a Christian a long time or you’re new—understand this: God is good. I don’t have it all together. I’m private about much of my life, but I’ll tell you something I’ve been walking through lately: I lost my job three months ago, and three days later my dad was diagnosed with cancer.
Do I sit here feeling sorry for myself? No. God is good. He’s got my back. I could tell you stories about getting stranded in Miami and the chaos I’ve been through—most people would lose it. But something kept telling me, Keep moving. Every time I took a step, a solution appeared. Every time I turned right, an answer came. Every time I trusted God to handle it, there was a way forward.
I could talk about this for hours, but I’ll keep it short. I stayed at C3 because someone told me to “come as you are.” I was a mess—a complete mess—about a year ago. If you’re new or you’re going through hard times, please hear me: God wants to meet you where you are. If the Father would turn the other cheek to save a sorry soul like me, He can do it for you. None of this is about me; it’s about God’s glory in my life. Thank you.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, please know that help is available. You can connect with compassionate, trained professionals by calling or texting the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the United States, or by calling 111 (or your local emergency number) if you are in the UK. Please stop watching and reach out if you are struggling.