My story with God, Pt. 2
Each Sabbath I was given the renewed reminder that I was to be blamed for destroying the beautiful, once-lively youth group. Though the adults might have really been sympathetic, I wanted to hide from their prying eyes and accusing looks, as I perceived it all.
Then, my closet prayer was answered, but I didn’t realize it. One of the youth told me he was going to Shenandoah Valley Academy, and maybe I could go too. I thought, I can escape! The next thing I knew, I was approved for three different financial aids, and on my way to SVA. That senior year at SVA was filled with many Sabbath morning walks and talks with the Lord on the gravel road behind the boys dorm, and also many regrets of the past. We had wonderful Sabbath Schools and vespers and visits to Rice’s Nursing Home. Jim Ayers gave me a new perspective on the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy that Richard hadn’t given me. But that’s because Pastor Ayers had connections with Desmond Ford. His theology was somewhat flawed. I adopted Pastor Ayers’ new theology, but it really never gave me peace of mind. My anxiety had returned after Richard left, and it would remain with me for many years except for a short respite periodically. At the end of the school year, I was recruited and joined up as a student Literature Evangelist in what was seemed to be the most sweltering summer ever, in the Farmville/Appomattox/Lynchburg part of Virginia. My dream was to be a pastor, as I had promised Richard and my parents, and I believed that experiencing door-to-door encounters with strangers would be a good preparation. But, all I learned from that ordeal was that I’m no salesman, neither do I have much faith.
Somehow I earned $1,000 that summer and was accepted into Columbia Union College, a Christian college, in their Theology department. The culture shock was that there was nothing taught from the Spirit of Prophecy—instead, the renowned humanist theologian, Paul Tillich, was to be the main attraction in this school for Adventist preachers.
But to my surprise, Elder Morris Venden came and gave the college its fall Week of Prayer. I had heard of him from Richard and now I was to learn first hand what Richard couldn’t teach me. I heard the love of God like I had never known. Finally, the anxiety left me during that week. Not only was I hearing of a Jesus who was loving, but I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard of a God who gave us the privilege of coming to Him, and required nothing else from us that He wasn’t going to do in us. If we would come to Him for friendship and fellowship, through His word and prayer and sharing Him to others, He would do everything for our salvation and righteous living. Salvation wasn’t based on avoiding sin; but rather on a friendship that Jesus was working to establish with me and all His children. Salvation was based on whether or not I would choose to let sin and caving to temptation destroy His friendship. Friendship, fellowship with God, love was the basis of salvation. Now, after all that I’d been through trying to be a super-Christian, that was some good news!
At the end of each sermon, I would stay in my seat, drinking in all the amazing love I had just heard, until I was afraid of being late for my next class. I didn’t want to leave the auditorium, because I knew that that sense of amazing love would all vanish. My next class was guaranteed to make that happen. I didn’t learn anything from that crazy math class. I remember just fragments from psychology. My other classes were designed to steer me away from God’s love because they were all founded upon the classical education system from ancient Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. But despite what Satan tried to do to me through this rabbinic education, the Lord preserved my hope in a God of love.
I left after one semester, but I gained two things from that Christian college: first, a knowledge of Righteousness by Faith through an admission of our own helplessness apart from the powerful love of our Creator who knows we must function off of love to Him in order to ever be good; and secondly, an amateur ability to play the guitar. Back at SVA we used to visit and sing to the patients at Rice’s Nursing Home. We had to sing a-Capella as we moved down the hall from one room to another. The thought interrupted, it sure would be nice to have an instrument to play while we sang--like a guitar. So when my room mate at my Christian college brought his guitar and was glad to teach me the basic chords, I practiced almost every day. Righteousness by Faith and guitar lessons were my diploma from CUC! In the Lord’s providences His preparation is always well ahead of His follow-through. He implants a desire in us, and then when we respond to it, in His wise timing He gives us that which we desire, even if we never outright asked Him for it.
So, at the end of that semester I said good-bye to CUC. The same friend, who offered the idea of SVA, offered me his job as a laborer so he could join a carpenter crew. After 11 months, he asked me if I wanted to his carpenter crew, and I jumped at the opportunity. During those early years, I would often arrive at the jobsite before everyone else and read from my Bible, Steps to Christ, or some other EGW book. But I received no blessing, although I knew a blessing was in it. It was like trying to beat my head through a brick wall or squeeze blood from a turnip. The Lord would not come for my help, and my anxiety only subsided when I involved myself in physically-intensive work.
