My fellow precious creation of God,
My name is Matt Gartner, and I am a wretched human being who God saved from a life of folly, emptiness, anxiety, pain, and fear. I would like to share my story with you, so that you might see the hope and joy that I now have.
I spent over 40 years of my life searching for fulfillment—in the admiration of others, in money, in possessions, and in sexual pursuits. In my search, I stole from, lied to, manipulated, and used others to get what I wanted. When I got what I wanted, I felt elated and believed I had received what I needed to be happy, but it never lasted. The next day only brought a new set of worries, about whether something or someone, would take away what I had built—my possessions, career, friends, respect, and self-esteem. At the same time, I believed I was a good person—That I was loving and better than the people who stole from me, lied to me, and used me. I couldn’t see how I was just like them. However, today I recognize that this is the Human nature we are all born with—the inner desire to satisfy ourselves and to seek our own fulfillment.
As a child, I naturally wanted to belong, and so my nature led me to mold my outward image to be included and admired by others—I became what everyone seemed to want, so that I could get what I wanted. I did my best to dress like they did, to listen to the same music, to watch the same movies, to hate the same things, and to like the same things. We called each other friends, but our friendships only lasted so long as we satisfied the desires we each had. I realize now, that because of the nature we are all born with, we cloak our self-centered needs in euphemisms like friendship that cover our underlying selfishness, to obtain material, physical, and emotional benefits from each other. It sounds cynical, but if we study our friendships, we’ll see how true it is—We have no friendship or relationship with others unless they do something for us.
Many might also say that this is how it is—that we “go along to get along.” Yet, if going along to get along doesn’t achieve lasting fulfillment or true friendship, then what is the point? When I finally thought I had attained happiness, there always appeared some new thing that made me unhappy with who I was or what I had. My life was like a fish that had to swim extra hard to get a bit upriver (winning), had to keep swimming just to stay where I was (status quo), and if I struggled to swim (troubles) or if someone took away my happiness, I found myself being pushed downstream by the current (I was losing). There was no peace in my life. I realize now that only God can move us to true friendship.
I was raised with a belief in God, the all-powerful and all-knowing creator of the Universe, but the God I learned about was really just another entity to be pleased in exchange for benefits. To me, God was no different than a peer or parent who would abandon or scold me for doing what they didn’t like, or who would take their love away if I didn’t satisfy their demands. I saw God as judgmental, hard, and merciless, and I came to hate Him because of the human religion He had been painted by. I wish I had understood the true God then, for that knowledge would have saved me from decades of folly and pain in my life.
As I grew tired of the never-ending demands of image-making, and of the warped view of God I had followed, I recall letting go of myself. I allowed my hygiene to become poor—I had greasy hair, body odor, and bad breath. I became an outcast to those who seemed happy to play the game, but I realize now, that they were no different than me because they too were driven by their desires for popularity and esteem. Outwardly they seemed happy, but like me, they compromised themselves continually in the hope of achieving acceptance and fulfillment.
I envied and hated the popular, wealthy, and good-looking kids who rejected me and decided I would become fantastically rich so that I could have revenge on those who had excluded me. I wouldn’t have to work again, and my wealth would give me the value, power, and admiration I had been denied. I spent my nights in my pre-teen years struggling to learn how to code computer games that were good enough to sell commercially. However, I was not successful because I lacked the discipline and perseverance to succeed. Still desiring fulfillment, I turned to a peer group of other disillusioned teens, to the use of alcohol and drugs, and to the pursuit of sex to fulfill my need to feel like I was worthwhile and in control.
Every weekend, from when I was 15 years old and through college, I got drunk and did drugs to overcome my sense of anxiety and inadequacy and drove drunk every night I was behind the wheel. On multiple occasions I didn’t even recall coming home. I bragged how “wasted” I got, pretending I had found happiness in what I was doing. In high school, when the money I had wasn’t enough to pay for the night’s activities, I siphoned gas and stole car stereos from unsuspecting strangers. I went out night after night with other teens to parties and bars in the search for sex to finally prove I was somebody worthwhile. This pattern went on throughout these years, and eventually I did find girls who were willing to have sex, but even then, it was still not enough. I can see now that their lives were equally empty, and they sought self-esteem in the affections of boys. We both turned to the valuelessness of false relationships and to the temporary escape of drugs and alcohol, in the vain hope of feeling completeness and happiness, which can only be found in God. Like the fish in the river, I clung to the desire to be a winner, and not satisfied with losing that feeling, I continued to seek out self-worth from others.
