Shaken: Shaken Out of Addiction with Stephen McWhirter

Stephen McWhirter tells the miraculous story of how God took his anger, addiction, and brokenness, and gave him peace, a passionate love for God, and an urgent desire to tell everyone the Good News He is now a worship leader and Christian music artist, with the hit song Come Jesus Come.

Show Notes:

Find Stephen Online | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube

Lyric video: Come Jesus Come

Transcription:

Steve Sunshine:

A motorcycle accident, a spouse battling a brain tumor, infertility, abuse. These are things that can shake our faith. Jesus never promised us we wouldn’t have troubles in this world, in fact, He promised us we would. But He said, “I have overcome the world.” And no matter what you go through, He’ll be in it with you. So you can be shaken by a life crisis, but that’s not what we’re talking about on this episode. What if crisis comes while you’re living life without God and you’re shaken right into the arms of Jesus? Stephen McWhirter is a worship leader and singer-songwriter. He has a hit song out right now called Come Jesus Come. But his road to success and more importantly, his road to Jesus was anything but smooth. Stephen, thank you for joining us.

Stephen McWhirter:

Hey, my pleasure.

Steve Sunshine:

Well, let’s dive right in. Tell us your story.

Stephen McWhirter:

So my dad was an evangelist, a traveling evangelist growing up, and I would see this guy get up and preach about Jesus, and then behind closed doors, I would watch him physically abuse my mom. And at a very young age, I decided if God’s real, He’s not good. I don’t want anything to do with this Jesus guy. So my earthly father and my Heavenly Father, at a very young age, became the villains in my story. And around 11 years old, I started smoking and drinking and marijuana and all that kind of stuff. And by the time I was 15, it was cocaine and pills and I’m selling drugs and you name it. By the time I’m 17, I’m a full out crystal meth addict. I’m using every day for over six years. And during this time, in my life, I hated Christianity. I was the guy that just would literally cuss you out or try to knock you out if you mentioned the name Jesus around me truly to the point of almost violent about it.

Steve Sunshine:

Because you’d seen so much hypocrisy and abuse.

Stephen McWhirter:

Sure. For sure, that was a big part of it, I believe. But I believe in demonic stuff too. I believe the power of Jesus is much stronger and is Lord and King and it’s done. But when you’re not a believer, I believe you can easily be deceived and that’s what was going on. I truly believe that looking back, just because of how violent and crazy I was about it. Can I say that it was my earthly father’s fault only? No, because we still are held to our own actions and our own behavior. You know what I mean? Despite all that stuff. But I was really, again, totally just hated Christianity. You would look at me and say, if there was ever an enemy of the cross, it’s this guy. And around that time, people were praying for me, I mean, really praying for me, pulling over on the side of the road, boogers coming out of their nose, ugly crying.

Steve Sunshine:

Now, who are these people that were praying for you?

Stephen McWhirter:

Just friends, some family, that kind of stuff.

Steve Sunshine:

So you were connected to some Christians then even when you were-

Stephen McWhirter:

Well, people that knew me that were Christians, not that I was connected with them. No, I didn’t want anything to do with it. I would say this as a believer, sometimes, if you… and not sometimes, all the time, we are such instinctively selfish people as believers sometimes, even as believers, just because we’re human still, that we are such instinctively selfish people at times, that if you ever pull over on the side of the road and start ugly crying over somebody coming to Jesus like that, that is the Holy Spirit wooing you to intercede on behalf of that person. And you want to pay attention because often, He’s wanting to do something in you as much as He’s wanting to do something through you. And there’s something special about you getting on your knees and speaking that person’s name out before the King of Kings.

I’ll often, at events, have people come up to me, and I know pastors can relate to this, people will come up to them and they will say, with tears in their eyes, “Pray for my husband, pray for my son, pray for my wife,” blah, blah. And here’s the point, we will pray with them and we will pray for them, but there’s a reason, you, that person that is broken like that over this other person, there’s a reason you feel that way and I believe it’s the Holy Spirit has put this person on you, and there’s something really powerful about you praying for this person. Anyways, so God’s after me in my story, and somebody comes and gives me this book called The Case for Christ, by Lee Strobel.

