The Thing About God
I had dinner with an old friend on Friday. We decided to go to a movie then hang out at the local wine bar for a little conversation. After two glasses, the subject turned in a direction that always makes me uncomfortable.
I mentioned that I had to be at church on Sunday, and he shifted his eyes downward.
“Yeah… so….. I was going to ask about that….”
“What’s up with that, right?”
“Um, yeah.”
I can understand his confusion. At the time in my life that he and I used to hang out, I was quite a wild one. It was shortly after my first divorce, when I lived in Mid City New Orleans. There were many nights I drank myself into complete oblivion, passing out on a lounge sofa as he and other friends would try to sober me up enough to get me home. I could tell he was the last person that would ever peg me as “Christian.”
The truth is, I hate that label. Not for what it truly means, but for all the people in my life who claimed to be Christian and were pure evil. They have ruined it for the really good people.
And there are so many. I see that now.
I was one of the biggest skeptics on the planet. I mocked Christians, Christianity, and the Bible. When someone would start talking about their Christian faith, I would tune out. The cynic inside just could not, would not believe it. I have seen too many people hurt in the name of religion… I wanted no part of it.
But since I’ve opened my heart, I can no longer deny it. Spirituality, I mean. Not religion.
The part of my faith that I have the most trouble with is spreading the word to others. Now I am not about to jump up on a pedastal and tell everyone I’m the perfect Christian, and therefore you should follow me… in fact, it’s quite the opposite. I’m a HORRIBLE Christian; I still struggle with faith, not to mention all the anger I still carry in my heart. It takes a conscious effort to walk a righteous path, and as many of you already know, I’m not really good at walking to begin with. So when B asked me about it, I was really uncomfortable.
I don’t want his idea of a “good” Christian to be associated with me as I WAS. Or me when I stumble NOW. I don’t want to be one of those Christians that turns people away from it because of the life I lead.
That doesn’t mean that I’m not trying; I’m trying really hard. Every day gets a little better, a little easier, and every day my faith grows a little stronger. But I feel that people truly have to find their own way to God. Bopping them over the head with a Bible or begging them to go to church when they really don’t want to go is not the way.
I told B about the night I broke down… the night in October of last year when I felt like I could go no lower…. I told him the truth about how it felt, and what it felt like, and why I believed that what I felt had to MEAN something. I told him that I still have doubts, that I still ask questions… but I still feel too strongly about the things that have unfolded in my life to turn away. The fact that he listened, and asked questions instead of nodding (like I used to) meant something to me.
Is this “testimony?”
There is nothing amazing in my story. No miracles, no bright shining light, no voice from above. But that day, my life inexplicably changed, and I know there is a higher power. I cannot explain it. I wish I could, because I want everyone to feel what I did.
If it wasn’t for that night, my life would be very different right now. If it wasn’t for that night, I would never have learned to focus on someone besides myself. If you’re struggling, if you cannot find God, try this simple act that has absolutely nothing to do with the Bible, or a church, or religion:
Go do something for someone who can’t do for themselves.
No matter your faith, or lack of, you can’t help but be infected by some peaceful spirit when you help someone who needs it. Call it whatever you want; I personally don’t think it matters.  That feeling of peace, of satisfaction… that peace that comes with knowing you’ve made the world just a little better….
… that’s what it feels like to find your faith. And if you continue down that path, I promise, faith will find you.
July 30th, 2008 at 4:24 am
Whats the difference between a label and an idol? Funny… Shortly before Christ was to be crucified, he washed the feet of the disciples… Most don’t catch this,,, The master, The teacher, washed their feet as a servant. That broke their hierarchical image within each disciple.
Is weird, just as you know the image of Christian is wrong, so press to not connect with it. Our mind is so busy all day, cataloging, and objectifying images barely seen, filling in blanks, even making stuff up for us, without our even being aware it is happening. Then our altruistic self, has to be taught to struggle against this tendency. So we try to focus, as best we may. Smiling,, There’s a story how St.Augustine, as the last classically trained Latinist who learned (new) where the philosophers were stuck, even spent time trying to find the solution, and one day to find that answer in a book written by this raggamuffin band of uneducated + poor group (Christians). For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. Wow…. St. Augustine flipped out, realizing the philosophers had mistaken truth for spirit. Freaked St. Augustine right out, and the more he read, the more he was blown away. The author goes on, that St. Augustine then did what was common back then: go back to a book with the idea what ever is read comes from god… That did him in.. cool story, and the rest of it is as well I feel..
Faith is my; warm friend spent untold time my skeptic, my inner child’s trust, heart which thirsts to wrap love round all it may. Watch your cups, they tend to take a person to cusps very quickly. Do you think cusp people are more prone to this? LOL
joking!!!
July 31st, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Try to rest easy. You don’t have to be the perfect anything. I gather your personal faith is strong and that’s really all you need. Let others make faith choices for themselves. I like to think that since God gave us a choice, he doesn’t expect perfection in us. I think he’s happy that there are many who do believe in him in their own ways.