I’d like to start by clarifying that this idea isn’t original to me. I received a lot of inspiration for this from Joe Thorn on the Reformed Pubcast in the episode where he was discussing his testimony. His testimony itself is quite interesting, but the part that stuck with me is how he described people getting too interested in the nitty-gritty details of his pre-Christian time. People got so absorbed in all the bad that they seemed to miss the goodness of his conversion. And it was in that context that he described a “boring” testimony as being so full of God’s grace.

This was quite a perspective shift for me. Having grown up in youth groups, youth camps, campus ministries, etc., I realized that I had become a person who idolized the “really bad guy turned good” stories. I was jealous of the people who seemed to have a more engaging testimony than me. I felt like no one wanted to hear about just another guy who’d grown up with Christian parents and likely became a Christian at a very young age. As a by-product of that mindset, I focused too much on who had done the most drugs, gotten into the toughest gangs, or had made all sorts of other mistakes. But that phrase and the conversation as a whole helped me to remember that those things are, well, bad.

Now that doesn’t seem like a particularly insightful realization. But for myself —and I expect many who grew up in similar backgrounds— it had become an almost forgotten fact. Those who grew up in largely safe, Christian environments can become strangely fascinated by all the bad stuff that they’ve never experienced. But in the process, they miss how good it is to be kept away from those kinds of experiences. A boring testimony is a blessing because it shows God’s preservation. A boring testimony means we can look back and see where it would have been so easy to go wrong and how we narrowly avoided terrible pain and consequences. A boring testimony shows that God’s means don’t have to include rock bottom. God can use the seemingly mundane to bring children into His fold.

This revealed to me a lack of trust in God’s saving power. I began to recognize in myself a belief that somehow the more “exciting” testimonies were better for attracting new converts. Especially for those who grew up outside of a Reformed context, it’s easy to forget that our efforts do not actually save anyone. Our stories do not have to be exciting to be used by God to bring people in. We don’t have to look for the former drug dealers as some sort of spectacle for curious onlookers. We can rejoice instead that, whatever our history is, God can use it to save.

As I get older and get closer to the time where I may become a parent myself, I also start to realize that a boring testimony is exactly what we want for our children. I pray that God can spare them from the evil that is so widely accessible. And I hope that when I do have kids, they can look back and appreciate their own stories. These stories that may not have the drama or action that they hear from others, but they instead show God’s hand in protection and preservation.

Let us not elevate or demean anyone because of an artificial ranking system imposed on people’s histories. Let us instead rejoice in the work that God has done in bringing people to Himself out from every upbringing and every backstory.

Praise God that His grace shows no favoritism.