Recovered

by Robby Gallaty

  For the next twenty-four hours, I wept, I prayed, I owned my wretchedness, and I called out to God. I told him that Stockbroker Robby wasn’t good enough; DJ Robby and Jiu-Jitsu Robby weren’t good enough; none of the Robbys were good enough.

  If I understood this thing correctly, only Jesus was good enough. I had detoxed myself, carrying the burden of my drug addiction. I suffered, I made it through, but Detox Robby wasn’t good enough, either. I’d felt nothing but emptiness at the end of it all. Only Jesus could carry that burden, and he carried it on the cross. For the first time, I realized it was my sin that Jesus bore on the cross.

  So many of Jeremy’s explanations came back to me now, as if they’d been seeds planted in hard ground and were just now finally breaking through the dry soil of my understanding.

  The only other thing I can tell you about that night is that it was a highly supernatural experience. I think I felt like the apostle Paul may have when he described Jesus showing him the third heaven (2 Cor. 12:2–4). It was just for me, so words will not convey what took place.

  For every one of God’s children, it will be different. I only knew he had invaded my life, once and for all, and that nothing could ever be the same again.

  I must have dozed off at five in the morning, and when I woke up, a few hours later, I realized everything was different. My emptiness had been filled to the brim, and joy was flowing over the sides.

  Immediately I had the idea to write down my prayers, to journal them, and I recorded them furiously, almost scratching through the paper with my pen. The words that were swirling in my mind were Be still and trust in me. It was only later that I came across Psalm 46:10, “Be still, and know that I am God” (esv). I’m sure I’d never heard those words before, but now they came to me and filled me and molded me. I was the least “still” person I knew. My mantra had been, “If it’s meant to be, it’s up to me.” On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d gone after everything at 11.

  But now God was telling me, “Stop. Just stop. You be still and trust me.” It was indeed meant to be, but it was up to him. I felt he was teaching me dependence, faith, and the idea of abiding in him, though abiding was another concept I hadn’t yet discovered.

  Looking back, I realize I was abounding in ignorance. But the Spirit of God was with me now, and finally I felt the wind at my back.

  Drugs were never my problem; drugs were only the symptom. Ultimately, there’s one true addiction and only one path to breaking free from it.

  In John 8, Jesus told a group of people that anyone who sins is a slave to sin. But “if the Son sets you free, you really will be free” (v. 36). I had been a slave to sin. Sin was the problem. And I needed more than detox. I needed the Son of God, Jesus Christ, to set me free.

  And now, he had.

  I believed I had broken through, or more precisely, someone had broken through on my behalf. God did for me what I was incapable of doing for myself. He set me free from the bondage that had shackled me for years.

  That bright morning I walked into the kitchen with a big smile on my face, and there was Dad, sitting at the breakfast table. He looked up and said, “What are you so happy about?”

  “God is calling me into the ministry to be a preacher, Dad!”

  I was a bit surprised to hear those words come out of my mouth, but I realized that, yes, this was what I was feeling. This wasn’t just about being a believer—God had specific plans for me. I was sure of that. When you’ve had a burning bush experience like I’d just had, you have to do something with it. Silence is not an option.

  Dad studied me for a moment, trying to figure out if I was still on drugs, but he saw that I was dead serious. His brow wrinkled and he said, “You’re going to be a priest? How will you ever get married, if you do that?”

  “No, Dad,” I laughed. “Not a priest. A preacher!”

  I realized he had no frame of reference for what I was talking about. In the Catholic environment I grew up in, crazy, Road-to-Damascus conversions weren’t typical. There were priests on a pedestal above, and then there was everybody else.

  It would be a while before Dad really grasped what I was talking about, before he saw that his son had been set on fire.

  Somehow I was going to be a preacher. God had stuff for me to do. Time to go figure out what it was.

  Chapter 13

  Baby Steps

  The day after I committed my life to Jesus, I found my Bible on the shelf, dusted it off, and sat down to read it with new eyes.