In my teen years, I also hated how I looked because of the taunting of my peers and my apparent rejection by girls. At one point, I attempted to break my nose with the help of a friend using a metal bar and a hammer, in the mistaken belief it could be set so that it wasn’t as large or curved. Thankfully, I only ended up concussed and bruised. I can see now that I sought my self-worth in the value ascribed by others, and that in their own lack of self-worth, they belittled me to feel better about themselves. I also belittled others to feel superior to them and I recall joining in with others, calling a girl named Melissa, “Medusa” because of her recurring cold sores. How damaging to her it must have been. In these years, I contemplated suicide on multiple occasions, but I can see now it was my dependance on others for my self-worth that led me devalue myself to the point of despair. I was precious in the eyes of God, but I didn’t see it.
After I graduated high school, I started working by cleaning cars at a rental car business and hating the prospect of having to work for a living, I sought out the easiest, most comfortable, and most lucrative career I could think of—software developer. My parents paid for me to go to college in Calgary and after two more years of partying, drugs, and sexual pursuits at their expense, I graduated. During this time, my dad, unaware of how I was wasting their money, had to take a job a few hundred kilometers from where I was, so that he and my mom could pay for my wasteful living. I remember one Friday night my dad came to visit after working all week. Incredibly, shortly after he arrived, I got ready to go out with a friend, with the intention of leaving the man who sacrificed so much for me and who came to visit me, there alone. Only as I walked toward the door to leave, did I realize what I was doing. I broke down in tears, came back, apologized, and hugged my dad. I can see now that my selfish heart denied so much then, and that instead of finding true redemption in this moment, I purposed all the more to find wealth, so that I could stop leaching off those around me. I would fix my problem, not with a new heart, but with more money.
I worked in various computer-related jobs at the start of my 20s, but none of them seemed to use or recognize the full talents I had, nor provide a sense of fulfillment. I stopped relying upon my parent’s money, but my life was never enough. I still sought fulfillment in alcohol, drugs, sex, and money. One night, while slowly driving down a back alley between bars, a drunk person sucker punched me through the window of my car for no apparent reason. At the time, I brushed it off, but the safety and control I felt in my life was damaged. People could hurt me for no reason at all and I was powerless to stop them. After this I more and more retreated away from the world. I became scared and anxious that others would reject or hurt me, and I now “worked” to make every social interaction positive. At stop lights, and even at home with the blinds open, I felt like people were watching me—not with admiration, but with hostility toward me if I looked at them for more than a split second. I spent more and more time smoking marijuana, avoiding social situations and the draining anxious effort they involved. Today, I realize that the person who punched me was no worse than me—We were both fulfilling our selfish desire for power and control in our lives. He simply chose violence because he had big arms, instead of the mental manipulation I had chosen. If I had had large muscles, I too would have used them for whatever purpose suited me—attracting women, beating others.
For nearly 10 years afterward, I spent my days and nights outside of my day job trying to make myself rich. I smoked marijuana, a recluse in a house with the blinds drawn, working on project after project that never seemed to reach completion. I hated my career, the work-like social situations, and the never-ending professional prostitution I felt like I was engaged in. I desired to escape from reality, and by living in an unreality, I found a numb place with a never-ending dream of glory. Today, I realize that it was not a dream, but a nightmare—I wasted the best years of my young life in a trap that had forgone the enjoyment of living for the promise of riches that were never realized.
After these fruitless years, you would think I would recognize my folly, but instead, I only saw that my time to become rich and fulfilled was that much shorter. To recoup the lost years of living, I added to my evenings of drug-numbed, flatlined living, the search for young women who I felt I had missed out on having sex with when I was younger. I began to lie about myself to women I met, and realized I could emotionally manipulate them into having sex with me. Having discovered this elusive formula for success, I was elated—The chameleon personality I had built since my youth could finally pay off with just a few lies. I met a young women who had just graduated from high school. I bought her gifts and spent time with her, and she fell in love with me, but I did not love her. I liked her, but I knew I was not in love. In a short time, she gave me the most personal gift she had, her virginity, in the false hope of a loving relationship.
My conscience ate away at me because I knew what I was doing was wrong. I confessed to her that I didn’t love her and that our relationship could be nothing more. She left my home in tears and I swore I would never do that again. I had broken her heart, damaged her trust, and I was still empty. I never saw her again. I can see now that we both had the same desire for fulfillment. However, my selfish nature led me to hope that sex without genuine commitment would lead to my fulfillment, while her nature led her to believe that sex without genuine commitment, would lead to genuine commitment. The fulfillment we desired can only come from true, selfless love which only God can move us to. In the months that followed, I decided to seek out a real, genuine relationship and God led me to meet my future wife, although at this time I didn’t believe in God, nor see how my life was led by my failed human nature.
