Letting Go and Striving Forward

Photos by Abby Rutherford

By Reid Stevens

I met Will Savory early last semester through a group of guys who met each week to play basketball. He stood out because of how much he loved the game. You know what I mean, how you can always tell when someone really loves something. I could tell that Will really loved basketball. I introduced myself to him in between games, we talked a little bit, and I invited him to come to First Baptist College on that Sunday morning. Then the next game started.

Afterward, Will approached me and said, “Reid, there are some things in my life that I need to let go of.” This statement led to a friendship between the two of us, but even more significant than that, it led to a relationship between Will and the Lord. In Philippians 3, Paul says that he is “forgetting what is behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.” This is what Will Savory is doing.

Will grew up in a family that was very involved in church. Like many of you, he was brought to the church building almost every time the doors were open. He said, “I went for Sunday morning worship, Wednesday night youth, and every event in between.” 

It was not until his family moved from Mississippi to Alabama when he was eleven years old that Will began to lose a desire to go to church. Although it was difficult, he pressed through the transition and continued to attend worship services. However, this was the extent of his participation in Christianity.

Looking back on his childhood experience, Will said, “I thought that going to church was good enough; I could not have been more wrong.” 

There were a lot of things that Will participated in at his Christian school that he, at the time, saw as “pointless.” He was at the stage in his life where he began to be rebellious. Will said, “I found my groove playing basketball and found my group of friends, so I did not feel the need to be involved in the youth group. I honestly just went so that my mom would be happy. I spent these years experimenting with different substances and lifestyles. I was trying to be someone that I was not, and this carried over into college. Imagine what a non-Christian college student would experiment with, and I was doing it. Sure, I had some ‘good times,’ but I was depressed.” While living this life of disobedience, Will started coming to First Baptist with a group of friends that he had made. Unfortunately, the sinful lifestyle continued for quite some time. If you ask Will what that was like, he’ll tell you, “Nobody could tell you who I was because I was living two different lives.” 

Even though Will did not enjoy going to church as a teenager, he still remembered the lessons he learned back then. When I met Will at the beginning of 2020, God was starting to remind him of these lessons. We talked about what he was going through and how he had finally realized that he had spent his first 20 years trying to justify his sin. Looking back on this transformational season of life, Will told me, “God had been preparing my heart to trust him for a while. One day in January, I came to the end of my rope and finally repented of my sin and put my full trust in Jesus.” With the Spirit’s guidance, Will began slowly cutting out the sinful habits he had been practicing for so long. There was this newfound ability to say no to things that he had never been able to say no to, but Will knew he could not walk this new life alone. We began to meet for coffee week after week to talk about what it looks like to practically follow Jesus, how to study His Word, how to pray, and how to share the gospel.

I asked Will to describe for us what life has been like since he began genuinely following Jesus. This is what he had to say: “Life has made complete sense since I have become a Christian. I have no fear in life or death. I have an inexpressible joy in Jesus Christ. The Lord has been sanctifying me and making me more like Jesus every day. Having Christian influences have been a blessing for my Christian walk. They keep me accountable and instruct me in the way of the Lord. I am a happy and joyful person now because I know that I am doing what I am supposed to be doing. Thinking back, it was miserable to live as a slave to sin compared to the true joy I have as I now live freely in Christ.” 

What a powerful testimony! Church, this is what it looks like to cross over from death to life. Will’s story is one that we can all learn from. Maybe you are a seasoned believer who reads this and is refreshed by the powerful work of salvation, or you are the new believer who needs a source of encouragement. Maybe you are like Will, and you need to begin genuinely following Jesus. Will’s story tells us that it is not too late. I asked Will for any final words:

“My advice for anyone reading this is to take the gospel, the church, and the Word of God seriously. Do not spend any more time just coming to church and not living for Christ for the rest of the week. Being a Christian involves waking up every day and seeing how you can live to glorify God as best as you can. Believe me; it is not a burden to follow Christ.” 

What an amazing picture of what it looks like to “let go and strive forward.”