My story with God, Part Five
That was February 1995. Two weeks afterwards I was sitting in an Adventist church. Greatly relieved were my praying parents. The Lord told me to buy a new Bible because the old one was so marked up and I needed to begin looking at it again from a whole new perspective. All the highlighted verses would have steered me away from many other equally important verses. It would have limited me to my faulty understanding of teenage years. To this day, my new Bible is still unmarked, and I am able to remember special verses anyway. And I am able to better understand the Bible as a whole document, instead of just the 27 fundamental beliefs of the SDA church.
After returning to God I still found myself unsatisfied. I struggled to stay near Him. I could listen to a wonder-filled sermon that strengthened my faith. Then, after crossing the parking lot and getting into my car, as soon as I shut the door, POOF! The mountaintop experience was over and would take many weeks to return.
I began writing out my frustrations in a notebook. Much of it was derogatory toward “church people.” It wasn’t right to feel that way toward them because I was ignorantly blaming them for my lack of God’s grace. But God was patient with me and slowly revealed His grace to me. Now I can understand why “church people” act like they do. They don’t have the grace of God, either, and it’s driving them crazy.
One day in the middle of my frustration, the words came to me, “The love of God.” With those words came the realization that I had professed to know the love of God and the God of love, but really didn’t believe in it. Also came the invitation to search out the love of God in the Bible, for surely it was revealed there. I eagerly began my search.
It dawned on me that my true conception of Jesus was someone who was obnoxious, proud, self-confident, full of reproofs and domineering over His disciples. I only knew of two instances when He seemed loving, Matthew 11, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” And John 6, “Them that come unto me I shall in no wise cast out.” I subconsciously allowed all the other verses to turn Him into a monster. That monster was controlling my whole mind.
As I then looked again at His rebuke toward the unbelieving, belligerent multitude in John 6, which made it too hard for them to accept, I realized that He had spoken in a love expressed through authority. He did for them just what they needed most. Anything softer would have sealed them in unbelief. As it was, there was still a possibility that some would return later.
Now I saw divine love where before all I had ever subconsciously seen was divine bullying. Now the whole Old Testament with a God, who had sounded as cold and uncaring as the Allah of the Qur’an, opened up to me as a God who loved those destructive and daring sinners of Israel. How long He dealt with them before finally sending desolation! 700 years?! 800 years?! And even after the destruction, He continued to work and plead with them until there were no more prophets through whom He could speak.
And finally, when the time came, He would speak directly from His own mouth. “Blessed are…” “Blessed are…” “Blessed are…” “Come unto Me.” “I will in no wise cast out.” “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Pinning His Son’s arms back as wide open as they could go, the Father was in Christ reconciling the whole, big world unto Himself. (2Cor. 5:19)
CONCLUSION
My walk with God has been an evolution, one phase at a time. Even after returning to the remnant church, in phases I’ve been drawing closer to Jesus. My prayer is that I not turn away, after all He has done to bring me to Himself.
Other things have happened to me, but I’ve said enough. I hope this has encouraged your faith. The Lord is real. His providences are at work for all who will respond, even if the response is undetectable to the human. If a person is responding, God keeps working on him. God knows us much better than we know ourselves. And He so loves the whole world.
After returning to God I still found myself unsatisfied. I struggled to stay near Him. I could listen to a wonder-filled sermon that strengthened my faith. Then, after crossing the parking lot and getting into my car, as soon as I shut the door, POOF! The mountaintop experience was over and would take many weeks to return.
I began writing out my frustrations in a notebook. Much of it was derogatory toward “church people.” It wasn’t right to feel that way toward them because I was ignorantly blaming them for my lack of God’s grace. But God was patient with me and slowly revealed His grace to me. Now I can understand why “church people” act like they do. They don’t have the grace of God, either, and it’s driving them crazy.
One day in the middle of my frustration, the words came to me, “The love of God.” With those words came the realization that I had professed to know the love of God and the God of love, but really didn’t believe in it. Also came the invitation to search out the love of God in the Bible, for surely it was revealed there. I eagerly began my search.
It dawned on me that my true conception of Jesus was someone who was obnoxious, proud, self-confident, full of reproofs and domineering over His disciples. I only knew of two instances when He seemed loving, Matthew 11, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” And John 6, “Them that come unto me I shall in no wise cast out.” I subconsciously allowed all the other verses to turn Him into a monster. That monster was controlling my whole mind.
As I then looked again at His rebuke toward the unbelieving, belligerent multitude in John 6, which made it too hard for them to accept, I realized that He had spoken in a love expressed through authority. He did for them just what they needed most. Anything softer would have sealed them in unbelief. As it was, there was still a possibility that some would return later.
Now I saw divine love where before all I had ever subconsciously seen was divine bullying. Now the whole Old Testament with a God, who had sounded as cold and uncaring as the Allah of the Qur’an, opened up to me as a God who loved those destructive and daring sinners of Israel. How long He dealt with them before finally sending desolation! 700 years?! 800 years?! And even after the destruction, He continued to work and plead with them until there were no more prophets through whom He could speak.
And finally, when the time came, He would speak directly from His own mouth. “Blessed are…” “Blessed are…” “Blessed are…” “Come unto Me.” “I will in no wise cast out.” “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Pinning His Son’s arms back as wide open as they could go, the Father was in Christ reconciling the whole, big world unto Himself. (2Cor. 5:19)
CONCLUSION
My walk with God has been an evolution, one phase at a time. Even after returning to the remnant church, in phases I’ve been drawing closer to Jesus. My prayer is that I not turn away, after all He has done to bring me to Himself.
Other things have happened to me, but I’ve said enough. I hope this has encouraged your faith. The Lord is real. His providences are at work for all who will respond, even if the response is undetectable to the human. If a person is responding, God keeps working on him. God knows us much better than we know ourselves. And He so loves the whole world.
posted by David | 6:22 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home