Running Like a Prodigal

When 13-year-old Javier Gonzalez started ditching Friday night youth group at his church, it wasn’t too hard to pull off. He recalls, “My parents were going through their own problems throughout those years. They had enough on their plate besides trying to chase me down and find out where I'm at.”

Born in Mexico City, Javier moved from Mexico to Chicago with his mother and his two brothers in 1985. “My dad was already here in Chicago working, and then he sent for us to come to the United States. “I have an older brother and a younger brother, and we grew up in the church. We loved it. Friday night was kids’ night.”

But life began to change for Javier in his early teen years. 

“Friends from school started doing different things, and all of a sudden I found church to be boring, even Friday nights,” he says. “The world was more exciting and more attractive. When I was 13 or 14, I started hanging around with a lot of DJs. I was hanging around with 22-year-olds. I started making excuses to my parents, and I wouldn’t go to church on youth nights. These (DJs) would do the college parties—Northwestern, University of Illinois. I would just kind of tag along to carry their records and jump into the party.”

For Javier, things were about to take an even more destructive turn. 

“As a young Hispanic kid in Chicago in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the gang influence in Chicago was pretty heavy,” he says. “It took down a lot of people, a lot of my friends. It was an adrenaline rush for our youth, and I just kind of jumped into that wave and rode that thing. I was a smart kid when I went to high school. I had a lot of honors classes. I always liked school, but I think I liked girls and partying more.”

In his junior year of high school, Javier was expelled for fighting. 

“My uncle then got me into the trades in Chicago, in the Chicago tile layers union. That was another dangerous thing,” he says. “At this point, I’m 17 years old, making grown man money. I mean, I have annuity funds, I have 401Ks, I have journeyman scale (wages). I was making more money than both my parents together.”

By now, the party scene was a regular part of Javier’s life, and so was drug dealing.

“You’ve got to understand that in those days when we’d go to the nightclub, we’d have at least $1,000 in our pocket because you're paying the doorman, you're buying bottles, this and that,” he says. “And if there are some ladies around, you're trying to show off, you know?”

Javier shakes his head in disbelief and says, “So on the weekend, I'm the one buying the beer, I'm the one buying the drugs. And come Monday, I don't have money for lunch!”

By the time Javier turned 24, his parents had divorced, and his father had remarried. He remembers beginning to question his own choices.

“I had my own apartment, and it was a huge apartment. I had my own car. I thought I was living good for myself, and I didn't depend on anybody,” he says. “But at the end of the day, (that life) had its troubles. I had been in and out of county jail a few times. I used to ask myself—what am I going to be doing 20 years from now? Am I still going to be selling drugs? Am I still going to be chasing girls?”

Life-changing night

In 2004, a typical night out with friends became an evening that Javier would never forget. “I had this bag of shrooms (hallucinogenic mushrooms), and I put the shrooms in a blender with some orange juice and some other stuff just to kick it up a notch.”

While driving to his friend’s house, the mushrooms began to take effect.

“I'm hallucinating, but this isn't the first time, so I know that happens. But the streets looked like they were going up and down like hills, and I’m realizing I can't measure the distance between cars anymore. I didn’t want to hit somebody, hurt them, or hurt myself.”

Javier parked the car and called a friend to pick him up. His shroom trip quickly went from bad to worse. Javier began to see what he describes as demonic faces and shadowy images circling his car. As the night dragged on, Javier’s friend finally picked him up. Riding in his friend’s car, Javier felt panicky. Then another experience overwhelmed him.  

“I felt something bear hug me,” he says, “like this physical embrace. I feel myself being lifted up, and then all of the sudden there was a whisper, ‘I’ve got you. You’re mine.’ Then I felt cold water on my head. As the imaginary water started pouring down my head, I felt this love, a love that I have never to this day felt before.”

Javier rode to his friend’s apartment, where the visions continued. He saw what looked like an image of Satan walking from house to house in his neighborhood, laughing at the anger and violence in people’s homes.

“I'm thinking, Wait a minute! I'm helping the enemy do this stuff. I'm helping the enemy destroy this world with violence, by me selling drugs, by womanizing. And I thought, This is messed up! It suddenly became clear to me: Dude, you're on the wrong side!”

As he sat in his friend’s apartment, he sensed something else. “In my spirit, these words came to me: ‘What's happening in this world is bigger than you. It's bigger than your city. It's bigger than your little gang life. What's happening in this world is spiritual warfare for people's souls, and right now there's a war for your soul.’”

