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"I think God sometimes works in three stages to get your attention…First he woos you by showing you the good things that come with trusting in him.” -- Jon Kitna, speaking of his own experiences in faith
Source: Campus Life, November/December 2000
Turnaround
Not long ago, Jon Kitna was into heavy drinking, shoplifting, and casual sex. Now he's on fire for God and a rising star in the NFL. How'd he get from there to here?
By Mark Moring
God had been knocking on Jon Kitna's door for a while, but Jon sure wasn't listening.
So God quit knocking … and pulled out a battering ram instead. There had to be some way to get this guy's attention.
The first knock—a near-death experience Jon's freshman year in college—should've been loud enough. Jon had been out drinking all night, then passed out while driving home the next morning. He crashed into the curb, popping two tires, and barely missed smashing into a telephone pole at 40 mph.
The second knock—during his sophomore year—came when Jon and a buddy were arrested for shoplifting at a grocery store. Jon had to go to court and pay a $500 fine.
Still, Jon didn't give God even an inkling of a thought.
"I think God sometimes works in three stages to get your attention," he says. "At least that's how he worked in my life. First he woos you by showing you the good things that come with trusting in him. For me, God had tried to show me through my grandmother and through Christians I knew in high school.
"When that doesn't work, he wounds you. That's when I got caught stealing and almost got killed by drinking and driving.
"And when those two things don't work, I think you're either taken from this earth or you're just turned over to your sin. That's where I was. I really think I was at the end of my rope as far as the wounding went."
Jon had been a good guy in high school, though he wasn't a Christian. Still, he grew up in a loving family and had tons of friends. He rarely partied, made great grades, and was a three-sport star.
But when he went off to Central Washington University to play football, the freedom of college—no parents, few rules—was too much for him to handle. It wasn't long before he was drinking heavily, and he soon got into shoplifting and, to use his term, "womanizing." As a freshman quarterback who rarely played in games, Jon was having sex more often than he was taking snaps.
Jon says he did those things "just for the high of doing it." Peer pressure wasn't an issue: "I was the ringleader," he says. "I'd come up with the plans myself." Need wasn't an issue either: "We stole for fun, not because we had to. The night we got caught shoplifting, we took about $30 worth of stuff, but I had $50 in my pocket. I was just doing it to do it."
"I was on the road to destruction," he says. "But while I was yet a sinner, God protected me. He made me miss that telephone pole. He allowed things to happen to me to try to get my attention, but he protected me from things that would ruin me."
And he just kept knock, knock, knocking.
Finally, Jon sat up and listened.
Giving Hope to Troubled Teens
Jon Kitna will never forget the sight: Teens hanging out on the streets of Oakland, smoking all kinds of stuff, no direction, no purpose …
"No hope," says Jon, who saw them while riding from the hotel to the stadium before a game in Oakland a couple of years ago. "These kids looked like they had no hope in life."
Jon wanted to do something, to make a difference. When he got back to Seattle, he called Remann Hall, a juvenile detention center in nearby Tacoma, where he'd grown up. He asked how he could help. After the season, Jon dropped by Remann Hall every other Tuesday night to work with the teens.
Typically, he'd play Ping Pong or cards with them, start some conversations, then lead a Bible study, telling them how to become a Christian. Some of them did.
Jon says he saw himself in the teens at Remann.
"I was a lot like they are," he says. "I made some wrong decisions, did some things I shouldn't have. The only differences between them and me was one, I didn't get caught, and two, I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. But other than that, I was just like those kids."
Since then, Jon had to step back from the program, due to increased time demands with the team and his family—including two young children of his own.
But he still has "a heart for teens," as he puts it, and he often speaks in high schools and to youth groups. He likes to tell the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and how they kept the faith despite having their lives threatened (Daniel 3).
Says Jon, "I want to encourage students to stay strong, no matter what."
— Mark Moring
 
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