What Happens When Your Dream Disappears?

Hello TDC family,

My name is Caden Davis. I grew up in Coppell and first began attending TDC during my high school years. Though I was raised in a faithful home and in the church, the faith I had inherited did not truly become my own until the Lord, in His mercy, allowed adversity to confront me.

I was given the opportunity to play college football at Texas A&M and later at Ole Miss, and briefly in the NFL with the Jets and Bills. During my time in College Station I ran hard after the world and away from the Lord. In His faithfulness, God used the very failure and uprooting that crushed me to bring me to the end of myself. What the enemy intended for evil, the Lord turned for good. After failure at Texas A&M, I transferred to Ole Miss, and more importantly, God began to transform my heart.

I returned to the Scriptures I had long heard but never truly received. Night after night the Lord met me in His Word. The seeds sown for years throughout my youth finally began to take root and bear fruit. Through a season that felt like a wilderness of isolation, through the steady presence of a few solid believers, and through the patient investment of a godly mentor, Christ became not merely a doctrine I affirmed but the living Lord I loved. I tasted the joy of knowing Him and the peace that surpasses understanding. Over those two years my faith was tested and proved genuine. In this past year, being cut from the NFL and football itself was removed from my life after more than a decade of playing, the Lord used that stripping to deepen my dependence on Him still further. The truth of Ecclesiastes grew clearer: apart from Christ, all else is vanity.

I accepted the call to serve as student minister at TDC Argyle because Jesus has so thoroughly changed my life that I long for every student to know the same grace. I have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, and I desire that our students would experience His goodness and the fruit of His Spirit the same way.

I know how easy it is to grow up in church, hear the gospel repeatedly, and still never truly possess it as one’s own. I want to work so that the faith of our students becomes living and personal. I also am burdened for a generation offered countless counterfeit identities and empty satisfactions. Having chased those myself and found them hollow, I want to point students to the only One who can satisfy. Lastly, I want our students to discover that following Jesus is not a burden to carry or a set of rules to manage, but the most joyful, free, and satisfying way to live. Having tasted the emptiness of everything the world offers, I long for them to experience the life that is truly life.

My prayer is that the Lord would use this season to open their eyes to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Caden Davis