And having told you how against Christianity I was, this is the most miraculous part of the story because I didn’t cuss him out. There wasn’t a giant episode. I just accepted the book like a blur. And fast-forward, it’s three o’clock in the morning, I am in a room with drugs next to me on the side table. Nobody’s playing softly and quietly in the corner, nobody’s preaching. Not that people aren’t saved by preaching, because I am reading a book about Jesus. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that. But there’s something about this moment where it seems like the most impossible place for someone to get saved, but it’s the kindness of a very real, real God to meet a wounded pastor’s kid in a place like this.

Steve Sunshine:

How did you decide to pick the book up?

Stephen McWhirter:

I just had it next to my bed and I was literally at drugs and I was just… honestly, the whole thing is a blur. I attribute every bit of it to the Lord, the fact that I even picked it up.

Steve Sunshine:

Yes.

Stephen McWhirter:

Look, people that are enemies of the cross come to Christ every day. And I wish I could give you this argument that someone gave me that made me pick up a book. I wish I could tell you there was this A plus B equals I talked Stephen into it, but there wasn’t. There was an actual softening of my heart that cannot be explained other than people praying for me and the Holy Spirit moving on me in a way to where, look, He calls you and He convicts you. But this isn’t His Word. So I picked up this book, I can’t even explain it. It was like an out-of-body experience.

And I’m just reading it, probably reading it out of a place to have fodder to argue with people. But at the end of the day, as I read it, I went, I believe what I’m reading. And I remember just having this moment in that room that night where I began to have an internal conversation with the Lord. I knew it was Him and I knew these thoughts weren’t my thoughts. And it was, Stephen, I’m real, I’m good, Stephen, I’m real and I’m good, and I have a purpose for your life. Now, the good part, that’s the tough one. See, the Lord has a way of saying something you and I have heard a million times, Steve, something as simple as, I love you, and it starts to mean nothing because we’ve heard it so many times, but when we actually hear the heart of God say something like that to us for the first time, not just hear it intellectually, but actually hear it at the very core of who we are, it unlocks something that’s been dormant inside us our entire lives.

And in that moment, I was like, “Oh, God, I want to give you my life. I want to quit all this addiction, all this darkness, all this anger and stuff I’ve known for so long. God, I want to but I can’t.” I had been an addiction at this point for over 11 years. I had no idea how I could ever be anyone else. I couldn’t even imagine another version of me. But in that moment, I just remember the Lord being like… again, in a thought more powerful than words, the Holy Spirit really did speak something into me that I knew wasn’t me, and it was, “Stephen, you won’t do it, I’ll do it,” which later, I found out is Ephesians 2, “You’re saved by grace, this isn’t something you can boast about but a work of God.” Now, there is a work that the Father asks of you, and it says that in John 6.

It says, “The only work the Father asks of you is to believe.” And in that moment, when I… that thought I knew wasn’t mine, that’s what I did, I believed. I took God at His Word. It’s the very core. I took God at His Word. I believed Him like I believe I’m breathing air right now. And I fell to my knees, gave my life to Jesus in that room. I grew up around it enough to know what I was doing, and I fell to my knees, gave my life to Jesus, went from addiction to redemption, from meth addict to worship leader, from an orphan to a son because God is real, not just because somebody talked me into it, but because He’s real.

Steve Sunshine:

The breaking of addiction, did that happen in a moment or was that a process?

Stephen McWhirter:

Yeah, I quit everything overnight.

Steve Sunshine:

Wow.

Stephen McWhirter:

And a lot of people will say, hey, you can’t say that, that’s not how it works. You’ll have to take it up with the Lord when you get to Heaven. But here’s the deal, in the gospels, Jesus never healed anyone. He’s won the same way twice. Every story has a purpose. If it takes five times and you fall at the feet of Jesus, if it takes 10 times and you fall at the feet of Jesus, He’s going to use your story to draw so many people to Him. I love that because in Hebrew, the word testimony means, do it again story. So it’s like, when you share your testimony, no matter what your testimony is, it’s like God is saying to the person listening, I want to do it again and I want to do it again with you.

Steve Sunshine:

Wow.

Stephen McWhirter:

And there’s real power in that.

Steve Sunshine:

Yeah. That is quite a story. My own conversion story is not as spectacular.

Stephen McWhirter:

Hey, I have people say to me all the time, “I wish I had your testimony,” and I think, why would you want to have been a meth addict?

