What effect does your faith have on your lifestyle?

Faith affects every relationship and every decision I make on a day to day basis. The further along I get in my walk the more I realize how every decision should have God’s glory in mind, and that can be hard in today’s world where everything is telling us to look after ourselves and our glory.

Describe how your Journey with Christ began.

I was fortunate that my parents brought me to church every Sunday and I always knew about Jesus. But it was really when I was in college and dating Maria, my wife now, that I really began following Jesus. So while I was a believer early on in my life it took God making me realize that He has the control not me before I really let the Holy Spirit start leading me in my walk with Christ.

Who have been the mentors in your life? How did God bring these people into your life?

I thank God all the time because both of my parents did a great job of teaching me biblical values when I was young. Mickey Weston, the chaplain of the White Sox and staff member of UPI, has really helped me to understand the Word throughout my Major League Baseball days. God put me on the Orioles with Brian Roberts, who is also one of my mentors, invited me to a Bible study when I was a young MLB player. When Mickey was teaching he really opened up my eyes to see how we are meant to dig into the Bible. There are so many more people I could mention as well; It is amazing how God multiplies the mentors in my life when I am open for gaining knowledge of His Word and love for us.

What does the Increase of Christ mean to you?

The Increase of Christ means to me that everything I do should be from Christ and for the purpose of bringing glory to God. It is the realization that we don’t do anything without God allowing us to do it—all things good come from Him.

What is your life verse and why?

My life verse is Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.” I struggled over finding a life verse for a while when I was young in my faith, though I should have just trusted God to show me the verse. During this time, Chris Giesler, who then was the Orioles team chaplain, gave me the book One Word That Will Change Your Life. And after a lot of prayer, God revealed to me that my word for that year was “Trust.” I went and searched all the verses on trust and Proverbs 3:5-6 jumped out at me. Now I will search for a new verse every year; this is way better than a New Year’s resolution. But Proverbs 3:5-6 will always be special to me because I searched for so long and God pointed me to a perfect verse for me to live my life by.