  I thumbed through the huge volume. There were hundreds of pages of tiny print, made up of smaller books with names like Leviticus and Lamentations, Obadiah and Ephesians. History, psalms, prophesies—where was the section for beginners?

  I thought about the songs I’d learned in our Christian band, back in my college days. I could remember all the words, but they didn’t offer much guidance to a new believer. I prayed, but I wasn’t even sure how to do that. My go-to prayer had been, “Please don’t send me to hell.” Even I knew there was more to it than that.

  What should I say to God? How would I hear what he said to me?

  I guess most of all I needed someone to talk to about the whole thing. My life felt different, but I didn’t know any truly committed followers of Jesus. I had lots of energy and lots of questions. Still, I knew I was at peace, filled with hope, and deeply grateful to be forgiven. The turmoil and desperation were gone, and it felt like the quiet after a storm. It was time to reboot my life.

  I had to start with what I knew for sure: My old lifestyle was done—finished. My old friends would encourage my old habits. Besides, once drugs were taken out of the equation, what did I really have in common with that crowd? Not much. I’d even dumped my whole music collection in the trash.

  My old friends began to call, one by one. They’d heard the rumor, but they wanted to hear it from me. Word on the street was that I’d had some freaky conversion experience. I wasn’t Robby anymore—at least the Robby they knew.

  “It’s true. I accepted Christ,” I told my friend Rick. “My life is completely changed, and God is calling me into the ministry.”

  “Really, Robby? You, of all people, a Jesus freak? You can’t be serious.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Robby, we never had a question about who you were. You had our trust. This is nuts.”

  “You can still trust me, Rick. I’m more trustworthy now. I’m just no longer interested in getting high.”

  “Couple of guys are saying you’ve turned informant. That you’re an undercover cop. You gonna rat us out?”’

  “You know better than that, Rick. I wouldn’t hurt my friends—not in a million years. You guys are family to me. Don’t you remember all those times we talked about getting clean? I’ve done it now, that’s all. I’d love for all you guys to do it, too, but I’m no cop, and I’ve talked to no cops. You’ve got my word on that.”

  Conversations like this went on and on with different friends. I wasn’t trusted now, and maybe that was for the best. My bridges were burned to the ground. As a new Christian, I was on an island.

  Most people become Christians in some kind of social context. Friends lead them to Christ, as Jeremy had once tried to do with me. But I was all by myself when God broke through.

  For about two weeks, I read my Bible the best I could, and now I knew what to pray for: “God, send me somebody. Give me a guide to help me walk this new path.” I knew I needed to be involved in a church, but it had to be the kind where believers were excited and alive. There were scores of churches around, so I had no idea where to go.

  Then one day I got a call from Julie, right out of the blue. She was one of a group of four girls who were my close friends during our college days. We hadn’t talked since then.

  “Hey, Robby!” she said. “Are you still alive?”

  “Looks that way,” I laughed.
“It’s great to hear from you, Julie. Any reason I shouldn’t be alive?”

  “Yeah, based on the way you were going at Carey. We wondered how long you were going to last.”

  “You were right. And it got worse.” I told her about the car wreck, my addiction, my trips to rehab. It was much worse than she knew, but all that craziness was behind me.

  “I dug myself as deep a hole as you can dig. . . . Then I found Jesus, just in the last few weeks. And actually he’s calling me into the ministry.”

  Julie shouted into the phone, “What?”

  “I said I’ve—”

  “I heard what you said! But, I mean—what? We’ve been praying for you. So I don’t know why I’m so surprised. It’s just—so awesome! And lately, I’ve just had this strong feeling I needed to call you.”

  “And I’ve been praying you’d call me—you or somebody who could tell me what to do.”

  “Well, come to our Bible study, Robby! That’s what you should do. You’ll love it! I’ll hook you up with a bunch of other people who really love God, especially T-Bone. He can answer all your questions.”

