NATE WHITTEN
My Testimony : My Purpose
Some would say that I left the faith for 25 years. I would say that my faith was taken from me. My old friends assumed that I chose the path of the deceiver. I would say I chose to believe their distorted message of Jesus to condemn me. The indoctrination of the church as a Preacher’s Kid, all throughout Bible College, and eventually as the Senior Pastor in a Pentecostal denomination in Arizona, served to reinforce the idea that there had to be something wrong with me. I was once called “anointed”, but overnight I was deemed an apostate.
So, I agreed to be what they said I was. Surprisingly, I encountered so many others, who like me had felt rejected by the church; hopeless, but still hopeful that there could still be a place for them in the family of God. We had all believed the wrong story of what God had wanted us to be.
Even still, through those years I struggled with my desire for a God that would not abandon me. I studied world religions; that path led me to Jesus. I studied divinatory arts; this path led me to Jesus. I studied energy healing; and even that path led me to Jesus. All my searching for a connection to God kept leading me back to a Jesus I believed wouldn’t accept me, although I desired a relationship with Him. I sang worship songs and listened to Christian podcasts in secret. Too embarrassed to let anyone know that I still had faith in a Jesus whom they told me had given me over to a reprobate mind.
Then, in late 2025, I finally gave up. Not on the God who had created me, but I gave up on believing the religious spirit I had been raised up in for validation of my relationship with Jesus. I decided that I would once again enter a church without shame of how God had created me. Not to prove any point, not to be a disruptor, not to change anyone’s mind - but to once again experience the presence of God and to reclaim my faith. To worship again. I won’t lie, it was hard, and sometimes still is. But in all I have experienced I couldn’t deny that all roads kept bringing me back to the One who created me and called me.
If any of this resonates with you but you are afraid to be rejected by the church, believe with me Jesus' answer to his disciples when they asked how anyone could be saved, is true, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26 (NIV).
Trust in God! The scars and trauma of spiritual abuse and church hurt that you’ve suffered can be healed and released!