Jerimae Yoder: Quest for Truth

CBN.com Jerimae Yoder was born into a religious family, but it wasn’t until he was an adult that he discovered he’d never had a real relationship with God. Here is his journey, in his own words.

Today, Jerimae is a Christian music artist and a worship pastor  His new CD, Vertical, reflects his profound passion for living to love his heavenly Father.

“I have always loved music. I have always loved listening and creating music. It’s awesome to take the freedom that I have in Christ and apply it to my music and talking about Him and what He is doing in my life.

“I felt very out of place growing up. I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin. I wasn’t comfortable being who God created me to be.

“I grew up very religious, in a religious background, in a religious household. My mom grew up Amish. The Amish lifestyle, there isn’t electricity, sometimes there isn’t indoor plumbing. You don’t have cars [and] you don’t have phones, because they believe not having those things draws them closer to God.

“Even though I read the Bible as a young kid, I was around a lot of religion, I never really had a relationship with Jesus. It was all about just going to church and doing some good things.

“My view of God was an authoritative figure, an overlord waiting for me to mess up so that He could just hurt me and demolish me. I always felt like I was running from God. When I went to school, I was one person; when I went to church, I would be another person.

“I struggled with drugs. I struggled with alcohol. I got busted for underage drinking at 19. That should have been a huge turning point in my life, but it wasn’t.

“It took more to fill that desire. It took more until the point where I stepped back and go, ‘What have I become?’ I really started to question religion itself. I looked to anything I possibly could to find ‘religion.’ I looked to Zen Buddhism, Hinduism. I even called myself an atheist.

“So I left college. My junior year in college I felt like I’ve got to get away and really figure out what this God thing is all about. And on a park bench in Michigan, I decided that I needed to know who this God was, the God of the Universe, as I was reading the book of Romans.

“It was a disturbing revelation to me, because I had gone to church my whole life and thought I knew God. Well, the truth was I knew about God, but I didn’t know God. So I asked Him, ‘God, if You are really real, and I believe You are, if I don’t have a relationship with You, God, I want one now, I want one today, I want to start fresh with You.

“From that moment on, my life completely changed. I immediately had a sense of peace. When I truly put my faith in Christ, He became a God of love and of mercy, and I became fully aware He was out for my good and not to hurt me.

“He took out those things I didn’t need. He took out the drugs, the alcohol, the sex, and all those other things that had filled my life. God replaced His spirit within me so that I was joyful with the things I had.

“I understand how loving God is because I am now a father. I just want to love Jesus and love people.

“I don’t worry about fitting in anymore. I’m just me. I just want to be who God created me to be. I find such comfort in that, in just being real.”