  I knew a lot of T-Bones—none of them were guys I thought could teach me about Jesus. But God had more surprises around the corner for me.

  I showed up on the campus of the University of New Orleans to study the Bible. Julie met me there and introduced me to this guy named Tony Merida, who was a little short of a T-bone in physical stature—more like a sirloin steak. But in every other way, this guy was a beast.

  When we sat down to study the Bible, Tony began to teach those chapters and verses in a way I didn’t even know was possible. The pages of my Bible came to life.

  This was nothing like the cut-and-dried religion I knew from childhood. It was all about real life, daily decisions, getting along with other people, handling the problem of sin, and how to connect with God in the midst of all this. I was spellbound for an hour.

  After it was over, T-Bone said, “Hey, man, can I invite you to my church?” It took me about one second to accept. Like most new believers, I was ravenous for knowledge and guidance, and I knew he and I were going to become good friends.

  His church was called Edgewater Baptist Church. I pulled into the parking lot on the following Sunday, dressed exactly the way I was used to walking into nightclubs: black pants, black shirt, hair slicked back with lots of hairspray and gel. So here came a six-six gangster into the sanctuary. I imagine some of the deacons were keeping an eye on me when the offering plate went around.

  I began to grow through fellowship with other Christians and Bible study, but something else happened. Just about then our case was finally settled in court, and we won. I’d been receiving preliminary monthly payments, but now I was awarded a $150,000 check. Now I wasn’t only a Christian—I was a rich Christian. And the first thing I did was to hurry over to the Cadillac showroom and buy a brand-new Caddy, with cash. Black on black was my choice. I had the car fully customized.

  I lowered my new CTS to the ground, installed 20-inch chrome Katana rims and tires, Borla exhaust, body kit, spoiler, wood grain trim, and a $9,000 custom stereo system. No one had seen anything like it, since it was hot off the assembly line. With my modifications, it looked like the Batmobile—at least that’s what people called it.

  Baby Christians take baby steps. It’s been proven over and over. They’re excited, eager, and not quite as far along the path of maturity as they think. They tend to see everything that happens as a text message from heaven. For example, I figured that if I immediately received a huge sum of cash, right after becoming a Christian, it could only be a massive high-five from the Lord.

  I was new at this thing. It would never have occurred to me that money isn’t always a blessing. It’s more likely to be a test. It certainly was in my case.

  It was a lifelong dream to own a brand-new Cadillac, but the way I saw it, why couldn’t it be a four-wheel billboard for God? I could drive around town, attract a lot of eyeballs, and say, “Look what God has done in my life, folks!”

  Me and God—together, there was nothing the two of us couldn’t do.

  Did I mention I was new at this thing? And that I rush into new passions with excess enthusiasm?

  With much sounder wisdom, I invested in five wrecked cars, carefully chosen. The idea was to fix them up at Dad’s shop and sell them for a profit. It was a nice way to turn some of the money into an investment. This left me with $28,000 that went into my bank account.

  So I had a lot going on. But there was still wondering when I was going to start preaching. Others would have seen that as a goal to work toward; I saw it as an urgent task to rush into.

  Every night I prayed, “Lord, you’ve called me to preach, but no one’s asked me yet. I don’t have a pastor for a dad, and I barely know any Christians, so how’s this going to happen?”

  At that moment, I remembered: You don’t have a sermon ready even if someone asks you to preach. You don’t know the first thing about preaching, not to mention the second thing!

  Still, I felt God wanted me to preach. I just needed material.

  I turned on the local Christian radio station, Lifesongs, and listened to four different preachers—Alistair Begg, Charles Stanley, Michael Youseff, and John MacArthur. I took notes on their content and style while working at my father’s Collision Center during the day. They were so powerful in their delivery, yet I could believe God had equipped me to communicate like this.

  I’d done well with Network Marketing, the “Closer’s Corner,” and as a DJ. It was all about connecting with people. The big difference was that it was no longer entertainment. The message was about the only things in life that really mattered. I felt I could do this.

