David N. Heizer - One Simple Equation: F=TL3

2019 David N. Heizer

One Simple Equation

F=TL3

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Elm Hill, an imprint of Thomas Nelson. Elm Hill and Thomas Nelson are registered trademarks of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.

Elm Hill titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail .

Scripture quotations marked ESV are from the ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version). Copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.Zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019918914

ISBN 978-1-400329953 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-400329960 (Hardbound)

ISBN 978-1-400329977 (eBook)

Please note that footnotes in this ebook may contain hyperlinks to external websites as part of bibliographic citations. These hyperlinks have not been activated by the publisher, who cannot verify the accuracy of these links beyond the date of publication.

I would like to thank the following for their inspiration and guidance.

Thank you God our Father for your steadfast love and grace. Jesus for the sacrifice you endured for our salvation. Mom, Dad and Scott for a warm loving family full of support and guidance. Shauna Pierce for being by my side through the best and the worst, for being a wonderful stepmom, my love and friend. Newton and Zoe, I love you and am very proud of you both. Frank And Trish Angilella for accepting my family as your own. Matt and Erin Blair for your passion and love for Christ and planting Limitless Church. Jonathan Her, Scott Bishop, Jenny Figueroa, Melanie De Leon, Taylor Nay, George Wood and Erin Blair for sharing your courageous testimonies and love of Christ. Cory, Jen, Xander, Ayden, and Eli Evans for simply being family. Jim Mitchell, Steve Beyer and Steve Schmalhorst for being warriors in prayer. Jacob and Thad Smith for your enlightening theological discussions. Bill Martin for teaching me more about the Bible and scripture than I could have learned on my own. Angel Mitchell and Laura Martin for opening your homes giving our small group two warm and comfortable places to find community and friendship. Jeremy Hager for being the first believer in this book. Matt and Brianna Timmons, Colin McGinn and Jacob Barrineau for pouring into my children and being great role models. David Hitchcock for your thoughtful conversations and friendship. Charlotte Furey for you warm smiles. Matt and Molly Trapuzzano, Rafael Abreu and Nelvy Ruiz for being good friends. Brandon and Breanna Blocker for your partnership and belief in this book. Deno Kazanis, Ph.D. for your insights into science and spirituality. Mount Saint Joseph High School for planting a seed of faith in the darkest corner of my heart that would eventually grow and bear fruit. To the rest of my family at Limitless Church and Humana for years of love and friendship. Thank you all.

A n unlikely Christian. Growing up, if you were to ask any of my childhood friends if I would ever find myself following Christ, they would probably say, That would be a cold day in hell. I grew up an atheist. My mother was raised Catholic but had a bad taste for the Catholic Church. My father was raised in a house religiously sterile as far as I know and was a self-proclaimed atheist for as long as I can remember. So, when it came to raising my brother and me, there was no mention of God, church, or religion in our home. A few neighbors attended church, but it just wasnt a focus in our community. As I grew older, several of my friends did attend church on Sunday morning, and my brother and I patiently waited for them to return so we could get all the neighborhood kids out playing together.

Despite the lack of church and God in our household as a child, my parents were very loving parents to me and my brother. We didnt know cold, sterile parents; we knew warm, loving parents who attended all our school functions and sporting events. Mom spent years chauffeuring my brother and me to swimming practices twice a day. My parents were very supportive. We were a close family with close ties to our extended family members. I had a very normal middle-class upbringing. Holidays were spent with family, aunts, uncles, and cousins alike. We all got along very well and I was left with fond memories of my childhood. We were all very happy to the best of my recollection.

My brother and I, only being eleven months apart, had the same friends growing up. Out of all the neighborhood houses, ours was where all our friends congregated. My mom was always cooking for our friends. Everyone was always welcome for dinner. Even as adults, our friends always invited our parents to their weddings and birthday parties for their kids. Our friends seemed to enjoy and love my parents as much as my brother and I did. As business owners, my parents were loved by their employees and were very generous and kind employers. The absence of God and church didnt seem to impede our family life very much at all from my point of view at the time. It is so clear to me now, though, that God was there in our home. He was there pouring His love into all four of us each and every day. We just had not looked up to see it or even accept it.

My maternal grandfather passed away when I was in eighth grade from cancer. He was very excited prior to his death about my parents decision to send me to a Catholic high school. He had converted to Catholicism when he married my grandmother and he was a deeply spiritual man. So, off to Catholic school I went with absolutely no understanding of Christianity. I took a religion class each of the four years I attended high school, but due to a lack of interest and understanding, I treated it like any other history class. Just a series of events that happened long ago. That is what it seemed like to mejust another history class. I missed the whole idea of the Gospel. That is not a slight on the high school I attended; it was a wonderful school and I received a great education. It afforded me opportunities I might not have had from the public school system in that area back in the early 1980s. I was the problem. I chose to ignore the good news being shared with me.

As a matter of fact, I believe that Mount Saint Joseph High School actually planted the seeds my faith would grow from thirty years later.

After high school, I attended college on a swimming scholarship. College was the period of my life that marked a real change in me. This change was not a positive one. It was a dark time for me. I was in the process of embarking on my lifes journey into the worldseparated from the warm comforts of childhood, loving parents, and a sense that all was going to be okay because my parents were taking care of me. Now, I was on my own. I had to make decisions that would have a profound impact on my future. I was terrified. Because there was an absence of God in my life anchoring me to a correct path, I turned to alcohol and partying to raise my spirits; a lifestyle that took me down a path of uncertainty, depression, poor choices, and unhappiness.