Knowing About Jesus vs. Needing Him

There’s a difference between knowing Jesus and knowing you need Him.

Peter shows us this with almost painful clarity. He loved Jesus fiercely. He followed Him closely. He confessed Him boldly: “You are the Christ.” He walked on water. He swung swords. He made promises he couldn’t keep. He knew Jesus — but he didn’t yet know himself.

Not really.

It wasn’t until the courtyard — until the rooster crowed and Jesus turned and looked straight at him — that everything collapsed. In that moment, Peter saw what friendship alone couldn’t fix. He saw his sin. He saw his need. He saw the end of his self‑reliance.

And then Jesus restored him. And then the Spirit empowered him.
Confession → Crushing → Restoration → Empowerment.
Recognition → Collapse → Surrender → New Birth.

This isn’t just Peter’s story.
This is the pattern every believer walks.

The details change. The scenery changes. The speed changes. But the milestones are the same.

So then unsurprisingly, my own journey follows this pattern — though mine began with a smug atheist, a dusty Bible, and a confidence level that far exceeded my actual knowledge of Scripture.

Confession: The Beginning of Faith (Even When You Don’t Realize It’s Faith)

I was the kind of atheist who talked about religion constantly. Loudly. Mockingly. I joked about “sky daddies” and congratulated myself on being too rational for such things. But the truth is, I was obsessed. I circled Christianity like a moth around a porch light, dissecting it, arguing about it, thinking about it more than anything else in my life.

Through my studies for hidden truth and secrets of the universe that only an intellectual like myself could truly understand, I read Chariots of the Gods and became convinced the Bible was full of alien encounters that Christians were simply too stupid and naïve to recognize. So I dug a Bible out of storage, fully prepared to expose its extraterrestrial secrets.

And here’s the first crack of conviction: I realized I didn’t actually know where to begin.

For someone who claimed to have Christianity all figured out, I suddenly had to face the embarrassing truth that I wasn’t familiar with Scripture at all. Not really. Not beyond a few out‑of‑context verses from childhood church visits I attended against my will. I spent far more time studying the texts from other religions, confident hidden wisdom could found anywhere except God's Holy Word. I had this book in my house for years but it was like I had never seen it before.

Undeterred by the realization, I pressed on — smugly — and flipped it open at random.

I landed in Ecclesiastes.

“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity and chasing after the wind.”

Excuse me, Bible?

“All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”

This was not the alien‑coded content I came for. This was existential dread in poetic form. I kept reading, unable to stop, feeling something inside me begin to crack.

I panicked and flipped somewhere else — near the back this time — and landed in Hebrews:

“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.”

There were angels in that passage, yes, but no aliens. No misinterpretation. No wiggle room. Just a Christ so glorious I felt myself shatter.

And here’s the part that still makes me laugh at myself: I realized in an instant that my doubts were not noble or reasonable or intellectually superior. They were lazy. Convenient. Built on caricatures. I had been willing to believe aliens were hiding in the Bible but unwilling to consider that the Bible might simply be true.

That realization — that my skepticism wasn’t rational but ridiculous — was the beginning of conviction.

But like every believer at the beginning, I wasn’t saved yet. I simply recognized something true and immediately tried to compartmentalize it. I stopped joking about Christianity but the thought of becoming a Christian wasn't anywhere in sight.

Crushing: The Death of Self‑Reliance

The months and years that followed were waves of quiet conviction. Not dramatic. Not emotional. Just steady, unrelenting truth pressing in on me.

Eventually, I broke.

I don’t remember any kind of event or incident triggering this moment, it came entirely from within. I fell to my knees and prayed the most honest prayer I had ever prayed: “I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. I think You’re real, and I don’t know what to do with that. I’ve made a mess of my life. Please help me.”

That was my courtyard moment. My rooster crow. My collapse.

Every believer has one — the moment the illusion of self‑sufficiency dies.

I wept, and then I slept better that night than I had in years.

Restoration: The Surrendering of My Life

Literally just a few days later, I met the man who would become my husband. I started going to church with him. I started reading Scripture with new eyes and did my best to fake it 'til I made it. I prayed awkward, halting prayers. I wrestled with some of the truly awful, horrible things I had done in my wayward years. I asked God to “rewire my brain” because I wanted to believe — truly believe — not just intellectually assent. I wanted to lay it all at His feet and stop picking it back up. I wanted the Blessed Assurance.

And slowly, something shifted.

I wasn’t faking it anymore.

But the moment that felt like my John 21 — my “Do you love Me?” moment — came when I got married.

Marriage terrified me. I had no models of permanence. No cheering section. No guarantees. Part of me wanted to run. But I sensed God pushing me forward, asking me to trust Him with a future I couldn’t control. 

Nope. Even that puts too much on me. Y’all, He dragged me to that altar.

Stepping into covenant was my surrender. My restoration. My "I do" to my husband was also my “yes” to Jesus.

Every believer has a moment like this — the moment obedience becomes costly and therefore real.

Empowerment: The Spirit Makes All Things New

I don’t know the exact moment I was born again, but I know this: the woman who mocked believers is gone. The woman who cracked open the Bible looking for aliens is gone. The woman who tried to “fake it till she made it” is gone.

In her place is someone new — someone who writes studies and liturgies and generational blessings, someone who loves Scripture, who loves discipling young believers, someone who wants to shepherd others into the same freedom she found.

Peter the fisherman became Peter the shepherd. And somehow, impossibly, the atheist became a storyteller of faith.

This is what the Spirit does. This is what the Spirit always does.

The Next Chapter

I don’t know exactly what God is doing next, but I know this: my new church home is part of it. This congregation is part of it. This season is part of it.

And like Peter standing on the shore, hearing Jesus say “Follow Me,” I feel the same invitation.

Not to certainty. Not to control. But to obedience. To belonging. To becoming.

Whatever comes next, I know the pattern now. And I trust the One who writes it.