Giving God a Chance

Danny Rogers lived every day of his young life according to that slogan until the day his dad discovered his "stash."

His drug addiction began in the eighth grade. Danny's desire for acceptance by his peers and his fear of failure compelled him to stay high at all costs.

"I didn't feel normal unless I was high," says Danny. "I really didn't. When I had a free moment, I was usually scheming, planning how I could get high, somewhere, somehow, on anything."

And Danny's self-centered existence created lots of opportunities for conflict at home.

"I'd get frustrated, and I'd express it in rage, anger and rage. I would get mad at my father, really mad, usually because he wouldn't let me do something I wanted to do, and I would just go run. I'd run down the street as hard as I could," says Danny.

By age 17, Danny's dad had had enough and shipped his son off to boot camp.

"It was like a nightmare to me," Danny recalls. "Physically, I was in good shape, but mentally it really wore on me."

But even his strict military training couldn't break Danny of his addictions.

"I took the florescent lights out of the desks and put them inside wall lockers," he explains. "I had been saving a lot of pot seeds, and I started planting these seeds in paper cups and watering them. With the light, they began to grow. I had a huge crop of marijuana growing in these wall lockers."

Then, on a rainy night in August 1980, Danny was riding in the backseat of a car, traveling with a couple of Marine Corp buddies. They were all drunk or high. Danny doesn't remember anything from that night, but witnesses told him about a head-on collision that crushed their car-trapping Danny in the back seat with life threatening injuries.

"They had to get me out of the car, cut me out, I think," Danny says. "They said at that point it wasn't looking good."

Danny had an emergency tracheotomy, two skull fractures, seven broken ribs, a ruptured spleen, internal bleeding, a broken hip, and several dislocations. He was in a coma for two and a half months. During that time, area churches interceded for him, and his parents and relatives prayed for his recovery.

But the road to recovery would prove long for Dannyjust about the right amount of time for God to tug at his heart.

"He'd been chasing me for a long time," Danny says. "I'd be in bars and people would walk up and hand me a tract, a gospel tract, just a little story about the Lord and how to get saved. Happened to me a lot of times, and it was really beginning to freak me out."

Physically, Danny made a full recovery. But it wasn't until he faced a judge over a bar fight that he really got scared.

"I'm walking up the steps of the courthouse," he says, "and, literally, at the last moment, I looked up and I said, 'God, if You are real, get me out of this and I'll straighten my life out. I'll try to find You because I know what I'm doing wrong-I'm intelligent; I'm not stupid.' The guy just didn't show up for court. The judge called me up and said, 'Mr. Rogers, you're walking today, but don't ever show up in my court again.' I went down the steps of that courthouse knowing God was real."

A short time later, a friend recommended that Danny go visit a guy who had once been an addict himself. This time Danny was ready to accept the advice the man had to offer.

"I asked Frank, 'What does God want me to do? He's been after me for a long time. What does He want me to do?' Frank just looked up and grinned and said, 'He just wants you to get saved, receive Jesus. He wants you to change your life.' "

That day Danny fell to his knees and cried out to God to save him from his sins.

"The peace that I was looking for, that I was searching so frantically for, that I thought drugs could provide, when I met Jesus, I realized this is the real thing, this is what I was looking for all along," says Danny. "I didn't think it could be that easy opening my heart to God, but it was."

God has made some wonderful changes in Danny as the years have gone by. Not only did God forgive his sins, but He set him free from years of addiction.

"He did a miracle. He literally did a miracle," he proclaims. "That's the reason why I'm here. I would not be here if it weren't for God. I know that. That's one reason why I pursue Him with such passion, with such reckless abandonment. I'm going after God."

Today you can see the excitement and passion Danny has for his Savior as he weekly talks with teens about the God he serves.

"My message to everyone is just give it a chance. If you're looking for peace, there's somewhere you can find fulfillment. There's somewhere you can find peace. There's a hole inside us that's God shaped. You'll never know your true fulfillment, and you'll never know the peace that you could've had, until you open your heart to God."