Today, I recognize, that although I had been moved to seek a genuine relationship, my ambition and desire for money destroyed the ability to realize one—My relationships were simply to provide emotional support while I rode out the storms on the way to my dream of riches. Still, God sustained the new relationship I had found. My wife and I married in 2001, and we had two children, who changed my focus from myself to their welfare, but instead of seeing how much my wife needed a husband, and my children needed a father, I saw only the greater need for wealth and riches to find fulfillment for not only me, but them as well. I spent most of the years of their young lives, going to work, returning home in the evening, “giving” them an hour of my time before their bedtime, and then working into the night on my next great effort to find riches. Today, I so regret the lost time and moments we could have shared in their most formative years. I was a fool who threw away what had value for the same valueless existence I had lived every year of my life.
God intervened in my unfulfilled life, when in 2010, through my wife, He moved me to attend a little church in a nearby town. My wife’s faith, the pastor’s words, and ultimately the power of God’s spirit, led me to desire to know more about God. I bought a study Bible with the most literal translation I could find and read every page of it over the next two years to find out who the true God was. The God I came to believe in from reading the Bible wasn’t the merciless, hateful God I had known in my childhood, and I realized I had spent the past 15 years hating Him because of human error.
In 2010, my professional career also began to take off, and for the next two years I experienced success after success. I had everything I had previously wanted—money, admiration, and control. I went from being a lowly IT tech, to simultaneously fulfilling both the top roles on a multi-million dollar project—lead business analyst and lead technical analyst. In essence, I was the project. My childhood dream of showing myself and everyone else, the “superiority” I possessed, was finally coming true. Where once I had a manager, I now had Vice-Presidents in a multi-billion-dollar company taking direction from me. My ego swelled, and I began to connect my faith in God with my success, to believe that I was a true believer who God was rewarding with wealth, admiration, and control. In my conceit, I was oblivious to my wretched condition.
However, in the years that followed, God showed me the truth, not by building upon the arrogance, self-dependence, and selfishness of who I was, but by stripping me of these things to reveal His true power. In 2012, at the peak of my career, I thought I was a good Christian, but the truth is, I was a hypocrite who went to a church while coupling my past ambitions and desires with lip service to Jesus. The churches I went to offered belonging but I couldn’t see how truly distant we were from each other, and from the trueness to God declared in the Bible. I still spent my days and nights attempting to be rich, ignorant of what the Bible really taught. I made well over $100K per year in my work, and it was still not enough. Having worked so many years in my spare time, having sacrificed time with my family, and having become arrogant, I doubled down on my folly and decided to quit my job to build an invention that would finally make us truly wealthy.
For almost two years, while I worked on the invention, our family lived on a credit line until one day the credit ran out and the invention had yet to see the light of day. Saddled with massive debt at the beginning of an economic downturn, there was no option to return to the work I had previously done, and so we decided to start a business. We spent the next seven years living on the edge of bankruptcy—Where we once ate steak, we now ate hot dogs and struggled to pay our bills and the bank’s interest charges. In any month that we fell short, we added to our debt with credit cards until they too were maxxed out. Despite the business growing, we saw almost all of our money paid out to creditors for the interest alone—Paying the principal was but a dream.
In these seven years, I believe God led me to true faith in Him by taking away my false hope and replacing it with treasure that had true value. I thank God now, that He took away the false comfort of money and the endless unfulfillment of selfishness to show me how worthless my life had been. He changed my heart each month from one of pride and ambition, to one of humility and contentment. Each month, for those seven years, we faced losing our home and I prayed to God to help us have the money to pay our debt interest, our bills, and to buy groceries, and each month we did.
Then one day, I read a passage from the Bible, and instead of praying for the money to pay our bills, I was moved to pray to God to give me the faith to believe that His power, and not mine, is what sustains us—To see that He was the one who preserved me through all the foolishness of my past. He willingly gave me that faith. From that day forward, I felt the genuine peace that had been missing my entire life. I truly put my life in God’s hands, where it belonged all along. I finally saw that God was in control, not me, and that my purpose in life was His, not mine. I stopped trying to swim against the current, and instead let God carry me to wherever He wanted me to be. The world might consider me a loser, but I had found the treasure that nobody could take away.
We continued to live near bankruptcy for a further year until God sent a neighbor who, unaware of our situation, offered to buy some of our land that we were led to believe years before was worth very little. The sale of this land paid the debt we had, and I truly believe God hid the solution to our financial troubles from us in order to give us faith in Him. I thank Him for leading us through that dark valley for seven years, to show us the true light.