Steve Sunshine:

No, I’m not saying that. I certainly wouldn’t want to go through what you went through. But I will say, what’s similar is my… a similar attitude, I was maybe not angry in the same way, or I wouldn’t have cussed anybody out, but I was pretty cynical. And for reasons I can’t explain, I walked into a Christian bookstore and bought a Bible when I was a young adult and read most of the New Testament. For reasons I can’t explain, once in a while, I would go to this random church and none of those things directly immediately led to me becoming a Christian. Other things happened later, but I could see that, that was part of the chain that God was building that led up to that point. And I love the fact that He takes people sometimes who don’t think they have any real interest in having anything to do with them and attracts them to Himself through the Spirit. You look back on it and go, I didn’t do that.

Stephen McWhirter:

And if you did, it wouldn’t be the Lord. And look, here’s the deal, is there something for you to do? There is. I keep saying that the only work the Father asks of you is to believe, that sometimes believing is action, often believing is doing something because you believe it, but ultimately, at the end of the day, it’s Him. And I’m grateful that it is.

Steve Sunshine:

Aside from addiction and all of that, how are you a different person than you were back then?

Stephen McWhirter:

My goodness, what do you mean? I wouldn’t even know where to begin. I’m no longer, I but Christ lives. It’s like I’m a new creation. That is true. That’s what it says in His Word, because it’s actually reality. And sometimes I think we settle for just giving ourselves a new moral checklist. And we forget that the good news, the gospel is you and I fully alive. If you read John 3:16, it says, “For God so loved the world that he sent His only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” And we hear that and we go, I’m just going to die someday and live forever.

But the reality of that is the gospel has a goal, it has a mark it’s trying to hit, and it’s actually you, the real you, the you fully alive in Jesus, otherwise why aren’t you dead right now and just in Heaven? There’s a purpose for you here and it’s Christ in you, living through you, the new you, the redeemed you. And there’s a reason why that stuff’s in there. And I think sometimes we forget that and it’s so powerful. John 10:10 says, Jesus says, “I’ve come that you might have life and life to the full.”

Steve Sunshine:

And I’ve heard more people say lately, and I say lately, this is not new, I feel like it’s come to my notice more that everlasting life or eternal life, it does mean forever in Heaven, but it’s already started the moment that you give Him your life. And I think it’s going to be quite a bit more glorious on the other side, but that doesn’t mean… we’re getting tastes of it now.

Stephen McWhirter:

I agree.

Steve Sunshine:

The people that you knew in your old life, what happened to those relationships?

Stephen McWhirter:

Well, most of them dissolved. One or two later ended up coming to Christ, but most of them died. Most of them are dead, most of them are in jail. I just remember running around, a lot of those people just thought I was crazy, and that’s okay. I have to leave that in the Lord’s hands. Sometimes we have to go away for a little bit. I don’t know how well I would’ve done with the addiction or stuff had I just kept being in those circles. I mean, there’s wisdom. So a lot of those things dissolved. Some of them later came to Christ, and I’m friends with them now, but very few, very few, unfortunately.

Steve Sunshine:

How soon did you decide to get into music ministry?

Stephen McWhirter:

I don’t know that I decided to. I think the Lord decided for me. I think, a year later, I got hired as a worship leader for, maybe not even that long, for a very hard up church. I always say to people, “Never underestimate just how bad a pastor needs a worship leader.” They’re like, “Ex meth addict, we’ll take you.” And so yeah, it wasn’t too long after and I started working for church part-time. Eventually, that turned into full-time. And then I was on staff for churches from then on for about 10 or so years. And I eventually felt called to do full-time songwriting, worship ministry, traveling and doing what I do now for the last, I don’t know, 10 or 12 years, at least 10 years. And it’s been good.

Steve Sunshine:

Were you playing music? You must have been before.

Stephen McWhirter:

Yeah. I was in metal bands when I was a teenager, screaming my head off and stuff like that. When I got saved and I got my first job at a church, I remember them sliding me a list of songs I was allowed to play. And I think the coolest thing on that list was, I can only imagine, and I had went from playing metal and all this kind of stuff to singing these songs, but I still say this today, when you’ve really met the presence of God, and it wasn’t just some idea that you agreed with, but it’s real. It doesn’t matter how cheesy the songs are, if they’re true and they’re something that pleases Him, getting to sing them is an absolute joy, and it should be.