  I sat down to write a sermon, using the story of Jesus and the two thieves on the cross from Luke 23. It was a story that really touched me. Jesus was crucified between two thieves, one of them cursing him, the other one showing true faith and asking Jesus to remember him in heaven. It was a great way to share the gospel; one of those men was doomed, while the other would live forever in eternity. I could explain the significance of the cross, tell about those two men and their attitudes, and ask, “Which one are you?”

  The following week, a man walked up to me at Celebration Church, where I had started attending on Saturday nights, and asked, “Robby, are you a preacher?”

  I said, “As a matter of fact, yes, I’m a preacher.” It didn’t occur to me that it’s probably good to have preached at least once before identifying yourself as a preacher, but I was confident I had been called by God.

  He told me about the church’s downtown mission, the Brantley Baptist Center. “We feed and shelter people on the streets. Volunteers make the whole thing work—meals, maintenance, preaching. Homeless folks come in and receive a meal. In addition to getting fed physically, they get fed spiritually through the Word, so we’re always looking for someone to come and bring a message. Would you come next week and preach?”

  God had heard my prayer.

  I told my parents the next day, “Guess what? I’m going to preach at a church service downtown.” They looked at me and wondered one more time if I was on drugs again. They’d been through a few whiplash-turn changes of direction with me, but this one was a bit much. They knew all about priests, but they didn’t know one who’d recently been a drug dealer.

  I invited them to come hear me, and of course they did, incredibly curious to see what happened when their son stood up to deliver a sermon. My parents had come dressed in the clothing they’d wear to their own church—slacks, button up shirt, and Florsheims for Dad—and there we were, surrounded by seventy-five homeless people.

  It was my trial run; I had no idea what I was doing. What I did have was my story—what it was like to be a two-time slave to drug addiction, and how Jesus had rescued me. I told it all.

  When I gave an i
nvitation, seven men stood up with tears in their eyes, came forward, and gave their lives to Christ. You could sense the Lord’s presence in a palpable way. I was thrilled and thankful. For me it was the confirmation that this was what God wanted me to do with the rest of my life.

  I celebrated with those new believers, prayed with them, then caught up with my parents in the parking lot. My dad pulled me off to the side and said, “Son, that was very good. But if I were you, I wouldn’t talk publicly about your drug past. I don’t think anyone should hear about that.”

  “Dad, I know it seems strange. But you have to understand that my past isn’t something to hide. It’s my story. It shows how great God is, to change someone as messed up as me. The story is all I have, and you see how it can touch people.” He still seemed doubtful.

  I preached again at the Brantley Center. My parents showed up again. This time a man stepped forward afterward to shake my hand. His face was worn and tattered, but he looked vaguely familiar somehow. He said, “Robby, you may not remember me, but I used to be married to Dr. Casey.”

  Then it all came together. I had once bought all those drugs from Dr. Casey at her all-night clinic. She had a husband who was a police officer and part of her protection. Of course he’d become very wealthy from the scam they had going on. My dad and I had gotten to know him when we fixed up his wrecked BMW, as part of our deal—though Dad had never suspected the real arrangement. To him, it was just another job.

  The husband had gotten addicted to drugs himself, as did so many others who got caught up in that world. He’d lost everything, and now here he was, homeless, getting a meal and hearing a sermon at the Brantley Center with other hurting souls. My sermon had meant something to him.

  “I appreciate what you’ve shared tonight,” he said. “For the first time in years, I feel hopeful, seeing all that God is doing in you.”

  And it was then, for the first time, that it all clicked for my parents. They understood that what I was doing was not another one of their son’s fads. This was real. This was something that had turned my life around, and it could do that for other people, too. They’d seen it with their own eyes. Here was a shady cop, one they’d met, who had also been to the bottom like me. And now, by the serendipity of God’s grace, his path and mine crossed under such different circumstances. Now Mom and Dad understood.