You Found Me: God's Relentless Pursuit to Find You

PRAISE FOR

Keith Robinson speaks to thousands of students a year with one of the most compelling stories I have ever heard. As a young person he was chasing cool and made lots of poor decisions with drugs, sex and other poor choices. He lost hope and then found it. This story reads like a motion picture with drama, suspense and yet, has an incredibly inspiring ending. I loved the book and even more I am thrilled that Keith is taking his message to this generation.

Jim Burns, Ph.D.

President, HomeWord

Author of Teenology: The Art of Raising Great Teenagers

Keith Robinson’s life was the grimiest and sloppiest of any pitiable, muddled mess, and yet the turnaround is a flat-out awesome example of God’s gentle touch and life-changing, cleansing power.... God wants to use Keith’s story to open your heart to believe that He can do this same kind of thing again, this time in your life.

Fred Stoeker

Author, Every Young Man’s Battle

© 2014 Keith M. Robinson

Published in association with the literary agency of WordServe Literary Group, www.wordserveliterary.com.

Published by Baker Books

a division of Baker Publishing Group

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.bakerbooks.com

Baker Books edition published 2014

ISBN 978-1-4412-2437-8

Previously published by Regal Books

Ebook edition originally created 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken 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.comThe NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patents and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Other versions used are:

BBE—The Bible in Basic English. Public domain.

HCSB—Scripture quotations marked HCSB are taken from the Holman Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission.

KJV—King James Version. Authorized King James Version.

NLT—Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Samantha Without you I’d still be lost. Without you, none of this would have been possible. Your grace and beauty are unmatched. I hit the lottery when you said, Yes.

Joel and Jude Both of you are a product of a divine conspiracy of love. Your births left me speechless. Your lives make me better. The proudest moments of my life happen every time I see you smile.

Foreword by Fred Stoeker

1. Running Scared

2. Longing to Belong

3. The Search for a Father

4. The Pain of Regret

5. The Death of Hope

6. Hope Returns

7. Discovering Community: God’s Design for Connection

8. Religion vs. Relationship

9. Letting Go

10. A New Vision

11. Allowing God to Write Your Love Story

12. No More Cultural Christians

13. Hearing the Cries

14. First Responders

15. The Uprising

16. Who’s Next?

Acknowledgments

About the Author

At the age of twenty-three, a bone-crushing loneliness stabbed at my heart incessantly, driving me relentlessly toward some mysterious relationship I felt determined to find, a relationship that would somehow calm my aching heart and bring some peace into my life. I was searching so frantically for this connection that by now I had four girlfriends at once, sleeping regularly with three of them and hoping to get the fourth one into bed, too.

You see, I’d bought into the ridiculous lie that the quickest way to get to know a girl is to have sex with her, but I was quickly learning the real truth: I was getting lonelier and lonelier. Here I was, adding girlfriend after girlfriend into my life, only to find myself lonelier and even more frenzied to discover the connection my aching heart was so desperate to find.

Nothing was working in my life. I was living two thousand miles from home and little around me was familiar anymore. I had four girlfriends, but not one of them was right. I’d been fired from my last job, and was about to be fired from another. I had no real life, no real future and I had no real direction to turn. I was coming apart inside and running scared.

I was about to learn a second real truth: God’s eyes are always on the desperate heart. He’d been waiting for this very moment in my life for the longest time, and He wasn’t about to miss it. There was no doubt about it. He’d found me.

It happened in my office at work. Though I knew I’d be fired soon, I was still working very hard at my job as a stockbroker. I’d been so focused at my desk on that particular day that when I finally looked up, I realized that everyone else in the office had gone home already. I was the last one there. I needed to get out of there, too, but before heading home, I began to straighten up my desk so everything would be ready for a good start the next morning. As I did, I noticed a beautiful California sunset unfolding to the west outside my window. I decided to sit down for a moment to enjoy it, lacing my fingers behind my head and setting my feet on the credenza to soak in the lovely, fading daylight.

I still don’t understand how God did it, but He quietly dropped into my office and effortlessly changed the scene unfolding before my eyes. I can’t explain it. All I can tell you is that I could no longer see the sunset. Suddenly, all I could see was who I had become over the past few years, especially in regard to the way I’d been treating the women in my life. The scene was so ugly, so awful that all I could do was bow my head and pray, Lord, if you are ready to work with me, I’m ready to work with you.

It was that simple. When the Lord slipped into my life on that lovely, crisp California evening in May, all at once I realized that my desperate loneliness had been for Him all along.

I loved Him instantly. I was finally at rest.

From that evening on, everything changed in my life. I immediately moved out of state and left those four girlfriends behind. The next serious girlfriend I had would soon become my wife Brenda, and I’ve been faithful to her for thirty-two years. The next job I found became my one and only for the next thirty-three years. In short, I learned what it meant to be a man and I quickly became one—a very different man.

My salvation experience was spectacular, but not for the fireworks, because there were none. Not for the show, because it wasn’t showy in the least.

My salvation was spectacular for its gentleness and for its personal, tender timing. There was such an unsuspecting, unassuming nature to it all, with its scene change and loving stranger slipping into my office to kindly whisper, I’ve noticed you’ve been a bit down on your luck lately. Can I show you something that’s been missing for you?

He did, and the rest is history. God can take any life, no matter how fetid the swirling pool of flotsam and debris, and reverse the flow, calm the waters and filter out the refuse and dross. God specializes in cleaning up the messes people make in their lives, like He did in mine. That means any kind of mess.