Steve Sunshine:

So your voice has so much soul. I could hear you singing R&B, or maybe even Motown, were all your influences heavy metal?

Stephen McWhirter:

I did that early on, and even after being saved, I had some Christian friends of mine in my early 20s and we started doing Motown covers, R&B covers and stuff, and we would do those four nights a week, four hours a night.

Steve Sunshine:

I can totally hear that.

Stephen McWhirter:

It was a big part. And I was always drawn to Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, all that kind of stuff.

Steve Sunshine:

Very cool.

Stephen McWhirter:

Yeah.

Steve Sunshine:

Personal life, what has happened since then?

Stephen McWhirter:

Well, we have three kids, 9, 16, 19. My wife and I have been together, even through the addiction we were dating and she stuck it out.

Steve Sunshine:

Wow.

Stephen McWhirter:

She ended up getting saved. The Lord actually ended up redeeming my relationship with my father, and he ended up getting healthy, but it was still… there was always weirdness there. But he did baptize it, my wife and I, and he ended up performing our wedding ceremony. And I always say, the Lord has a way of taking when you… it’s like, when you give your life to him, it’s like a pebble in the ocean. It becomes a tsunami of redemption and grace that starts to hit things in your life that surround your life that you wouldn’t even imagine. And so my wife and I, we’ve been together almost over 27 years dating and married and kids. And now I just travel non… it feels like nonstop, putting out music.

God’s really blessed it. Gosh, just on our live streams, we put the song out, Come Jesus Come, back in 2022 on TikTok and Instagram, Facebook and all that. It went viral, because of the stirring for a longing for Jesus to return, that was flamed by that song with a lot of people. We started going live, and I would just worship Jesus, share the gospel, share my testimony. We’d ask people if they want to give their life to Jesus and pray with them, try to help them connect to churches. We have moderators and people across the country that are involved in stuff. And since September of ’22 till now, we’ve seen over 38,000 people come to Jesus through the live streams.

Steve Sunshine:

That you know of?

Stephen McWhirter:

That I know of. And then there’s traveling. We see lots of people come to Christ at events, thousands. And so it’s been a roller coaster of just incredible things that God has done, that’s just one big giant redemption story.

Steve Sunshine:

Can you think of a story of somebody who’s come up to you and said… I mean, I’m sure there are lots of them but one that maybe jumps to mind that said, “Your story or your music has made this impact on my life?”

Stephen McWhirter:

Yeah. In detail, no, but I can think of hundreds and hundreds of people that have come up to me personally. Messages and emails, thousands. And I always say to people, we only ever hear 1%. Not even that, maybe it’s 0.000%. I don’t know. 1%. And when we get to eternity, you’ll start to see the full impact of your life, Christ living through your life. And so yeah, it’s pretty amazing. Actually, what was it? Before yesterday, I was in Mississippi and a girl came up to me who had been in addiction for years and was going to commit suicide and said she was scrolling through TikTok and saw me and gave her life to Jesus.

And that was 11 months ago. She’s been sober and started coming to church. So that’s a very recent one. But that’s all the Lord. It’s not me. It really is not me. I’m not saying that just because it’s a Christian thing to say, I’m saying it because I’m fully aware it’s the Lord who calls and it’s the Lord who convicts and it’s the Lord who changes people. And He uses us, yes, but at the end of the day, make no mistake, it’s Him.

Steve Sunshine:

So you went through a lot of pain and you can now look back and see God’s purpose, not in putting you through it, but in seeing you through it. We had Laura’s story on a few episodes ago and she talked about how God heals, but her story is that her husband has a brain tumor and she also said God will sustain if you’re to go through something like that long term. And I love that, and I love even the… you take that story and then you take this story and you see that God is sovereign and He works in different ways. And what you do know is that if you abide in Him, He’s not going to leave you, whether you’re going through something hard or not.

Stephen McWhirter:

Yeah, definitely. Though I have a miraculous story, I’m also aware of His ways are higher than mine and He does what He wants when He wants, and it’s always for a good reason. And like you said, He will sustain us through things. Sometimes our stories, no, always our stories are for His glory and for a good purpose that will ultimately bring many to Him. And He cares about it all. You know what I mean? He cares about every situation you’re going through. If you’re somebody listening and you know somebody that’s been an addiction and they have an experience that overnight thing, He takes what you think will mark your life as shame, and He uses it to mark your life with glory. That’s the beautiful part.

