Chuck shares his story about coming to know Jesus through his new barber, Jake.
Funny enough, it started with a haircut. Went to go get a haircut at a place down there, actually. Right next to fourth Street Cafe. And by happenstance, they had a new system that double booked and dude ran in, needed, a haircut for, bachelor party.
So I was like, I don't need it that bad. Go ahead. Found psycho Billy Barber and met Jake shook over talking to him multiple times. He had kind of asked one night, like what I was up to, and I was like, not really. Any friends. Kind of been in town. Just work. That's all I do. So he invited me out to, lidos to go play pool, drink, talk, whatever.
Really just kind of started talking about nothing. And, you know, I kind of became like a once a month thing with, like, hang out. And so, finally he had said something about, like, his church group, and I kind of just made fun of him for it and was like, you know, it's like, yeah, you'll never catch me there.
I was like, there's there's no way. And so kept hanging out, got into cars with them, learned that, you know, we were both in the cars, started working around on stuff together and just joking around in the garage. And then next thing I know, more in town, I was hanging out. I, I found myself kind of just talking to him about things like, man, why does this thing suck?
Or why does that thing suck like, I don't, I don't enjoy it anymore, you know? It's had a ten year relationship with a girl and she left and it was, you know, any old debauchery I could think of, I was like, that's gotta make me feel better.
And I found myself talking to him, and I'm like, why does this stuff just suck? Now? It's like, it was so fun. Like, it sounded so great, and now I just. I hate it every time. It's like, it's it's ten minutes of joy for nothing.
And then, you know, he kept talking about God, and I was like, just shut up. I was like, no, don't do it. And but then I found myself having like, super deep talks with them till like four in the morning.
And finally, like, I was like, you know, I stopped doing all that. Just like cold turkey was like, I'm not going to drink really any more. I'm not going to do drugs. I'm not going to I'm not going to sit there and try to use women. I was like, it doesn't make sense. It's it's not giving me anything.
And so
I realize it left me with literally no friends. I was I was left all alone. And I was like, I don't know how to make friends. I was like, all the friends I had have been gone for years. And it was the typical, well, I've got some friends you can meet.
And I was like, I'm not coming to your church thing. He goes, well, don't come to the reading, but come hang out after. He was like, meet some people, talk to them. I was like, okay, so like how for? I think two months after that I'd only sit on the porch. I wouldn't even walk in the house.
And then we had talked and he had said something about a teaching. He's like, you know, it's one that kind of goes over some stuff we talked about. And I remember looking, I was like, this one time that you get to ask me to come to a teaching.
And then I just I didn't miss one for months
in, in the times of like, kind of not wanting to go to a home church, Nick Stuart, if you know him, needed somebody to replace his water heater. And so being me, I was like, I can do it. I was like, it's not hard, it's easy. I literally do it for work.
And so he got me over at his house. We're sitting there replacing the water heater and he's like, hey, as soon as we're done with this, like, you want to look at this book. And it was Discovering God. And I was like, yeah, I guess it's like, I don't I don't know why I'd want to really do that.
But I was like, I mean, we can take a look at it. And so we started reading through Discovering God Together. So we'd go to the gym every Saturday and we'd go back to his house and we'd read a chapter two or hang out for like an hour. And so it was like just prior to Christmas of 23, we were sitting at the, at the ministry house on Weber and Jake Shook's like, stop, stop waiting.
He's like, why don't you just do it now? And I'm like, I don't know if I'm ready. I don't know if I'm ready. He's like, come on, try it. And then it's something clicked in me. I was like, what's the worst thing that can happen from everything I already had been doing to what I'm trying to do now?
Why? Why not at least try it? I've tried everything else. What's the worse thing? If this doesn't work, I go back off to. You know, do everything I've already done. And so with Jake and Nick in the basement at Weber, like, I think like two weeks before Christmas, prayed for God to, you know, make his sacrifice count for me and really haven't stopped trying to make it count since
the friendships actually last, like they're still people I talked to two years later. Now or almost two years later, and it's like, oh, these people haven't like, okay, you were cool for, you know, a weekend to party with and now you're gone. It's like these people still call and be like, hey, you got free time to hang out.
Like, why do you want to hang out with me? I was like, you know, and that and that also was like a big thing in the beginning was like, I thought it for a while because it was like, why would God want me? I have this whole slew of things that I've just done wrong. It's like, you don't you don't want the bad person.
And it actually is funny because that was the one point that really got drove home to me. It's like, that's why he wants you. He's like, you know, he wants the lost. He wants the broken. And from where I was in my life, I was like, you don't get much more broken than where I was. And it was just it was just something that was funny that it took so long to realize that, like, it was myself and me not thinking that I deserved it is what really had killed everything for me for a minute.
And I was like, no, you don't want you don't want me. Nobody wants me. So God won't. And then it was, yeah, he's he's the first person that really does. And so that was, that was just that first big step for me was to take that and go off that. Been here since