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OBEYING THE CALL — A TESTIMONY OF WHAT GOD IS DOING
By Richard Jacob
When we started deputation, we had no
idea why God was bringing us to Nashville,
Tennessee. Looking back, we see why. This
is just one of the many wonderful stories, a
testament of something only God could do to
save and change a life.

Marcus, our youngest son, invited his friend
Piper to church. Piper and her mom, Andrea,
watched the livestream of Nashville Baptist
Church (NBC) services for almost a year. Piper
then started coming to church and invited
Colton. Colton had not been to church over the past
eight years. He struggled as a teenager. He
came to the end of himself and was about to
end his life while going through great periods
of depression. Up to this point, he was very
24 engaged as an atheist and agnostic in his
university campus groups. However, nothing
made sense and there was no joy in his life. In
November, he was driving around downtown
Nashville in the middle of the night. It was
then that he was invited to Nashville Baptist
Church, and he decided to give it a try. This
was his last hope. God was putting the pieces
of the puzzle of Colton’s salvation in place
long before he knew it. Colton has shared the
following testimony with us:
“I did not come to find Christ during an easy
part of my life. In fact, I can confidently say that
the months leading up to my salvation were
one of the darkest times I have been through.

I was depressed, hopeless, and so nihilistic
that I felt like my life was utterly meaningless.

For a long time, I tried to fill the hole in my
heart with worldly things, but these only eased
the pain temporarily. At the crux of my
depression, I remember one night I
was so frustrated with my existence
I was screaming to the heavens:
“WHY GOD, HOW COULD
YOU DO THIS TO ME?” After
that night, I realized that there
was something utterly missing
from my worldview, something
so fundamental that I could not
bear to live without it.