Why I Had To Write This

"Am I simply different, or is Jesus truly changing me?"

There was a time when I thought being different was the question I needed to answer. As an autistic man, I had spent much of my life learning that the way I think, communicate, process, and experience the world does not always fit what other people expect. Sometimes that difference was misunderstood, and sometimes I wondered whether I needed to change myself simply to belong.

Then something shifted in me.

I began to understand that I had been looking at the wrong question. I was so focused on being different that I had not stopped to ask what Jesus was doing in me.

The question became personal.

Am I allowing Jesus to change the parts of my life that need to change?

That question became especially clear while listening to Different by Micah Tyler. The song did not give me the answer to that question. Instead, it helped me recognize that I needed to ask it.

I began looking beyond the differences people could see and toward the condition of my heart. I had to consider whether my faith was more than words and whether following Jesus was actually shaping the way I lived.

My autism remains part of my story. It influences how I experience the world, but it does not determine my worth, my faith, or my relationship with Jesus Christ. I do not believe I need to become someone else to be loved by God.

At the same time, I cannot use being different as a reason to avoid being changed. Jesus still calls me to examine my heart, surrender my choices, grow in obedience, and become more like Him.

That tension is important to me. There is a difference between accepting the person God created me to be and refusing to let Him correct me. One is identity. The other is surrender.

I am still learning that difference.

I am not writing this book as someone who has mastered the Christian life. I am writing as a man who has struggled, questioned, failed, learned, prayed, and continued to follow Jesus. I have discovered that genuine faith is not proven by pretending everything is easy. It is revealed through what we do when following Jesus becomes difficult.

That is where these pages come from.

Changed is not an attempt to explain autism, and it is not a story about becoming acceptable to the people around me. It is a personal reflection on what happens when a person stops trying to manage the appearance of faith and begins surrendering the reality of his life to Jesus.

Some of these pages may challenge you. Others may remind you of something you have wrestled with yourself. My hope is that you will not simply read them and move on. I hope they cause you to pause long enough to examine your own relationship with Jesus.

Not someone else.

You.

The question behind this book is not whether Bradley Hobbs has been changed. The deeper question is whether each of us is allowing Jesus Christ to change us.

So as you begin reading, I invite you to bring your honest self with you. You do not have to pretend. You do not have to have every answer. You simply have to be willing to let Jesus meet you where you are and lead you where He wants you to go.

That is where Changed begins.