Today, I wake up each morning with the peace and assurance that God will lead me wherever He wishes me to go, for His greater purpose, whether it seems good or bad from a human perspective. God wills that we would live each day, not seeking the fleeting assurance the world gives us, one that fails continually as history so clearly demonstrates, but instead seeking to live under His providence and truth that never fails.
I still have difficult times and I still fail to be true to God and myself. I even doubt that God exists sometimes. That is my human nature, as I mentioned earlier. However, even in my weak faith, God has saved me from a life of futility and has given me the truth that sets me free, to find true happiness in Him and who He intended me to be. I no longer need to pretend to be somebody I’m not, nor fear evil, nor seek the approval of mankind. My life isn’t filled with the endless, anxious pursuit of happiness through money, power, lies, and pleasure. Instead, it is filled with the peace that I will have everything God wishes me to have. The world can fall apart, but it is God who moves me where He wants me to be, not the world. The world and death no longer have power over me, so long as God is my strength. This is the reason I wrote this testimony—God set me free, and seeing the compassion He has shown me, I want you to be set free too!
Even in my naturally wicked, fallen nature, God still loves me and desires friendship with me. He loves you and desires friendship with you too. He created the universe for us, and then He created us, His beloved children, in His own perfect image, giving us an eternal soul and mind capable of a relationship with Him, unlike any creature.
Yet, in the Garden of Eden, mankind chose to abandon friendship with God and place our faith in ourselves, in our own power. Every human being since has been born separated from God, separated from living eternally with Him, free to die in our own powerlessness and selfishness. Although we know deep down that God exists by the amazing world and universe around us, that is beyond our power to create or even understand the origin of, we still deny this reality so as not to face the truth that we are essentially powerless. Instead, we choose to believe in the hope that one day we will be as powerful as gods—yet, as history shows, we are more likely to destroy and enslave each other, and we are left with the fact that we all inevitably die.
I have come to see, that in our separation from friendship with God, we inevitably lie, steal, cheat, manipulate, and even murder to seek the most control over our short lives—we commit evil acts in the hope of achieving fulfillment. Yet, God is like a patient parent, lovingly holding out His arms, to heal us and save us from the struggles in our lives that we continually deny. The Bible teaches us that by the time our bodies die here on earth, we must be God’s friend again, or we will be eternally separated from Him. God cannot be a friend to those who treat Him as an enemy, just as we are not friends to our enemies—They are logical opposites that cannot be together. What people call “Hell” is in fact an eternal state of separation from God. It is to never achieve what we seek for ourselves here on earth—Good, truth, and justice. These things cannot be achieved without God. Imagine never seeing good, truth, or justice ever again—that is hell, and we already see glimpses of it every day of our lives.
However, God in His love for us, does not want us to be His enemy nor see us eternally separated from Him—He wants to be our comfort and light, to save us from living in folly and darkness here on earth and eternally. God knew we would abandon Him, and yet He still created us. Knowing this, He planned before the world was even created, to give His only son Jesus Christ, to be born a human and walk among us, and to receive the death sentence we deserve for our evil acts, so that we could be seen as a friend to God again. Jesus never did evil throughout his entire life—he didn’t do anything to merit execution, and yet he gave his life for us.
Imagine that…would we give up our life to make an enemy our friend again? After paying the debt for our evil acts by dying on a cross, Jesus was raised from the dead by God, his Father, the first human to be raised to eternal life, fulfilling the promise to restore us to eternal life. We overcome death too if we believe in His son Jesus:
16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. 18 He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. John 3:16-18
By believing in Jesus, God gives us a new nature—His spirit, which opens our eyes and transforms our lives from turmoil to joy, so we can see Him, He can again be our friend, and we can live eternally in the light with Him. When we appear to others to die on earth, we will not be dead, but raised up to new life, by the power of God who made the universe and raised His son from the dead to new life. Jesus overcame death. By believing in Jesus, and living in him, all the lies we place our faith in that fail us will be replaced with the truth and power of God which never fails—Joy and peace will no longer elude us, and we will be reunited with God from that time on.
My fellow precious creation of God, I hope you see in my story how failed and broken a human being I am. I am no better than you and it is only by God’s mercy that I heard Him calling me to Him, to find the truth that set me free. I pray that you would hear God calling you to believe in His son Jesus Christ, to eternal life, to never-failing truth, to leave behind the futility and deception of our own power, and instead place your faith in the true power of the universe, God.
Your fellow precious creation of God,
Matt Gartner
p.s. If you have any questions or just want to talk, I can be reached at (403) 325-6150, or by email at matt@godlovesu.ca . I don’t have all the answers, but God does, and with His help, I will do my best to help you find them.