Meet Chris Smith

Growing up, I allowed myself to develop a misconception of God and what I thought he expected of me. I believed I had to please God by my works in order to be close to Him and to have a chance at getting into heaven. I continually fell short of this self-imposed expectation and felt like my “salvation” was unattainable. For this reason, I chose to walk away from God and put my effort into my career. This became the source of my identity, self-worth and what I thought would bring me happiness.

This was a futile effort. When work failed to fill that bucket, I turned to hobbies to fill the void. It was like grasping at the wind to find happiness.  Having this displaced focus caused me to turn inward and put my needs ahead of everyone around me, at home, work, it didn’t matter who or where, selfishness consumed me. This behavior caused division to grow in my marriage and as our family grew, without a solid foundation of faith, things began to crumble.

God convicted my heart while we were looking at Christmas lights when my oldest son, who was 3 years old at the time, said “Look at the “T” in the yard” in reference to a cross. He was learning his ABC’s, but still he had no concept of what the cross was, even as we were celebrating Jesus’ birth at Christmas time. This struck hard. The next Sunday, still feeling like a failure of a father and husband because I was not leading my family well, I felt the Holy Spirit pulling me to take them to church. That morning, we walked through the doors of Faith Bible Church for the first time. For those of you that know me, you know that I love being around people and making new friends. My wife jokes that I could make friends with a brick wall. In spite of that, I completely suppressed my extroverted personality for a couple of years. I felt spiritually inadequate and did not want people to really know me for fear of being judged, as I had witnessed in church in the past. However, God began to show me His truth and those fears began to diminish.

Our first time plugging into community here was through re|engage. God used our struggling marriage to begin the work of transforming my heart and to continue revealing his true character to me. Upon completion we were looking for opportunities to stay connected in community. It was then that we discovered re:generation.

Grace, such a simple but powerful word that I struggled to grasp for so long. Was I worthy of it? Yes. Had my bad decisions prohibited me from receiving it? No. Was it something that I had to earn? No, it is a free gift. These questions and others were clearly answered through God’s word as I began my journey of healing through re:generation.

One of the first verses that is in the re:generation curriculum is Romans 7:18 “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh, for I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.” This verse was the answer to my dilemma. For 35 years I felt completely inadequate to live a holy life on my own, and that is because I wasn’t meant to do it on my own. I have the creator of the universe to help. When I am experiencing something difficult, being tempted, or just completely fail, God meets me there every time if I choose to run to Him. My redemption was made possible by Jesus’ sacrifice, all I had to do is accept that and trust Him with my soul. This has allowed me to receive God’s grace freely and enabled me to extend it to others. I now have the great privilege to be part of the re:generation community and serve as a coach. I am so thankful for the opportunity to convey the message of hope that is only found in Jesus and to have a front row seat to the transformation that takes place in people’s lives when they begin to walk with Him daily. Even though I turned my back on God for many years he never turned his back on me and was waiting for me with open arms…that is grace.