My Mission

In 2016 I realized that most of what I held to be true simply wasn’t. I knew I needed another way to live my life, another way to look at life, but I did not know where to find that alternate viewpoint.

I went to church as a child but was not part of what I would call a Christian family. My now ex-wife and I took our children to church, but not religiously (if you’ll pardon the pun). The home I shared with my wife was not God-centered.

Yet, I considered myself to be a Christian.

In 2016 it took me several months and a good friend to find the alternate viewpoint that I knew I needed. The friend suggested I return to church. That church, through the great teaching of the pastors, gave me the viewpoint that I had spent my life searching for.

Please allow me to back up for a moment. Doctors diagnosed me with depression in 1994. The depression was resistant to treatment, and I suffered with the burden of depression for the next two decades. The burden was even greater for those around me.

Many followers of Christ can tell you an exact moment they realized their life would never be the same. They can tell you the time and place they were “born again”. Not me. My process was a gradual process, taking several months before I gained a sufficient understanding of what it meant to be a follower of Christ.

For the last six years, God has humbled me repeatedly. He has shown me where I continue to hold on to the worldly habits of old and helped me replace them with a different way to live life. It has not been easy. God has tested my obedience repeatedly over the past few years. For the past 18 months, God has asked me to sit quietly and listen. He has asked me to serve others. He told me to not seek a “real” job.

But in that quiet, God has done miraculous things in my life. Placing my faith and my hope in Him has eliminated my depression. He has removed my selfish ambition and allowed me to serve others at a new level. Through a series of events, God also revealed to me three types of anxiety that I have been dealing with since birth. Awareness of those anxieties has allowed me to tame them.

So now I find myself stripped bare of most material things, and thankful for the humility. I used to equate “meekness” with weakness. Then I heard a pastor refer to meekness as power under control. I like that, and that is what I feel in my faith. I am humbled. But God has given me power and direction. He has been faithful and provided for me.

One of my favorite verses comes from the words of Christ in Matthew 6:25-27:

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

I try not to worry. I am free to act boldly as I pursue God’s plan for my life. God has given me gifts and power to make a difference in the life of others. He has blessed me with a Christ centered relationship with an amazing woman. He has anchored me in the humility that comes from having a total dependence on the Creator of the universe.

And now, God is calling me to get back to work. Hence the launch of Exchanged By Faith.

If you are not in a relationship with Christ, you cannot imagine the amazing work God wants to do in your life. It will not be all rainbows and unicorns. God does not promise us happiness or success. But if you seek to fulfill the plan God has us, if you seek and find a personal relationship with God, you will find a contentment that only comes from knowing God’s love.

Brian

Exchanged By Faith is committed to helping individuals become mature followers of Jesus Christ. We focus on helping each other identify challenges and put practices in place to overcome the barriers to a life of faith.

That is why I created this site, to help inform and prepare those seeking an intimate, mature relationship with Jesus Christ.

In This World, Not Of This World

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.

1 John 2:15-17 (NIV)

Being a Christian is more than just an instantaneous conversion – it is a daily process whereby you grow to be more and more like Christ.

Billy Graham

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.

C. S. Lewis

Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand. It is the greatest gift anyone can give.