BEFORE
I was raised in an atheist family, so I was not raised to know God. Christianity was generally viewed pretty negatively around me, and for most of my life I absorbed that attitude without really questioning it.
So I grew up not just unbelieving, but pretty strongly anti-Christian. I thought I knew better. I thought Christians were foolish, and I believed that science had basically answered the important questions.
But the truth is, I had never really investigated Christianity for myself. I had never read the Bible. I had never seriously thought through what I believed about God or creation.
At a very young age, I also started drinking and using drugs. As I got older, that became a bigger and bigger part of my life.
At the same time, I became extremely serious about music. I started making beats and rapping as a teenager, made my first tape around 14, and music became one of the central things in my life.
But I was also rebellious, anti-authority, and increasingly caught up in a lifestyle that was destructive.
Eventually I moved to California and spent years in the Bay Area bartending, rapping, making music, and partying. Over time, my addictions got worse.
I eventually came back to North Carolina when my father became very sick.
By then, I had been going down the same road for a long time, and eventually I reached a point where I knew something had to change. I realized that if I kept living the way I was living, it was going to destroy me.
So I got involved with AA.
That was where I was first introduced to the idea of a higher power. As an atheist, even that was difficult for me at first. But I was desperate enough to try.
I started praying every morning and every night.
At the time, I didn’t really know who I was praying to. I just thought of it as a higher power. I now believe I was praying to God, but I didn’t know that at the time.
And I got sober.
I stayed sober for several years, eventually relapsed, and found myself falling back into the same destructive patterns.
Once again, I reached a point where I could see exactly where that road was leading.
So I got sober again.
And that’s when things started getting weird.
THE TURN
I started looking at the world differently. Things I had accepted without much thought started bothering me. I began questioning ideas I had taken for granted for most of my life.
By then, I also had a young daughter, and becoming a father changed the way I thought about a lot of things. I started thinking much more seriously about the kind of world she was going to grow up in, what I believed, and what kind of man and father I wanted to be.
Around the same time, I began coming across more conversations about Christianity. I watched debates and discussions involving Christians defending their faith, including some with Charlie Kirk, and I remember being surprised by how much of what I heard challenged the picture of Christianity I had carried around for most of my life. For the first time, I started thinking, “Maybe there’s actually something here.”
Around that time, someone in my community invited my wife and me to church. A few years earlier I probably would have wanted nothing to do with it. But by then, something had changed. So we went.
I enjoyed it, but I still wasn’t ready to call myself a Christian. I was wrestling with it. Looking back now, I believe the Lord was working on me.
Then Charlie Kirk was murdered.
In the aftermath, I saw reactions from people around me that deeply disturbed me, especially people celebrating the death of another human being. Something about that moment hit me very hard.
I started asking myself how many things I had believed simply because I had inherited those beliefs from the people and culture around me. And I realized something incredibly basic: I had spent much of my life criticizing Christianity, but I had never actually read the Bible. I had never truly investigated it for myself. That realization made me look inward more than anything else.
I watched Charlie Kirk’s memorial online, and during the memorial there was a call for people to come to Christ. Sitting there watching it, I stood up and asked Jesus Christ to be my Lord and Savior. I accepted Him.
And that was that.
BORN AGAIN
When I got saved, my daughter was about nine months old. Since then, my life has changed dramatically. We started attending church regularly. I started reading the Bible. I got involved in a recovery and Bible study class.
I don’t try to read fast. I try to read for understanding. Sometimes I read a chapter. Sometimes I spend time with one verse. Sometimes one verse is exactly what I need that day.
I got baptized at the beginning of this year. And the more I get into the Word, seek the Lord, and try to follow Christ, the more complete my life feels.
For most of my life, I thought a sinful, hedonistic lifestyle was where the fun was. I couldn’t imagine giving that up. It reminds me of how I used to think about sobriety. Before I got sober, I couldn’t imagine enjoying life without drugs and alcohol. Then I got sober and discovered that life was actually better without them.
Following Christ has been similar, only much deeper. I love the Lord, man. I love Jesus. The more I seek His will and try to live according to it, the more my entire mindset changes. I find myself drawn more toward things that build instead of things that destroy.
That doesn’t mean I’m perfect. I’m not. I still fall short. I’m still a sinner. I’m still learning. But every day I understand a little more. And it’s the greatest gift I’ve ever received.
Around the time I got saved, I remember saying, “Man, if I ever make rap music again, I’m gonna use the name Philo Born Again.” At first, I wasn’t even sure I would make music again. And I didn’t want to rush into making Christian music before I had spent some time growing in my faith.
But eventually I started feeling pulled back toward music. And it dawned on me: maybe this is why I’ve been doing this all my life. Maybe this is why I’ve spent my whole life honing this talent. It’s to serve the Lord.
I believe I can use the talent God gave me to make music that points people toward Christ and spreads the Gospel. That completely changed the purpose of music for me. And I’m incredibly grateful for that.
Honestly, gratitude may be one of the biggest changes in my life. That doesn’t mean life suddenly became easy. It didn’t. But I don’t experience it the same way anymore.
I know who I belong to now.
I’ve got Jesus on my side.