Shaken but more clear-headed, Javier asked his friend to take him to his mother’s house. At 2:00 a.m., the lights were still on in her home, so Javier knocked on the door and went inside. “I told her, ‘Mom, I'm done. I'm not selling drugs anymore. I'm not going to be in the gangs. I don’t even know how I’m going to do it.’”

Prodigal son returns

The next morning was Sunday, and Javier went to church with his mother. Afterwards he told the pastor about the previous night’s experience. Was it real? Was it just the drugs? With so many questions, Javier sought the pastor’s advice.

“My pastor said, ‘I believe that what you had was a real encounter with God. He showed you something, Javier. He actually took the time to tell you that it's now or never.’”

Leaving a gang doesn’t happen easily, if at all. Javier was $30,000 in debt to some powerful gang leaders. “I asked the Lord, ‘What am I going to do?’ and He said, ‘Do what I tell you, and I’ll handle this.’ I don’t even remember all of it, but gradually all of these people that I owed a lot of money to started getting caught by the FBI. Many of them left the state. And when the smoke cleared, I was the only one standing.”

Javier recommitted his life to Jesus Christ, started going back to church, and the process of living out his faith began. “I had a whole lot of flesh in me that I had to deal with. Sometimes I was going to church high. Sometimes I’d get out of church and go have some drinks, but not at the level that I was before.”

In 2006, Javier met Lilian, a member of the church’s worship team. The couple married in 2009 and have three children—Tim, Esteban, and Sarai.

Over the years, as Javier attended church, joined men’s groups, and studied the Bible, God opened doors for him to begin preaching.

“The Lord has blessed me, and I've preached in Brazil and in Guatemala,” he says. “I do mission work in Africa and Malawi, and I’ve been to Israel. The Lord has done whatever He wanted to do with me, and I'm just letting him.”

Back to school

As Javier’s opportunities to preach and to share the gospel increased, so did his desire for a biblical education. “I figured that since I'm going to preach the Bible for the rest of my life, I might as well be good at it,” he laughs.

Javier’s awareness of Moody Bible Institute began when he was a 17-year-old tile layer. “We did a lot of the hotels downtown, and I would see the Moody building. When I became a Christian, I heard Moody Radio, and I heard that (Moody) was a Bible school. If I'm going to get training, I wanted to go to the best. I wanted to go to that school!”

In 2020, Javier applied online. Unsure of his high school graduation status, he initially began taking classes without a degree plan in mind. Eventually, after obtaining a copy of his GED certificate, Javier chose to major in Pastoral Studies with a biblical preaching emphasis. One of his favorite classes is “Pastoral Care of Women,” taught by Dr. Pamela MacRae. 

“The intention of the class is to equip the male pastoral student to understand how to best care pastorally for women and girls in the church,” Dr. MacRae explains. “We consider how Jesus cared for women, what we can learn from what He did. We learn to respond compassionately as well as legally to women who have suffered all types of abuse. We also consider what Paul meant when he described women as co-laboring together with him in the church. How women and men serve in the church is an important part of what this class teaches.”

The course has radically changed Javier’s attitude toward women. “Coming from my background, we didn't love women—we treated them like dirt,” he says. “But today, Pastoral Care of Women is a class that I'm really enjoying. (As a man), I’m quick to give you a solution to your problem. But what I’m learning right now is when you minister to a woman, she's not necessarily looking for an answer, she's looking to be heard. She's looking to be understood.”

Javier’s keen interest and respect for the subject matter haven’t gone unnoticed by Dr. MacRae. “Javier is a thoughtful and serious student,” she says. “He is so engaged and asks very discerning questions. I am so thankful he is in my class!”

Learning mode

As a husband, father, and owner of Zion Construction Group, Javier is on a manageable, steady course to finish his degree in 2028. He knows how challenging it can be to work full time while enrolled in college. But he loves encouraging others to consider studying at Moody.

“In your own strength, you can’t, but it’s possible if you rely on the Lord,” he says. “One thing I've learned is that humans never stop learning. We're all learning stuff every day, regardless. So you might as well learn the Bible! I've taken a lot of classes, and—just for the record—the professors at Moody are the best! I've learned so much from all of them, and they each have their own unique style of teaching. I really love getting the idea of what the Bible is. That's what they're giving me—a core belief and a foundation for that.”