#9 OUR CHURCH, PART I:

TOP TEN BEST PARTS OF BEING ALIVE IN MY. . . . SHOES:#9 OUR CHURCH, PART I:

I grew up in a “Christian” home – my parents are Christians and have always been very involved in church – I asked Jesus to “come into my heart” when I was four and again when I was six – I attended church, AWANA, Sunday school, and even Sunday night services regularly throughout the years I lived with my parents and even went to three Evangelical Free Church National Youth Conferences and missions trip – somehow none of this seemed to have a significant long-term effect on my thinking or behavior – I would feel convicted, vow to change, and then eventually I just gave up – I couldn’t be godly or even good -- it was impossible – I didn’t want to be good (I wanted to get laid) – I didn’t want to be godly – I didn’t really even know what any of that stuff meant – my parents were good and godly, but they seemed like aliens from outer space – I couldn’t be like them – I’d tried and it was impossible – I didn’t even want to be like them anymore – I was tired of felling guilty and bad about myself all of the time, so finally I just said “fuck it – I’m me and that’s all there is to it – I can’t change – I don’t even want to change – I’m just going to have to learn to be fine being myself” – so by the time I left home for college, I’d basically given up on the whole religion thing – my parents sent me to Trinity College in Deerfield, Illinois – when people asked, I claimed to be an agnostic or occasionally an atheist (it was so fun to watch their little fundamentalist jaws drop when I said that) – I decided that no one can really know anything for sure about God or the existence of God and Christians were just fooling themselves – in February of 1991, during the spring semester of my sophomore year, I found myself in the deepest most anguished depression of my life – everything that I’d cared about had fallen apart, and I couldn’t think of a single reason to go on living – it was at this point, during a walk alone (smoking obviously) late one night that God spoke to me – he told me that he existed; that he loved me; and that if I would seek him, he would reveal himself to me (have I ever mentioned this to any of you? I typically don’t bring this up b/c it still seems pretty fucking crazy) – when I returned to the dorm feeling numb and slightly insane, Lee Hildebrand (I wonder if Connie still knows him), a student who lived next door, came out of his room and handed me a book – he said that he’d been praying just then and had felt like he needed to pray for me and then he felt like he needed to find me and give me this book (I’d just walked into our suite) – I went back into his room – the book was Tired of Trying to Measure Up by Jeff Vanvonderen -- I went into my room and climbed up onto my bunk and read the whole thing that night – I don’t really remember anything specific about the book (I ought to reread it), but one thing sticks out: I had thought that I was supposed to try to be good and try not to be bad – it turns out that the fact that I couldn’t do this is the whole point of Christ coming to earth – no one can do and trying to is pointless – so my earlier conclusions were right, it was just my response that was wrong – instead of just giving up, I needed to trust Christ to change me – I decided to do that right then (I didn’t have anything to lose) – I decided to trust Christ to change me and he has been, little by little, and he’s still doing it as all those who know me can affirm – Paul talks about this very thing – the allowing Christ to change him and make him more like Christ through faith in Philippians 3:12-16:

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.

Not much happened in my mind and behavior after that, until in November 1992 when I started trying to have a daily Bible study. This is when God’s real work in my life started making a significant difference in the way I think and act – it’s God who is making the changes in my life, but studying Scripture and prayer are the are the primary ways that I’ve found to position myself in a place where I can be changed – this is the easy yoke that Christ mentions in Matthew 11:30 – it’s his responsibility to change me, but it’s my responsibility to allow myself to be changed.