Transformed Life

Hi my name is Benjamin Malick and I’ve been asked to tell you about how God has transformed my life. First, let me tell you, that it is extremely hard to squeeze all the good stuff that God has done in my life into 5 minutes of testimony time. That being said, I’m going to focus on how it is that I’ve become transformed to the likeness of Christ by the renewing of my mind.

Let me give you some background information so that you know what it is that I’ve been transformed from. Ever since I can remember I’ve always claimed to be a Christian, even before I really knew what a Christian was. I was baptized about 3 years ago after trying everything I knew to try and satisfy my life. From the time I left for college until I was 24 years old, I tried just about everything the world had to offer to fill the emptiness that was inside of me. From alcohol to drugs to material possessions, you name it, and I thought it was going to make me happy. And it did….for a little while. When I got to the point of being sick and tired of being sick and tired, I turned to God for help. I’d been smoking marijuana for about 6 years pretty regularly at this point, and was totally dissatisfied with life. I’d tried changing on my own many times before with no long term success. It was about the time I had given up trying to do things on my own that I decided to let God give it try. I accepted Jesus as my Savior at that moment, but I still was having trouble with letting Him be the Lord of my life. After being baptized, my whole world got turned upside down. Within a matter of weeks, everything I had come to put my trust in was lost. I had to sell everything I owned and move back in with my parents, to top things off, my wife had confessed to cheating on me and demanded a divorce. I was totally crushed. All I had to rely on was God.

He became my great comforter. I don’t know how I would have made it through that time in my life without Him. It wasn’t easy, but He was with me the whole way. I started reading my Bible for the first time, not because I had to, but because I wanted to. I became a student of Jesus, soaking up His knowledge everyday. I knew that self-discipline was lacking in my life, so I thought that I would align myself in a good disciplined environment. I join the United States Army about 4 months after being baptized. It was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. God again was there. I would make the conscience decision to choose His way over my way everyday of bootcamp. Life was tough, but I was learning and growing in Christ everyday.

I wish I could tell you that that was the end of the old self. But I can’t. After I finished my training, I was stationed here at Ft. Stewart. As a young Christian I didn’t know the importance of regular fellowship and unity in the body of Christ. I started hanging out with the wrong crowd again, and found myself partying on the weekend just like before. I rarely picked up my Bible, mainly for fear that it would remind me how far I strayed away from God. I’m not even really sure why I did what I did. I was surrounded by worldly influences and choose to do what I wanted to do. I choose what I thought was going to make me happy, but it never did.

It had been an entire year since I smoked marijuana. I knew the consequences if I got caught with it in the Army, but others around me were doing it and seemed to be getting away with it, so I figured I could too. I got away with it for a little while, but before too long they did a random drug screening and my results came up positive. This was the first time in my life that anything really bad had happened as a result of my drug use, at least that’s what I thought. The Army enrolled me into some rehab courses and I began to learn that I had a serious problem. It wasn’t the drug addiction that was so bad. I learned that I had developed a pattern of behavior over the years to escape from my problems. I would run away into whatever I thought would take away having to deal with responsibility, or pain, or even having to change myself. When faced with the thought that God had a better life for me, an abundant life, I got scared. What if I didn’t measure up? What if I wasn’t good enough? What if no one liked the new me? All these things caused fear to overcome faith. I was renewing my mind with fear, instead of faith.

Once I began realizing my true identity and accepting God’s Grace, his undeserved favor. I began to seek out others who knew the same things. A friend in my platoon had invited me to Savannah Christian and I knew immediately that I needed to have fellowship with other believers to stay on the right track. Doing life alone, was no longer an option. I also discovered that just showing up on Sunday to hear the message being preached wasn’t enough for real transformation to begin. I linked up with a small group where I was able to share and grow together with other Christians. But even more beneficial to my transformation, was a group that I linked up with every week called New Life. I would meet with this support group every Monday night here at the church to continually work out the pattern of behavior that had kept me from living the abundant life that God had promised me. This group gave me the tools I needed so that I wouldn’t slip back into the old self again.

A couple of months after the Army found out I was using drugs, I was court-martialed. I admitted fully what I had done and was discharged from the Army immediately. They sentenced me to 2 months in jail. God is awesome! After recommitting my life to Christ, he blessed me those 2 months by putting me in a position to tell others about how He had completely healed me of my drug and alcohol addictions.

I now work full time for Savannah Christian Church in the Drama department. God has placed me as a leader in the New Life Recovery ministries were people with compulsive behaviors, tough habits to break, and issues with addictions can go for help.

My prayer for you today, is that you don’t make the same mistakes that I had to make. Even if only one of you is listening to me right now, I know that God has started a good work in you, and He is not finished it till it’s completion. We are all works in progress. Let us never stop letting Him transform us to His likeness.