I was born in England but grew up in Southern California. My parents were devout Hindus who took us to the temple every week. A formative moment in my childhood was when, at the age of four, I asked my father, “Who made God?” His inaudible response remains etched in my mind.

The look on his face conveyed, “Do not ever ask me that question.” With his nonverbal answer, I felt as though God was a hoax. I resolved at that moment that religion was not for me.

Early Life: Rejecting God

This feeling grew as I got older. The folly of idolatry seemed obvious. My family bathed, clothed, and “fed” their idols. They did all this while praying to their gods to supply their needs. I did not know it at the time, but I sensed what Isaiah 44:9–20 shows as the great folly of idolatry. All this said, while my parents were idolaters, I must honor them, for they cared for me (see Matt. 7:11).

Entering college at 12 years of age to pursue computer science would fuel my atheism. All my peers were atheists, and we laughed at the folly of religious students. I had fully subscribed to materialism as a backlash to the idolatry I grew up with. In my blindness, the material world was all I could see. The irony is I had made an idol of materialism: a more “sophisticated” version of my parents’ religion.

Work and Marriage: Vanity Without Christ

After graduating with a computer science degree, I developed video games. With my grueling work schedule and a single-minded pursuit of my career, my atheism had cooled to agnosticism. I found no desire to debate the merits of God’s existence anymore. In a way, working on games and the industry’s attempts to create autonomous characters put a seed in my mind that a Creator God is not so far-fetched.

In Nov. 2003, the Lord blessed me by joining me in marriage to my wife Maegan. She came from a Roman Catholic family but, similarly, was disillusioned when she asked questions such as, “Why do we pray to Mary?” Though we did not come together for a religious purpose, in His sovereignty, the Lord united two souls who had burning questions about religion that could not be answered outside of the Scriptures. He used that to make us treasure the all-sufficient Word of God (2 Tim. 3:16–17) after He converted us.

Sadly, our marriage was a rocky one. My work consumed me, and, to my shame, I was often neglectful and impatient toward my wife. Without Christ, our marriage was built on the values of the world. Truly we labored in vain to build a home, as it was not being built upon the Lord (Ps. 127).

Conversion and Faith: Born Again in Christ

A year later, our first child, Sheridan, was born. We had to make a pivotal decision: Where will our son go to school? We lived in the suburbs of Los Angeles, and, even as heathens, we were shocked by what schools were teaching concerning human sexuality. My wife had a growing desire to return to the church. She missed it. I, on the other hand, while no longer severely opposed to religion, did not want anything to do with the Roman Catholic Church. News of scandal after scandal, particularly against little boys, was on the news at the time (2008).

We enrolled our son in a local Baptist school. We liked the school and its curriculum, but we did not know much about the faith they taught. We visited the Baptist church attached to the school, but we did not hear the gospel preached. As a minister now, that haunts me. It reminds me that the gospel must be ever held forth. We were eventually led to a church in our town that valued expository preaching. We heard the gospel for the first time and were born again, given the gift of repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. The Spirit and the Word showed us we were sinners, but praise God that, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of which I am the chief” (1 Tim. 1:15). We came to church so that our son might have a better education. But we discovered Jesus—a far better thing.

Denominational Home: Entering the RPCNA

In my conversion, the Lord gave me a tremendous desire for His Word. Finally I had the fountain of the knowledge of God! My desire was to know more of Christ and Him crucified. Soon after our conversion, in God’s providence, He moved us to Texas where I helped start a Bible study in my workplace. We joined a PCA congregation after discovering the Westminster Confession of Faith. I fell in love with psalm singing in that congregation. Seeing the psalms as the Word of Christ, I enjoyed experiencing my union with Jesus by singing them. They admonished me and sent me constantly to the Lord for grace. In my research, I discovered that several denominations sang the psalms exclusively. In God’s providence, I was led to the RPCNA. But as no RPCNA congregation was near us, we prayed the Lord might raise one up.

After a visit to Los Angeles, Calif., RPC, Pastor Nathan Eshelman put me in touch with Pastor Bruce Parnell, the Midwest Presbytery representative on the Home Missions Board. Shortly after, a meeting with Pastor Mark Koller, who had just transferred into the RPCNA, led to the planting of Dallas (McKinney, Tex.) RPC under our presbytery’s guidance. Our family has been greatly blessed to grow in grace in this congregation and to serve in it. I was ordained and installed as a ruling elder when the congregation was particularized in March 2015.

Pursuing the Ministry: The Call of Christ

Later that year, having long felt a call to ministry particularly through the burden of the Scripture that said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hos. 4:6) and with encouragement from my session, I was brought under care of the presbytery and began the MDiv program at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary. I graduated in May 2020. Through all the difficulties of juggling a consulting business, family, seminary, and the church, my wife Maegan was used by the Lord in mighty ways. She managed our home, educated our children, and kept things running smoothly with my busy schedule. Truly, she is worthy of the commendation of Proverbs 31:28: “Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.”

Church Home: A Calling to Dallas RPC

In God’s providence, after I was licensed to take a call, Dallas (McKinney, Tex.) RPC called me. This is the very congregation we prayed for the Lord to plant. I was installed there as a pastor by Midwest Presbytery on July 31, 2020.

To consider what the Lord has done, to take a man who hated Him, an idolater, a worldly man, a great sinner, and make him a preacher of the gospel is the greatest mystery of all. But the Lord often seems pleased to make ministers out of the most miserable sinners. His unmerited grace to me has driven me all the more to “preach Christ and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2), that other sinners may receive life everlasting in Christ as a free gift.

I count it a blessing to now give an answer for the hope that is within me (1 Pet. 3:15), from out of the very Word of God. Long ago, when I received a non-answer from my father to the “problem” of God’s existence, I am grateful the Lord redeemed that impression and drives me to the everlasting Word of God, which “is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Tim. 3:16–17). But I am even more grateful that the Word shows me Jesus Christ. He is altogether lovely (Song of Sol. 5:16) and most precious (1 Pet. 2:7) to me.

Conclusion: It Is of the Lord’s Mercies

My purpose in writing this testimony of God’s grace is summed up in Christ’s instruction to the man He freed from Legion: “Tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee” (Mark 5:19). Truly the Lord has done great things for me and has had great compassion on me.

As I run the race He has marked out, my sole hope is through the ministry at Dallas RPC, I may know Him and make Him known to the community. I hope that many would be drawn to Christ and then give unto Him the glory He is due by worshiping Him. I pray God would be pleased to do that through an earthen vessel who deserved hell, but who was instead given Christ. Soli Deo Gloria.