By Sandra Marroquin—
Jayden Urban found God by fighting.
The night before his mat fight, Jayden Urban sat alone overwhelmed with fear. His heart began to race and his thoughts kept spiraling..
“I just started praying, asking for some help to deal with the anxiety,” he said. “I felt like a sign of relief in that moment.”
Jayden won the fight – and he made God his regular routine. Today, he’s in MMA Australia and has been clean and sober for about four years.
Born of parents, one Polish, the other Lebanese, Jayden was raised Maronite Christian but fell into the bad lifestyle of the streets.
“I started smoking pot around 11 years old, drinking around the same time, 12, 13 years old,” he shared during the Stand for Truth podcast.
What began as experimentation quickly escalated. Jayden became involved in crime and violence, leading to repeated time behind bars.
“I was away for most of my childhood practically till I was 20 years old,” he said.
The years that should have been spent growing, learning, and building a future were instead lost to prison cells and cycles of bad choices.
Despite being raised in the Maronite faith, Jayden drifted far from God.
“At that time in my life, I just steered away,” he explained.
Temptation, peer influence, and weakness pulled him deeper into a lifestyle that left him empty and broken.
“The devil tempts us,” he says. “Some of us are more weak-minded and at that time I was just weak minded.”
It was in prison, one of the darkest places in his life that Jayden began to reconnect with God.
Isolated and stripped of distractions, he found comfort in prayer and Scripture.
“It’s like you have someone to talk to. Someone’s listening,” he said.
During this time, he built a close friendship with a priest who helped guide him spiritually.
“I became close friends with a priest there… and he really helped me get closer to the faith.”
After his release, Jayden struggled again. Temptation returned, and for a time, he fell away from his faith.
But God was not finished with him. Two years ago, a new chapter began when Jayden walked into a gym for the first time to train for fighting.
His friends said he’d be good at it, but fear held him back.
“I didn’t want to go into the gym in the first place because I had an ego,” he admitted.
Yet the moment he trained, everything changed. “I walked into the gym my first day there and I fell in love with the sport.”
MMA quickly became more than just a physical outlet; it became a source of discipline, structure, and spiritual renewal.
Today, Jayden lives clean and disciplined. “I’ve been clean now for three and a half years. Off everything,” he said.
His life is now built around faith, family, and fighting.
Before Jayden’s fights he has the mindset that “regardless of the outcome, God is going to be with me and I know I’ll be safe.”
As he trains eight hours a day and prepares for a professional MMA career with hopes of reaching the UFC,
Jayden believes his story is bigger than himself.
“I truly believe my story, my testimony, is the reason I’ll get to the top so that I can tell that story to everyone.” Jayden says.
Jayden is especially passionate about warning young people who believe crime, drugs and violence are good things or make you look “cool”.
“You might think it’s cool… but when you’re in that cell, you’re on your own,” he said.
He speaks honestly about betrayal, loneliness, and regret. “The people in that life… none of them care about you. They’re all fake.”
His advice to youth is simple but powerful: “Whoever you hang around is who you are. You lie with dogs, you get fleas.”
Jayden’s ultimate goal is not fame, money, or titles. His focus is eternal.
“Our goal as Christians is to get to heaven anyway,” he said. Fighting may be his platform, but faith is his foundation.
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