Ben's Testimony

This is the testimony of Benjamin J. Arellano

After enduring 26 years of this worldly life, I was never fulfilled spiritually. I always felt that there was something more to life, but no matter how much money, what kind of car I drove, friends I had, or even jobs I had were never able to fulfill me. I guess I have always been searching as most people are for that one thing that will continually fulfill me. I searched high and low, and everywhere which was really all in the wrong place.

In high school, I was always the “odd ball”. I had friends, but they weren’t true friends. The funny part is I always felt that they looked at me as if I was weird. I always could see that people were different from me. How you ask? Well I noticed that I would take more respect and courtesy more seriously than most. I always wondered why people would always care more about themselves than others. The good part was that I noticed this, the bad part is that I conformed to the “World’s Way” of being impolite, not courteous, and became somewhat bitter. I developed a chip on my shoulder.

The chip on my shoulder and bitterness caused me to behave differently. Because of this I quite the basketball team as a sophomore in high school. I developed a bad relationship with my parents and family. The funny part is as a boy, my parents were guiding me in the right direction, however the “World of sin” is very powerful. I remember an incident that occurred several times with a brand new shiny red car that my parents had bought me. The car kept getting keyed, and many things happened to it. My dad used to tell me that it wasn’t right “to love things”. In a sense my car was my god. The world of sin, lust, and temptation is very powerful.

While in college, things got better between my parents and me, still struggled at times but better for the most part. In college I realized that I was alone. I was different than most and for some reason always found myself alone. I didn’t have many friends. I looked for a way to quench my loneliness, but did it wrongfully with relationships.

I met a girl in 2002 and for some reason was drawn to her. I am convinced that she was brought into my life for many reasons. We got along great, and she seemed to really care for me, more than any other relationship I ever had. Before long we were pregnant and living together (Yes we did everything backwards). We were engaged, but didn’t have a wedding date yet. Her name is Diane.

We had some problems with Diane’s parents not being accepting of me because Diane already had a child, but the child was not mine. I believe her parents wanted Diane to be with her son’s dad. This cause many conflicts between us and made things very difficult for Diane and I. I believe that these conflicts were necessary and were teaching Diane and me a lesson.

In 2002 my son was born with a birth defect that hindered him from eating correct and breathing normal. I needed someone to blame, and the only one I could think of to blame was God. I was so angry with God, asking things like “Why would a God that loves us, do something like this to a child?” I felt that God had wronged me and stripped my son of a normal life. I wanted God to do his harm to me and not to my son. However, at this point I was walking in the dark and couldn’t see.

In 2004 I lost my job a little over 1 year after I moved to Phoenix. I was again upset with the whole world including God. I thought to myself, “I live a pretty decent life, I don’t kill, and I don’t cheat so why am I getting the short end of the stick.” I had a lot of bitterness in my heart, wondering why people who had lots of money were successful and yet were the meanest, most inconsiderate people on this planet. Why would God bless them and allow bad to happen to me. I was still walking in the dark, and didn’t realize that to be rich you don’t need money.

During the summer of 2004, I found myself wondering in my back yard and one day I was thinking out loud. I looked up to the Heavens and said “Okay God, I know you are there, and you have my attention, what do you want me to do?” This was a turning point for me. I acknowledged that God was present and asked Him for guidance. This was my first step towards finding my fulfillment.

After I looked to God for guidance, I was directed to a company called UTI. I found much more joy and happiness at this job. I started out the job doing really well and found myself much happier. I then told my fiancée Diane that I wanted to go to church. We began going to our local Catholic Church, but I found myself asking Diane the question, “Why do we go to church, I don’t ever recall learning anything.” We then decided not to attend, but that I would begin to read the Bible. I started to read the Bible, but being new to the Bible, I was discouraged because I didn’t understand it.

At the point of discouragement, I found myself at co-workers cubicle and found a church flyer. I then asked this individual, whose name is Michael, if he believed in all that “church stuff” and with the most sincere and serious look he said “yes I do.” We got to talking and Michael made an offer to have lunch sometime and talk about it. I agreed thinking it wouldn’t happen and went on my way. One week later Michael emailed me and he invited me to lunch. We went to lunch, and agreed to meet on Wednesday’s to read the Bible. I was jaded with my previous Catholic Church experience that I didn’t want to go to church. So we met every Wednesday for a few weeks. Michael had brought the topic of “Salvation” to my attention. We spoke about this topic several times. One Wednesday on April 26th 2006 Michael challenged me to accept Jesus Christ as my personal savior to forgive my past, present, and future sins and to acknowledge that I can’t save myself, and that through the shed blood of Jesus is the only way to heaven.

On that day April 26th 2006, I did accept Jesus into my life. That is the greatest moment in my life. Since then I have been able to see God. I see Him everyday, in my life and in others lives. It is the greatest joy to have the Holy Spirit dwell with in you and talk to you. I recognize my sin more than ever before, of course I will continue to sin due to the nature of mankind, but I can see when I do sin, and can repent. God will forgive me, even though I don’t deserve it.

Michael then invited me to church. I was skeptical, but decided to give it a try. At first I was overwhelmed, because I have never been to a church where you read the Bible, and the people were like a community and were very friendly and helpful. All this joyous singing, praise and worship were just overwhelming. But Diane and I continued to go.

We came to the point where we were thinking about becoming members. We needed to both be saved and more over we needed to be married so that we wouldn’t be living in disobedience. Diane accepted Jesus into her life on June 21st 2006. We didn’t know what to do because we knew that a wedding would take a couple months, but the Holy Spirit convicted us to get married earlier. Our pastor agreed to marry us at a discipleship group at my friend from work Michael’s house on June 23rd 2006 just 2 days after Diane was saved. We then had a big church wedding and invited all the family in hopes that they would listen to the “Salvation Message”. Our wedding was very non-traditional, no booze, no DJ, no money tree, and no big party. We had a pleasant reception, and feel that everything went close to perfect because it was blessed by God.

The following weekend we got baptized! This was another wonderful stepping stone for me since it was a public profession of my faith. What better thing to do, than to tell all that you accepted Jesus into your life and that he has forgiven you of all your sin. This was a “burning of the bridge” to my old self!

As I get closer to God, I find myself moving farther away from the ways of the world. This is a wonderful thing to not be conformed to this world. The world tells you to do whatever makes you feel good, but that’s not what God intended. Read the Bible, you can see what God wants.

Nothing in this world has or will ever fulfill me more than Jesus Christ has. When you have and accept Jesus Christ into your heart, you walk in love. With Jesus, you can depend on him completely. Family and even friends will let you down from time to time, Jesus will never ever let you down, for He is always there, and He never breaks promises, and He never changes, you must trust him.

You see in all the instances when something happened in my life, God allowed me to fall, in hopes that I would look to him for comfort. He teaches us lessons everyday and we don’t even know it because we are so self centered on our lives. When you look to God and accept His will as opposed to forcing your own will, your life becomes richer and more fulfilled, money can’t buy that, not even Bill Gates.

This isn’t to say that something bad won’t happen because it is possible, you see God does EVERYTHING for a reason, but when you have God, and something bad happens, you will understand why things happen, and God does comfort you. Knowing that you aren’t alone and that He is always there and will never leave you is a wonderful feeling. I hope that others will endure what I feel, when I walk with my Lord and savior everyday Jesus Christ.