Robert McIntosh

 INTERVIEWER: Ever wondered what other people of faith believe, what their faith means to them—how they live it? That’s what this audio podcast is about. It’s called “All Faith Counts” because, well, all faith does counts. The more each of us knows about other people’s faith the more we understand, accept and respect them for their belief. Hopefully this is a reminder of all the good faith brings to our world.

ROBERT MCINTOSH: My name is Robert McIntosh. I am 24 years old. I am from Dallas, Texas. And I am a recent graduate and I’m up here in Washington, D.C.

I work at a non-partisan, non-profit organization that does advocacy and does legislating at state and federal legislators and also does, like, just supporting students that are wrongfully—their constitutional rights are violated.

INTERVIEWER: We’ll be hearing today from Robert McIntosh, a millennial, Evangelical Christian. Although he now works and lives in Washington, D.C., his Texas roots still run deep in his soul.

ROBERT MCINTOSH: Texas is all I really knew until I moved up here. There’s a lot of pride that comes with the state. It’s just a very “pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps kind of state and faith plays a large role and communities play a large role. So, it’s a really good state with good people and just humble down-to-earth communities.

INTERVIEWER: So, Robert, will you share with us your faith journey? What has it been like and when did it start to become an important part of your life?

ROBERT MCINTOSH: I grew up going—just kind of a church-going family. We went to a Methodist church. We hopped around to a couple of different Methodist churches in Dallas. But I definitely think it started to change in high school. I had an older mentor who really I thought walked the walk and took it very, very seriously in a way that was really inspiring in how he treated people and how he viewed interactions and how he was just a different, older guy to look up to. And he just made different decisions and there was just something clearly distinct about him, so I wanted to follow him and he very much introduced me to what the Christian faith was all about, in my opinion.

I went to college and found some people that were very evangelical, and they were just fun-loving people, like they were always optimistic, always having a good time. That doesn’t mean, you know, everything was positive, non-stop, but they were really inspiring people to be around.

INTERVIEWER: And how would you describe the basics, or the core of your faith?

ROBERT MCINTOSH: The core of my belief is that I am a fundamentally broken person. I know this just from 24 years on this earth. It is abundantly clear that there’s so many things like: I’m prone to be selfish, I am prone to want it my way, I am prone to take shortcuts in life, I’m prone to be lazy, all of these negative things that I hate to admit, but they’re true that it’s like, okay, there’s clearly, something wrong with me. And I would argue that I think there’s something wrong with each and every one of us.

And so what I believe is that I was born broken and I need a Savior, and so I don’t pretend to be a saint, I don’t pretend to have it all figured out, but, bare bones I believe that I need a Savior and I have been convinced and persuaded and believe wholeheartedly that Jesus Christ is my savior and I’d like to pretend that I have it all figured out and that I’m just on this, on the golden road and it’s just all on the straight and narrow but no—I’ve got a lot of issues. But the core of my belief is that Jesus is who he says he is, and I need a Savior.

INTERVIEWER: As a Christian, how does the core belief in Jesus Christ translate to how you live your life? Or in other words, why does your faith inspire you to act?

ROBERT MCINTOSH: When my eyes and heart are focused on Christ, it allows me to take the focus off of myself and what He wants of me, and He wants of me to serve others, to put others before myself. And so, the little things of serving your colleagues and your classmates and your friends and your family add up over time. And I think it’s—and I’ve done mission trips. I felt compelled to go and serve people who are not as fortunate. It’s compelled me, it’s motivated me to serve others. It’s really, like, lit a fire in me at certain moments.

INTERVIEWER: Certainly, mission trips aren’t convenient nor recreational. What did you do and why do you do it?

ROBERT MCINTOSH: So, I’ve been to at least three mission trips. We worked at a Christian school for deaf children and so we did a lot of manual labor and honestly, like, kind of building their classrooms from scratch. Like there’s just a lot of dirt—there needed to be a lot of things shoveled in and out and a lot of, you know, chalkboards and everything set up. And so, we did that and then we also, like, were able to build relationships with these children. It was a really interesting experience and one that I won’t be quick to forget.

I think that your faith should compel you—should compel me—to serve daily. I think that is a lot more rewarding. Just hard work and service is just infinitely more valuable and lasting and you can hang your hat on something rather than kind of a short fleeting worldly achievement.

INTERVIEWER: You serve others because you believe it’s important to show your faith in Jesus Christ by reaching out to the less fortunate. Are there other examples of Christ’s teachings that you try to incorporate in your interactions with others?

ROBERT MCINTOSH: I think we struggle to forgive other people but forgiveness is one of the central themes of Jesus’s teachings, and he talks about loving your enemies. And it’s like I don’t have a lot of enemies out there, but I’m thinking like, man, there are people who I disagree with or people who maybe don’t think so fondly of me. And Jesus has a very countercultural message of loving your competitors, your enemies, maybe your opponents, your disagree-ers, people on different sides of the political spectrum, whatever it may be.

So I think, to me, that is convicts me and I’m not perfect at it but I do pray for the ability to forgive and to forgive others and I think that’s changed how I interact with people.

INTERVIEWER: If faith is meant to help people through life’s problems, how do you practice your faith in times of challenge?

ROBERT MCINTOSH: The frailties of life as far as anxiety and stress and paranoia whatever it may be, comparison, so many of these issues that I think a lot of people struggle with in general but I think younger people with social media and with the comparison games that just exist—just ubiquitous in our culture.

I think for me, I try to submit everything to prayer. I don’t want to pretend that I’m some kind of prayer warrior, but I am trying to be better about like sub-casting all of my worries and anxieties onto him, like, literally saying it out loud and like just trying to take that off my back and just saying, “God do with this with what you will.”

And then I just try to take a few breaths and just like ask for him to give me direction and I really want him to control my life because then it’s easier on me. And so, again, I don’t have it quite mapped out as maybe easily as it sounds, right here, but that’s how I try—I try to submit it to prayer and I try to surrender that to my faith.

I think for me, it certainly helped, some moments better, than others, and I think if I continually fight that and continue to work through with God, I believe that ultimately, it could be like a victory won over it, but I think at the very least, it could be kept at bay, or managed. And even if it wasn’t fully managed I think there’s something good that could come of it.

INTERVIEWER: A recent survey said that only 7% of Americans talk regularly about religious matters. What would you tell others about this opportunity to talk about your faith?

ROBERT MCINTOSH: I do believe that I should share my faith. I regret to say this, I don’t share it as much as I should. And this is probably the first time in a long time that I’ve articulated this, a lot of these, like, especially these doctrinal issues or general thoughts out loud in a long time. It does feel good to say it and talk about it because, I mean I think, it’s like anything great in life you know, you have a great spouse or a great girlfriend, or whatever it may be, you want—you want to tell the world about it.

And so, it does feel good to talk about it and I think—I think we should talk about it more and this is probably a good reminder that I ought to.

INTERVIEWER: Thank you, Robert, for talking about your faith today.  Through this conversation we’ve seen your faith inspiring you to bring good into the world. 

And thanks to you, our audience, for listening. We invite you to visit FaithCounts.com to learn and be inspired by different faiths or join the conversation at #MyFaith, because our world is a better place when, “All Faith Counts.”