My name is Jacob Luyt-Dozois and I am the author of the Next Faithful Step blog. This post is the first in an eight-part series that I will be calling “My Story.” These posts will track my life in Christianity from childhood through to the present day.
I grew up in a Catholic home and went to Catholic schools. As a child, I was an altar server. I remember my faith at this point being more like another extracurricular than something seriously impactful to me personally. I learned morals, prayers, etc., but I cannot say that I was loyal to Jesus the way that I am now.
God’s Persistent Disruption
Things changed when Jesus found me and I started to follow him. When I started dating my high school girlfriend, she gave me a book called “When God Writes Your Love Story” by Eric Ludy. The message of this book was about submission to God and allowing him to be the one who “writes” the story of your life. This book just happened to focus on the romance aspect of life.
I failed miserably in this relationship, and if I’m being honest, I failed miserably in many relationships. I was confronted with my own sinfulness, being unable to control my behaviour or the way I spoke. She was a year older than me, and we briefly broke up as she was graduating high school. We got back together that summer, but by fall, we had returned to bickering non-stop. I remember this being the moment when I first prayed with real submission and humility to God, “God, if this relationship is not what you want, then please end it.”
We broke up the next day on Halloween at our youth bowling league. It’s difficult to forget being in a Mario costume and your Princess Peach has just broken up with you. That night, we talked and confirmed that the relationship was officially over. I was crying as I drove all the way home, and that week was an emotional whirlwind. Then the following Friday night, I was sitting on my bedroom floor and remembered what I had prayed. I asked God, “What do I do now?”
The Quiet Beckoning of the Spirit
I remember it being like a quiet, calming voice responding, “Follow me, and great things will happen.” This is the moment when I became a committed Christian. No one on a stage inviting me to join a religion. No one asking me to say a rehearsed prayer. These practices are not necessarily wrong; some people need this help to express what is truly happening in their souls. Personally, I appreciate the intimate and simple invitation from the Holy Spirit to follow. I agreed, and so my journey of following Jesus began.
A couple of weeks later, a friend asked me to do something I’d never done before: a youth retreat. This was a Catholic youth retreat called COR. It was a weekend away in a high school just outside of town. This was a very important moment for me to have a Christian community as I began this fresh faith journey.
Deciding on Ellerslie
From that point, it occurred to me that if I was going to do this, I needed to do some reading. So, I started reading Acts, and then I also went back to a familiar well: Eric Ludy. I had already applied to universities to start an education with an eye toward a teaching career, but I allowed my acceptances to expire because I cared more about my life and growth as a newly loyal believer. I listened to every one of his sermons, and I began to find these sermon jams, where people put music to profound sermon snippets. I began to read Eric’s books, and ultimately, I found his school, Ellerslie Discipleship School, in Windsor, Colorado. I asked my mom if I could go there instead of university. As you can imagine, my mother was thrilled with the idea of putting off a university education so I could learn how to be a Christian all over again in a strange place in the United States, 24 hours away by car.
So, my mother tried to shut me down gently, telling me that I couldn’t go unless they could go see it. I quickly did some research and found that, by coincidence, my favourite hockey team, the Anaheim Ducks, were playing my brother’s favourite team, the Colorado Avalanche (in Denver, an hour away from the school) over our Spring Break week. On top of that, my brother would be getting married in the fall, the weekend before I would need to leave for Colorado. This was the opportunity for my parents, my brother, and me to have one last vacation just the four of us.
We planned to go to Denver over Spring Break of 2011. We went to the hockey game, visited the aquarium, and most importantly, we visited Ellerslie in Windsor, Colorado. My mom had been corresponding with the administrator, and we met in Eric’s office to talk after touring the small campus and viewing a new film they had produced.
Christ and Him Crucified
After visiting, my parents were convinced that it was okay for me to attend Ellerslie, and in October 2011, after my brother was married, we took the long drive to Colorado to drop me off at Ellerslie, where I was for nine months (with a brief Christmas visit home). This is where the foundational ideals of my faith took root. I was introduced to all sorts of things, like hermeneutics, ancient Greek, and theological thoughts, but the main thing was that Christianity was about obedience and submission to Christ. Debates and theology are important, but they can become their own idols. Submission to Christ was the most important aspect of the Christian life.
From this point, the 18-year-old Jacob would begin a long journey through a multitude of denominations, traditions, and backgrounds. Some, I had the pleasure of experiencing personally, others from afar.
My next post will focus on the fact that I have no true denominational home. I value the perspectives and emphases I have encountered, even those I disagree with, but this one thing that Eric Ludy emphasized sticks with me: “Christ and him crucified.” That’s the message of the coming Kingdom. The King came, and the King died, and now the King has been rightfully exalted in the Heavens. We owe him our submission, and yet, he graciously and gently leads us to be found by him.
I hope that this blog series helps you see how Jesus has gently led me to his side in nearly every area of my life. May you know the God who loves his creation so much that instead of removing it from existence, he chooses to humble himself and subject himself to our brutality by going to the cross. In doing so, he proves that no matter our sin, he overcomes the grave and overcomes the harm we’ve done and endured.
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