Fishers of Men

The Lord has done this and it is marvelous in His sight!!! I am the biological and spiritual son of Rod Gudroe who prayed to the Lord for me before I was born. My parents named me Elijah John after two prophets of the bible. My first name Elijah means “My God is the Lord” in Hebrew. My middle name came from John the Baptist who was the forerunner to prepare the way of Jesus Christ before His earthly ministry. My father told me that he prayed that I would become a mighty warrior for the Lord in my life and indeed dedicated me in the sight of the saints when I was a baby. My brother who was born three years later was named Noah Paul. Noah who built the ark and Paul the apostle to the gentiles.

Although my father prayed for me faithfully, the enemy of my soul caused a great deal of pain by attacking the foundation of my world. When I was five my mother left my father and at an early age my parents got divorced. My mom married another and the majority of my time through the week was spent with her and my new step-dad. He was a wealthy shoe designer from Illinois who had got a job with the famous Dexter Shoe company in Dexter, ME.

Being with my father on the weekends enabled my father to take me to First Free Baptist Church in Dexter, Maine, where he was converted to the faith several years before I was born. Though time with my father was short, he made a huge impact on me by continually planting seeds of hope and teaching me stories from the bible including the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal which strengthened my faith. Knowing I was named after a prophet also gave me courage to believe and I remember my faith in the Lord was strong at an early age. The Lord used me to even convert many of my friends into believing in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. The word of God is powerful sharper than any double-edged sword, able to dived soul and spirit, joint and marrow.

As I got older and time went on things got harder and harder. It’s difficult for adults to understand divorce, let alone a young boy. It put a strain on my relationship with God because in the Bible it teaches against divorce and I couldn’t understand why it happened. My parents still took great care of me and my brother and provided all of our needs but each time one of my parents dropped us off with the other, it was hard but the toughest times were still ahead.

The turning point in my entire life was November of 1997. I will never forget the broken look on my Dad’s face when he found out that my step-dad was taking a new job and we were moving to Grand Rapids, Michigan. I am not blaming my mother and portraying my father as the victim because nobody’s sinless. That is actually the reason Christ died was for our sins. If we claim to be without sin His word has no place in our lives. Nevertheless, he was devastated by this and my own faith was shaken as well. I though to myself how could God want me separated from one of the only godly influences in my life?

When we first got there it was exciting and a lot of new things started happening. My step-dad got a huge pay increase so material things began to increase as well. My brother and I got very little withheld from us and material things became our focus, not God. The new school I attended was five times the size of my previous one and I comprised my faith in many ways to fit in and become popular. I ceased attending church.

One thing I forgot to mention was that my father was an ex drummer in some previous old rock bands when he was younger. He always had me with him so I learned beats and rhythm very quickly and for this reason I was attracted to rap music for its mechanical rhythmic properties. My first rap song I heard was Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice baby”. Through out my life I bought various rap and hip hop c.d.’s. becaused I loved the way artists could deliver what they were feeling through rhymes and beats.

One thing I didn’t realize was that most of what I was listening to began to influence me in a negative way and in fact was waging war against my soul. The secular lyrics glorified money, sex and self centered hedonism as does most secular music. Also as a young teenager I got sucked into pornography. I started by peeking at vile images of women doing things that aren’t even proper to speak of in public. I honestly believe that I was just seeking to take away the pain of my childhood and instead of taking it to the Lord I tried to deal with these things on my own. Soon the images I was looking at began to lead to greater sin and I began going to parties and engaging in fornication, drunkenness and carousing. I also started smoking marijuana believing the lie that it would help me to cope with my pain and help me escape the reality of a broken family. It just lead me into more sin through my teen years.

Christmas time my freshman year of college I visited my father and he took me over to a long time friend of his Scott Hayes. My father had witnessed to him years back and he also became a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. He lent me a book he had bought called “The Bondage Breaker”. I knew deep down I wasn’t living right, but this book had enough Scripture in it to reveal to me I was a slave of sin and revealed it in a powerful way. Never throughout my time seeking fulfillment in the world did I ever deny God with my lips, but I denied Him with my lifestyle. Every time I sinned I remembered feeling guilty and my conscience bore witness to the fact I wasn’t living out my childhood faith in purity. I read the book on the plane and I began to cry out to my God for deliverance. The Lord answered my cry and the Holy Spirit brought back to my memory the things I had forgotten about the Lord promises. I repented of my sin and confessed Jesus Christ as Lord of my life. I immediately began to study the Word of God and confess sin all day every day. I had a girlfriend who I had been unfaithful to and been unfaithful to God by not remaining abstinent with her. She was devastated when I confessed my unfaithfulness to her and after hearing I forsook all to follow Jesus. I lost just about all of my old friends, but the Lord was with me. He began leading me step by step into new relationships with godly people and godly places. My heart was ripped out and broken from my own sin but God gave me a new heart with new desires. My hunger for the word of God consumed me and the Lord set my spirit on fire! A friend of mine I met just months after receiving Christ introduced me to new Christian music. Artists like Jeremy Camp, David Crowder Band and Kutless inspired me to learn to play guitar. I started playing and within a few months I was playing songs and within a couple years the Lord inspired Dad, Glen Weeks and I to start a Christian band named Fishers of Men.

After my second year of college I felt the Lord calling me back to Maine to make up lost years with my father. During those years I met up with my wife Nicole. She was a childhood friend from before I moved. She also had turned her life over to Christ not long after she had her son Tristan. He was four when we met. We were married in 2005 and had another new son “Levi” who is now three. We live in Dexter, Maine and have a dog named “Lily”.

Most of my time now is spent writing and recording music about what Jesus has done with my life and I center every song entirely around the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. I am currently working on a debut CD called “Blood Bought”, representing how Jesus bought me with His own blood from slavery of sin!!! For years Satan held me captive through the medium of music and now Jesus is redeeming the time by empowering me to free others by making music inspired by His Spirit!!!