If you don’t believe that yet, you will soon because of the book you are now holding in your hand. Keith Robinson’s life was the grimiest and sloppiest of any pitiable, muddled mess, and yet the turnaround is a flat-out awesome example of God’s gentle touch and life-changing, cleansing power. Without a doubt, God found Keith. He immediately became a real man, a brave, courageous man of integrity, a man to be counted on and trusted in every way. He is not just a man’s man now, but also a God’s man, the kind of man God deeply appreciates. I appreciate him, too.

God’s tender timing has placed this book into your life right now when you need it most, and He has one reason for placing it there: God wants to use Keith’s story to open your heart to believe that He can do this same kind of thing again, this time in your life. In short, God now has His eyes on your desperate heart, and He is now knocking on your door, whispering, I’ve noticed you’ve been a bit down on your luck lately, my friend.

Will you let God show you something that’s been missing for you?

Open your door and invite Him in. Let Him find you. He will show you what’s been missing, and it will be nothing short of spectacular.

Fred Stoeker

Author, Every Young Man’s Battle

I know what it’s like to awaken every day to a cold, crowded and cruel world.

Believe me, I know.

It wasn’t that long ago that I felt absolutely hopeless about life. My lonely and confused heart, broken into little pieces like shards of glass, cried out to be rescued, but my pleas for help fell on deaf ears. I searched people’s eyes for a flicker of recognition—hoping they would see me—but they all looked past, preoccupied by their own problems. Like someone lost in the middle of the desert, I wondered,

Is anybody out there?

That question flooded my heart. Who cared about me—or that I was even alive? It all seemed so random. I was, at best, a distant relative of some evolved species, a chance byproduct of two people who came together for a brief moment to have their needs met. If you think about it, we are all mere specks in a fatalistic universe spinning wildly out of control, buffeted by the holocaust of abortion and the horrors of broken and abusive homes.

Without an easy answer, I picked up the mantra of this generation: Do whatever makes you happy. This made perfect sense living in a culture where self-absorption was so prevalent. My needs had to be met first. My happiness was paramount. My freedom was absolute.

I pursued happiness and my self-interests with a full heart, but something unexpected happened along the way: I never felt any lasting satisfaction. Whatever pleasure I derived from love-’em-and-leave-’em relationships or getting high left a bitter aftertaste of ash in my mouth. Truth be told, I was a wanderer and just another faceless hashtag of a restless generation.

You’re going to hear my story in its entirety in coming pages, but maybe the illusion that life has no answers has left your mind looping in an endless search for purpose, too. In the midst of that dizzying spin, you’ve mused, I must be going crazy! Perhaps your passionate pursuit of happiness has only left gaping holes in the center of your soul that scream, Something’s still missing! There must be something more!

Well, I have good news for you. You’re not insane. There is something missing, and you aren’t a fool to notice it. Best of all, I’ve found that something more out there, and you can experience it, too.

Let me share the path I took to find it.

1

Have you ever felt like your life was so messed up that you had to find some way to escape?

Sometimes, your reality seems so unbearable that you make a run for it. You can’t take it anymore, so you figure that whatever’s out there—the unknown—is far better than what is known. In your attempt to liberate yourself, though, you find yourself in deeper despair. Even though you realize that running from your troubles rarely works out, that doesn’t stop you from trying, of course, but it does leave you exhausted.

Perhaps you’re tired of being tired. Don’t worry if you’re weary and worn out, because you’re not alone. I know how you feel. The reason I can make that statement with a great deal of confidence is because of my story, which is real and all mine.

The first thing you should know about me is that I’ve always been good at running. As a kid, I was the fastest in my neighborhood, mostly because I had a big mouth and a small frame. Nobody could catch me, especially when I made some wise guy, you-can’t-catch-me statement.

My desire to run from trouble led me to run away from home more than 20 times when I was a teenager. I hated my situation even more than I hated who I had become. I ran to get away, to feel free. I always ran with the hope that I would never have to return.

For me, running seemed logical. Why should I stay where I don’t belong? Why should I live a lie? I hated being at home and, on most days, I wanted to be a million miles from our home outside of Evansville, Indiana. I never got very far, but I dreamed that one day I would have the resources to keep moving west. California always sounded like a great place to go. At least they had Disneyland out there.

Growing up, life was a struggle to survive in a very crowded world. Sharing a small bedroom with two brothers while living in a 600-square-foot house created a lot of tension in those early years. So did the sounds around me. One of my earliest memories was the sound of cars zipping by on Interstate 64 near my house. As a kid, I always hoped one of those sounds would be my father’s 18-wheel semi. Dad was an independent trucker hauling goods around the country, which kept him on the road a lot.

Where was he?

Mom told me stories again and again of how he’d park his truck under the overpass and run down the road to our house just to see us, even it if was only for a few minutes. I’m sure he did that. He must have. But I couldn’t remember a single time that he did such a thing. All I knew was that all that freeway noise was the sound of disappointment. Doesn’t he know how badly I want to see him?

Mom always stuck up for Dad, saying he was trying to provide for us and assured me that his absence made us stronger. At first, that encouraged me. I’d think, My family is just going through a rough time right now. Someday things will be different. One day, we’ll all be together and happy, and everything will be normal. I’ll have a dad just like everyone else.

I’d also spend hours dreaming out loud with Mom and my older brother, Bart, about how our lives would be different if we could win the lottery. What would we do with a million dollars? We’d start by fixing the outside of the house. Our dreary rancher wasn’t nice to look at with chipped, ugly green paint, loose shingles falling about, and an air conditioning unit in the window held up by an old, rotting board.

We’d move quickly to the backyard and build that tree house that Dad had promised to construct, the kind of playhouse that would be the envy of the neighborhood and draw all sorts of kids to come play with us.

Oh, yes, and then we’d fix the well out back