What is your faith? I’m a Christian.
When did you get saved? At 9 years old my cousin invited me to a kids program at a local church. They fed me candy. For a kid who had to resort to making himself mayonnaise sandwiches for meals, candy was like gold! God knew the way to my 9 year old heart. I went for the candy but what I really found was the love of a father. Psalm 68:5 talks about God being a father to the fatherless, that was me! It was the beginning of a relationship that I had been yearning for.
Did you ever struggle in your Christian walk? Yes absolutely. I struggled throughout my teenage years. What the world had to offer looked exciting and fun. I wanted to taste that lifestyle. Then again when I became a professional athlete I struggled; drinking, drugs, partying, women. I indulged in it all. I very foolishly wanted to have my cake and eat it too. But like it says in Numbers 32:23 your sin will find you out. My sin found me out and it almost cost my family and my career.
How did you recover personally and professionally? God. It’s God’s grace that holds my family together. It’s God’s grace that has seen me through 8 years of professional football. Without God’s love and grace over my life, I wouldn’t even want to think of where I’d be.
How do you keep on track now? I make it a priority to connect with God and nurture my relationship with Him. If my spiritual life is on track; I’m praying, reading my Bible, and connecting with my church community, then everything else falls into place. As long as God is leading me then I’m heading in the right direction. It’s my job to make the commitment to my spirituality and to be consistent with it. One of my favorite quotes from a great sermon I heard is that “consistency is the key to breakthrough”. As long as I am consistently seeking God I will see breakthrough in my life personally and professionally. And I am committed to not turning back. I’ve been down the road, I’ve seen what the world had to offer and as glamorous and exciting as it might appear, it only lead to pain and destruction in my life.
How do you hope to draw others to Christ? By just allowing Him to shine through me and by sharing my testimony. I know that other people struggle in life and the devil likes to get us with that shame and condemnation but that’s not what God wants. He came to give us life and life more abundant. Like it says in Revelation 12:11, we can overcome the enemy “by the blood of the lamb and by the word of our testimony”.
