Massimo couldn't find fulfillment, even in the best things that this world had to offer. However, the love that he experienced from God through other people opened up an entirely new way to live that he previously hadn't considered.
You know, our culture
the way we're supposed to find happiness. It was like something that I was lacking. I wasn’t able to find that fulfillment,
that happiness. And so for me,
what that led me to do in my, you know, my search for happiness
and fulfillment and purpose was, you know, I ended up kind of doing
what our culture said in the beginning. I pursued what our culture would call the, you know, party life, the college life. And I went really hard in that, you know, I would go from Ohio
to South Beach, Miami to Dallas, Texas. I would I would attend, you
know, exclusive events, exclusive parties, big parties.
And the more and more I did them, the more I realized that
it was actually kind of getting boring, that it wasn't as fun,
it wasn't as fulfilling at the end of the day
or the end of the night. You know,
I was kind of just felt filled with regrets, boredom, you know, just all I had left
And remember, that night was a hangover. It wasn't actually much left. And those nights.
And so I ended up
kind of moving on from that. I ended up moving on
from that crazy party life. And I started pursuing sports. During that time,
I had really dedicated myself to boxing. I'd been doing it for like a decade. I had pursued boxing so much to the point
where I actually was offered a professional contract this one point of
my life was like a movie. It was two weeks of just crazy life
that you would see in a movie. You know, I had
I had boxing in which I won fights.
And then I went on a crazy partying streak
for like two weeks, flying down to South Beach, flying back to Ohio, partying
every day, drinking everyday drugs, you know, whatever you want to call you,
uppers, downers, stimulants, enhancers. One night stands, things like that. And it was everything
that a man of our culture could want. You know, everything
our culture, everything you see in the movies was like,
This is a man, this is him. This is what it means to be a man. I found that at the end of that night,
if that was the peak, right, that was that was an absolute peak
that it was I was disappointed with it.
I was like, this is what
this is what our culture has to offer. This is supposed to be the best. And yet it wasn't enough. It was ultimately really disheartening. I, I felt really lost. You know, this is what our culture
promised was good. This is what society said was good. And yet it wasn't fulfilling. It wasn't that the happiness,
the satisfaction I thought that I was going to get from
it wasn't nearly enough. And that was hard because the times
where I felt those feelings before was simply just kind of pushed away by
You just need to do it more. You haven't done enough,
you haven't you haven't drank enough, you haven't party enough,
you haven't slept around enough. And yet that was if there was there
was no getting better than that two weeks and it wasn't that, it wasn't everything
it was supposed to be.
And so that, that, you know, that messed me up
because I realized that I was going to die one day and I
what would I have to show for it? You know, all the things I experienced,
they would fade away. All the achievements
I had, the medals I had, whatever it was they would, they would fade
and then nothing. They would turn to dust.
I would turn to dust. And that that freaked me out. That that scared me a lot. Was dying.
You know, I lost so much sleep for months,
you know, staying awake at night, thinking about that, thinking about, you know, what is
what is the purpose of my life? You know what? Why am I here? What about death?
Is this really what it all is? And it led me that fear of dying
led me to really want to find the correct way to live
But I didn't know how to do that.
And so the first thing I decided I was going to do
is simply by being like a kinder of person. You know, during that time,
I really I really had disdain for people. Like, I honestly viewed myself
as better than a lot of people. And I had
you know, I had terrible relationships. My my life was very hectic based
on the party life and things like that. And so I was like, you know what? Maybe the first thing I should do
is kind of chill it. But at the end of the day,
after a while, I still realized that I felt like I was missing something. It's still didn’t answer the bigger questions.
Why am I here? What is my purpose? What about death? Is this Is this really the way
it's supposed to be?
And I thought about religion. I definitely thought about it. My but the thing that stopped me from religion for a while
was my experience with it. I my experience with the religion
and my opinions of it was that it was for like, self-righteous hypocrites
and people who are weak, people who, you know, spewed moral pleasantries
but couldn’t keep them, and then people
who cannot do anything on their own. And I was neither of those people
at that time. I was like, I know I am a bad person. I know I have done much wrong. And so why would I lie about that? And I also was too much of a man
to admit that I needed help. Like I'm not weak like these people. I don't need people's help. I can I can walk on my own two feet. I can carry the weight of the world.
If I have to. And so for me, the taste in my mouth was,
why would I want to be a part of this? Why would I want anything to do with this? If this is this is how they're supposed
to treat people, then this is
what God is supposed to be like. And this is telling me that God,
if there is a God, wants nothing to do with me, that I am too far
gone, that, you know, I am the scum of society,
that nobody wants to deal with.
God actually continued to pursue me
during this time. There were people who would come to me and actually ask me to go to the church
or maybe come to their Bible study. And I told all of them, no,
I wasn't interested. And there was a point in my life, though,
during that time where I decided that the next person
who asks me, I'm going to say yes. And the reason I decided to change
my mind was simply because what I had been doing
wasn't working right. You know, I've tried everything
and none of it has worked. None of it has been able to find the long fulfillment impact,
you know, security that I wanted. And so what did I have to lose?
