I was sitting in the house I shared with my girlfriend when I opened my Bible and read the words found in the ninth chapter of Romans: “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.” In that moment I was caught unprepared and defenseless—helpless, really—as, for the first time in my life, I understood God’s grace as grace. But it was a moment that God had long been planning in my life.

At 36 years old I’m glad I can say that I have never known a day without Jesus. Although mine was not an environment that understood the covenant, I was, practically speaking, raised as a covenant child. My parents (especially my mom) were purposeful in equipping my brothers and me with a knowledge of the Bible. This knowledge was reinforced in our evangelical church in southern Minnesota.

In junior high, I had my first crisis of faith. I was playing basketball with a friend, and he began to sound off about how unreliable the Bible was. I had never been confronted with why I believed what I did, and so his empty rhetoric unsettled me. I began to look for answers. As I did, I slowly came to appreciate that Christianity could be intellectually satisfying.

In early high school I started working at a church camp. Looking back, those five summers probably were not the most edifying summers of my life, but they sure were fun! I was a good counselor, and with enthusiasm I excelled at what I did. In turn, that started to cultivate a deep spirit of pride in my heart. My serving became a badge of honor and a token of spirituality. I thanked the Lord I was not like so many of my peers who were drawn aside by the things of this world.

But I was a “good” Christian who had (and still does have) a tender conscience. Spiritually, it proved to be a difficult tension. On the one hand was all my pride, and on the other was an acute awareness of my sin accompanied with guilt. I figured I just needed to try harder to alleviate the shame. But the harder I tried the more I felt myself falling short. I remember walking in the woods one day, in northern Minnesota, thinking how impossible Christianity was. It seemed as soon as I got to the summit of one mountain there was another in front of me. This had a devastating effect.

By the time I graduated high school, the Christianity I thought was intellectually satisfying was practically impossible. Was God cruel? No. But I started to reason that He might very well be callous. I tried to pacify myself by turning to vague and undefined platitudes about His unconditional love. Still, there was the unshakable question of how a loving God could demand the impossible. So, I retreated. I decided to live life on my own terms.

People have asked me if I think I was a Christian during the season of life that followed. At one time I thought the question was useless speculation. However, I have since learned to appreciate the answer. There are times even in a believer’s life where for a season we can fall into serious sin. When we do, we grieve the Spirit, provoke the displeasure of God, and are deprived of a sense of assurance. For those who have been through it, it is terrible. But in the wisdom of God He sometimes lets us sail through rough waters in order to bring us back to the calm water of His grace.

College began in a tumultuous way. My parents forced me to go to a Christian liberal arts school that I had little interest in. I grew increasingly apathetic toward institutional Christianity and thus, necessarily, toward the worship and life of the church. I fell in love for the first time and had my heart broken, launching me into a period of depression. In hopes of mending the relationship, I transferred to a state university closer to her. Eventually I moved in with her.

I had no ambition or desire for school, and little direction for life. As a result I failed out of the university. When my parents found out, they insisted that I find a job. To spite them I enlisted in the Wisconsin Air National Guard. A few weeks later I shipped out for basic training in San Antonio, Tex. Upon graduation I spent seven months at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Miss., being schooled in computers, networking, switching, and cryptographic systems.

It was a bit of a surreal experience. For the first time in my life I found myself in a completely unfamiliar environment. The people around me didn’t know my background, my family, or my history. I realized I could be and do whatever I wanted. So, with few restraints, I did. I remember journaling these words: “Slowly their thoughts became my thoughts and their words became my words and their laughter my laughter.” I had lost myself.

After my initial training I returned home to the living situation I had before I left. While I still had little direction, the military had instilled in me some discipline. In the spring of that year I began school at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and started a job in the university’s technology department. It was during that spring and into summer that four distinct things happened as God began to nudge my heart.

The first was that, quite by accident, I stumbled upon a biography of Martin Luther. I found myself captivated by his early struggles. The book recounted that in the monastery where Luther had been was a picture of Jesus. From one side of Jesus’s mouth came a sword and from the other an olive branch—representing His justice and mercy.

At that time in his life, before discovering the comfort of justification, Luther was only able to see the sword—and it was terrifying to him. My troubled conscience could identify with that. The freedom I thought I would find in living life on my own terms was a mirage. There were days and nights where, quite literally, I would curl up in a ball weeping for fear of God and convinced He would come in justice against me.

The second thing that happened was I began to grow close to my twin brother, Michael. We had enjoyed childhood together but couldn’t tolerate one another in high school. Some time apart had done our relationship good. During those couple of years, Michael had been introduced to something called Calvinism and Reformed theology. As a result he encouraged me to read some sermons by a man named Charles Spurgeon, and he gave me a copy of John Owen’s The Mortification of Sin. I think only eternity will show how much I owe those two men who, though dead, still speak.

The third thing that happened was on a weekend visit to my parents’ house. One evening I went over to my high school youth pastor’s home. After the couple had put their kids to bed they asked how I was doing. I began blabbering about this and that trying to avoid the real question. They probed deeper, asking how my relationship with Jesus was. That was the first time in almost three years anyone had asked me that question. What followed was a tear-filled release of anger, confusion, and guilt from the last three years.

The fourth thing that happened was when I walked into an office and began eavesdropping on someone who was listening to a scratchy recording of a mid-20th Century revival preacher. Tired of the humanism and utilitarianism he believed evangelicalism had adopted, that speaker preached a vision of the glory of God I had never before encountered. It is ironic that someone can grow up around Christians and in the church and hear almost nothing on that subject. This set me on a trajectory where slowly I began to realize that the end of all things is the glory of God.

On a summer evening not many weeks after, I opened my Bible and read the words: “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.” For the first time in my life I understood God’s grace as grace. It was a grace that could overcome my sin and failure, a grace that accepted and received me in Jesus Christ, and a grace that subdued my will to that of my heavenly Father. It seemed as if overnight God returned me to the calm waters.

The months that followed were marked by change. I left my living situation, formed new friendships, and met a young woman named Rachel who would become my wife. I also began to study Reformed theology vigorously, finding a Christianity that appealed to me intellectually but also, especially in the writings of the Puritans, a Christianity that was experientially warm—reaching head and heart. I became a member of a local Presbyterian church that helped me develop firm convictions and direction. The enthusiasm I had for camp ministry was biblically redirected toward the church and the ordinary means of grace like Bible reading and prayer.

As those months turned to years I got married to Rachel, finished college with a degree in philosophy, welcomed the first of five children, went to seminary and again experienced a time of depression, discovered the RPCNA through my friendship with Shawn Anderson, and joyfully took up the pastorate in Winchester, Kan.

Often our testimonies focus on God’s grace in the past. While I marvel at how God has worked I also marvel at what He continues to do. As a husband, father, and pastor I live an ordinary life and don’t need or want anything different. In that, I have known times of encouragement and discouragement; loss and gain; contentment and depression. But in the ordinary, God continues to overwhelm me with a deeper understanding of the glory of His gospel revealed in the face of Jesus Christ.

Kyle Borg pastors the Winchester, Kan., RPC.