The Real Deal

Hey church, how goes it? My name is David Markus and has been for some time. I’m starting this off with Ephesians 2:10: “For we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do.” For some reason, this amazing God of ours broke through to me and then later let me find this amazing verse tucked away here in one of Paul’s letters just to watch me go, “Dang, that’s so cool.”

Early on in my life things were different and I was chasing after other things that I thought would carry the day. I was “churched” early on, complete with church camp and confirmation classes. By the time I hit high school, I was lost as a goose. It was the 60’s and it was all about sex, drugs and rock-n-roll. Jesus? Oh yeah, he was cool or whatever the mind set was at that time. But I wasn’t gonna let that filter into my thinking because I thought, “You know, I’ve been there, done that, my ticket’s been punched”. In reality, I had no clue, well not yet. God had some things in place for me that didn’t come into view until after I got out of high school in Sheboygan, WI.

A few weeks after graduation, the despair and emptiness came center stage.  I was floundering badly and thinking all kinds of things about how to shake my bad, bad case of the blues. I was miserable and the bleak forecast my thoughts were handing me wasn’t good. It was time.

Earlier on in my junior year a sort of turning point event took place that set the stage for God to intervene in my life. A friend of mine named Andy and a handful of others from school just up and left for California. Not too long after that a letter circulated that found its way to me from Andy. He was talking about the Lord and how he was the answer to what we were looking for. That letter was like a burning bush moment when God told me to come to him. I knew then, even before I was ready to do it, that I was going to go out there to find out for myself.

By the fall after my senior year, I was hitchhiking out to the west coast no matter what might happen. On the way out, in the middle of Iowa, I took a shot at praying and asked God for a ride out of there. In five minutes’ time I had a ride (which oddly didn’t surprise me) and this nice woman in a van (of course) took me and a friend who was traveling with me all the way to my uncle’s house in Sacramento. She fed us and even got our clothes washed. I was, maybe for the first time ever, putting my faith and trust in God and giving my life to him. I experienced the truth of Matthew 6:33-34 and after just five minutes of calling out to him.

He wasted no time in showing me that this thing - this faith in God, this believing - was real, that He was real. Soon I met up with Andy and my discipleship journey began with a group of other believers who, similar to Acts, held all things in common and shared their lives with others and spoke of what Jesus had done for them.

So that my friends, is a “quick” 30,000 foot overview of God’s saving work in my life.