And so I remember, you know, coming to that conclusion. And then shortly some time after that was
when God placed Nick in my life and we are in college classes together
was our last year of college together. I had never talked to him
before this moment. We've been in class for a while. I just didn't care to talk to him
and he would work out with me. We would go to the gym after class. We'd gone to sauna and him
and another classmate of mine, we would sit there and talk about God
or they would talk about God, and I would just kind of roll
my eyes at them and give them the finger. I was like, You guys are full of it. This is stupid, this is whatever. And despite hat, despite the attitude,
despite my appearance, despite the way I acted, Nick asked me,
Would you like to come to my Bible study? And I said, Yes, What do I have to lose?
And it was when I went to that Bible study was definitely the first time
that I started to see signs of God and things started to actually
click for me right away. The first time I sat under teaching,
where it was explained, where the Bible was actually read
from the book itself, and it was exposited, where it was talked
about, where people would discuss it. They gave, they gave reasons,
evidence, history behind the text, enough for me to be like, okay, this is
this is understandable. This is something I can get behind. It's not just somebody telling me,
you should do this thing, you should believe in this,
you should take this.
And just what I say and then the next thing
that really stood out to me at the Bible study was The fellowship of Believers,
like people who have a relationship with God getting together
and hanging out with each other. That was one of the most like, stark
contrast for me as I was at the Bible study. I remember looking around the room. I saw people of all different backgrounds,
cultures, ethnicities, people who were,
you know, broken, messed up. And it was odd
they actually cared about each other, the genuine authenticity they had. You know what? No matter how small the interaction,
it was like, you know, asking how somebody's life is going,
what's going on in their life. They weren't there to to just take for
themselves to be the center of attention. They weren't there to put on a fake façade and try and be the most popular person
there. They actually were there to care
about each other, to love each other. And that that is
one of the things I'd long for, right? A place where I could be myself, place
where I didn't have to put up like a bad, bad dude defense, where I had to try
and be something I didn't want to be.
It wasn't until Nick and I started reading about the life of Matthew
or the life of Paul, where Matthew used to be known as Levi,
and he was a tax collector. He was viewed
as like the scum of society, right? Nobody wanted anything to do with him
or Paul, who was a persecutor of Christians
who had murdered Christians at the time. And yet God said to both of them, like,
come and follow me. Like, you're going to do my will. You're going to work for me.
That that flipped the script for me. That flipped everything upside down. Now, that was the moment for me
where I fully understood what God had done
and that God wanted to know me, right. That when when God came down
and died on the cross, he didn't just die for the good people. He died for the people who are broken,
the people who are messed up, people who are too far gone. He died for the people that we might look around
and think they're the unlikeliest. They're the people that would never come to know God,
who had nothing to do with God. But he came for those people. He came for those people. People like me.
And he died so that our wrongs could be forgiven,
so we can come into relationship with him. That that is when I fully understood
that, you know, God is good. He's just he's righteous,
but he's also loving. So loving based on the extent
he was going to go to for us.
And so after we did that, we had
we had been reading that in his car on OSU near like the RPAC, and it was in his car that I decided
to start a relationship with God. You know, I remember calling out to God to ask me
for what he did on the cross apply to me. I asked for him to come into my life.
I remember very early on in my first month of God,
coming to know him was I was like, God, I bet living for
you isn't different. I bet living for
you is going to be boring, that it's going to be unfulfilling. That I'm not going to be happy that you're going to leave me
like everybody else did, that you are going to betray me,
that you are going to get tired of me. That you actually never really
wanted anything to do with me or even your people. I bet you won't be any different than what
it was like in the world without you. What it was like with society and culture.
And I was like, Even if I do exactly what you want me to
do, I bet you it's going to be that way. And so, you know,
I had to own up to my part, though. I was like,
I was like I, I wanted partly to be proved wrong by God,
but I also, in my cynical heart was like, I probably is true,
it’s probably not going to be different.
And so I did that, though, you know,
I went all in for God. I was like to see if this is true,
I'm going to do everything he says just to make sure
I don't want any reservations.
And so, you know, I did.
I did what he wanted me to do. I started handing over areas of my life
that didn't align with him or his will. I, I started, you know,
serving other people, loving other people. I started teaching the Bible, studying,
researching. you know, discipling people, teaching,
you know, individuals about the Bible, sharing his gospel, then, you know,
what he had done with other people and during all those experiences, there wasn't a moment where I thought
that those things were true.
I think God had proved
me wrong on every area. He continued to do so no matter what
it was. Even areas that I didn't think about
out of all the ways I've lived my life, out of all the different things
I have tried and pursued to the fullest, none of them compare to the life
I've had with God. The life I've had with God
is the best and continues to be the best. the answers of where do I belong? What is my purpose here? You know, what
what impact will I have on the world? What will I have to show for when I die? Where do I go when I die?
You know, he has answers to all those,
and he's showing me and giving me the answers to those. It seems like there's like
a lot of unlikely people out there. It's easy to look at people and be like,
He's scary, He's messed up, he's a partier,
he's a druggie, he's this, he's that. God just uses people powerful.
You just don't really know how God is going to use them
or how close they are to accepting God. Person's life might seem like it's
all together, just like mine was. But once you start
peeling away the layers, it's actually not put together. There's actually a longing there. There's a hole there.
And so, you know, if you're listening to this,
I urge you to please give God a shot. Please give him a chance. Please get try and go all out for him
just to see if he can prove you wrong
like he proved me wrong.
That's my story.