Steve Sunshine:

Yeah. I mean, somebody else will have a story that said, I’m no longer in addiction and it took this much time to go through it, and that’s also God working, and we don’t know why. One thing maybe I’d like to ask here as we come toward the end is picture somebody who’s really low right now, whether it’s because of an addiction or an illness or a relationship or something. They’re at their personal rock bottom and they’re listening to this. As somebody who’s lived through it and come out on the other side, what would you say to them?

Stephen McWhirter:

Well, just for the addiction part, especially if it’s a parent, or a spouse, or a child, whatever, and your parent is the one that’s the addict, whatever it is, sibling, in Jesus’s name, you’re not meant to carry that weight. That is not your burden. The Lord says, “Come to Me and all you are weary, and I’ll give you a light yolk.” He’s the one that carries, He’s the one that’s in there fighting for those people. And it’s okay to care, it’s okay to cry, it’s okay to love and to pray and grieve, but remember, you don’t carry that weight.

There’s an anxiety and a heaviness that I know that a lot of people carry in those scenarios that really just want you to feel freedom from that if you’re hearing this right now and know that the Lord wants to carry it and already is. And we also just speak life over those people, hope. His name is Jehovah Rapha, it means the God who heals. I don’t know how He’ll do it, when He’ll do it, whether He does it on this side of attorney or not, but I know He doesn’t break His promise.

Steve Sunshine:

That’s right.

Stephen McWhirter:

And right now, if you’re hearing this, just know that He really is who He says He is, and you don’t have to beg or plead with Him. You can just come to Him and say, I love you, God, for being who You say You are in your Word, and I love You for being the Zephaniah 3:17 God, the God that is mighty to save. You’re able to do it, you’re stronger than anyone else and able to do it. And if you’re someone right now that’s in addiction and you’re hearing this, I would ask the question that the Lord asks, do you want to know what you look like fully alive? Do you really want to know who you are, the real you?

And I know you might hear that, and like me at one point, you might think, you’re not going to trick me. First off, I don’t know how you’re listening to this podcast, if you’re not safe or you’re struggling with addiction, you might be saved and you’re struggling with addiction. You might be a believer in your hiding addiction, whatever it is, you might say, this is just who I am. I can’t imagine being something else. The you fully alive, the real you in Christ, fully alive in Jesus is the real you.

That’s the you He spoke before the foundation of the earth. It’s the real you. And I would just come to Him today, one of my favorite verses is Philippians 2:13, and I think it’s in the New Living translation, forgive me, but I think it says, “It’s God in you giving you the desire and the power to do the things that please Him.” So it’s God in you giving you the want to that you don’t have yet. You’re disqualifying yourself because you’re like, I wish I wanted it like this person. I wish I wanted it like that person.

Probably the best thing you can pray is literally come to the Lord and say, Lord, I want to want you more than I do. I want to want you more than I want this addiction or this thing. And I believe You are the one. Your Holy Spirit in me is the one giving me power to do what I can. And so right now, I just declare the name of Jesus over you, whatever you’re going through right now, I’d speak His name and all that comes with it, which is freedom, which is peace, which is hope, which is love, which is life in Jesus’ name.

Steve Sunshine:

Awesome. Amen. Thank you so much. Thank you for having the courage to follow God’s leading and share your story.

Stephen McWhirter:

Oh, no, great.

Steve Sunshine:

And lending your voice to Christian music in two ways. I appreciate them both.

Stephen McWhirter:

Thank you.

Steve Sunshine:

Where can people connect with you and your music, Stephen?

Stephen McWhirter:

Worshipjesus.L-I-F-E, not .com, .L-I-F-E, .life.

Steve Sunshine:

Worshipjesus.life. All right, thank you so much, Stephen.

Stephen McWhirter:

All right, brother. Thank you. Thanks, Steve.

Steve Sunshine:

And thank you for listening to Shaken. Would you help make sure others find this podcast? There are several ways you can help, share Shaken with a friend, give Shaken a good review and rating. Subscribe to Shaken so you never miss an episode, and you can find more episodes at purposely.com or on your favorite podcast app.