One day Richard contacted me. He was at a self-supporting school in New Hampshire, called, Mountain Missionary Institute. Would I like to come up to visit him? Yes, of course I would! I got permission from my boss and went up there for a week. It was so good to see my beloved friend again. But I didn’t know that Richard was struggling with his faith in God. He was in major spiritual trouble and on the verge of throwing in the towel. At the end of that wonderful week with him, I told him I would like to go to that school, too; but that in all fairness, I would have to give my boss some advance notice. So I came back to Virginia, gave a 2 week notice, and returned to New Hampshire. Maybe I scared Richard with the thought that I expected him to be like he had been in the past. Nevertheless, during that period of two weeks, Richard and his wife had packed their bags and left New Hampshire. So, when I arrived he was gone. This seemed very suspicious and confusing to me; but I had made friends there during my short visit before, and decided that since I was at MMI I would try it out for a while; maybe my anxiety problem would go away. One thing was for sure, I could leave anytime I wanted, because, as a self-supporting school it wouldn’t cost me anything. I could work and make the money needed to live there.
The school had many good qualities. But I began to realize that I had a certain freedom in the Lord over the other students there. They had been cloistered away with other hyper-conservative SDAs and, I hate to say it, programmed to think they were following the counsel of the Lord. I was free from that programming because the Lord had taught me through Richard’s loving instruction, and their straight-jacket was a source of sadness and concern to me. I was somewhat of a suspicious outsider because I wouldn’t completely conform, a danger of infecting other kids there with my freer attitude. I wanted love and grace. I had had it from Richard and, later, straight from the courts above, and nothing would suffice to substitute.
I knew personally of the gracious love of Jesus and it gave me a liberty it seems they couldn’t have. They were walled in with their conception of the Law and EGW, and became prisoners of their own making. The grace of God was not taught and believed in and lived out, especially the kind I had heard from Morris Venden. While there, one of the staff suddenly left his wife and children, and walked off the campus. No one seemed to know why. I felt like I understood. It’s what I ran from at my church.
The school’s invisible, suffocating environment, devoid of grace, had slowly settled on his honest psyche. Simultaneously, an anger, a revulsion from inside rose up and drove him to escape the oppressive atmosphere. It was basic, instinctive survival, like we have when we are drowning. The man fled in search of a remedy for a problem he didn’t even believe existed there. How could he find the remedy if he couldn’t locate and label the disease? Nevertheless, everyone on campus took pity on him and prayed for his spiritual condition. Nobody took any personal responsibility for his troubles; rather, everyone felt concern for him because they thought he might apostatize due to his personal problem. They never blamed themselves, or their system. How could they? They had need of nothing.
After nine months at the self-supported school, I left. I returned to civilization and the previous luke-warm, non-loving, graceless atmosphere in the church. Back to the acting, the running on my own steam along with everyone else. The church’s new group of young people and I had Christian friendship, but not the love and fellowship of hearts I had once known there. I have never yet experienced a youth group like the one the Lord nurtured through His servant, Richard. If I had had a deeper experience with Jesus and His righteousness, I could have led these young people in the direction of faith. But the Pharisee in me was still alive and well.
Sabbath after Sabbath, for months on end, I lived with an emptiness, a church without Christ's love. My plague of anxiety grew to terrible proportions. I was empty, and wanted nothing of the church. But I knew too much. I knew that to reject light was to lose eternal life. We are living in the investigative judgment, and it is very true that we are being judged by the truth we know. I fully believe that, and I fully believed it then. A vague consciousness of God’s love still abode in my mind, but no preaching, no Sabbath School, no songs ever revealed the love of God. It all just beat back any remnants of God’s love I still remembered. I was back at the starting point when I told my Dad I would never go to church again. I was stuck in the religious Blob that ate up the Advent movement. But leaving Adventism all behind was scarier than staying with it because I was working in and in daily contact with a loveless world, and already knew how cold and heartless the world would be to live life alone. Nevertheless, in the church I was in critical need of love. My spirituality was in great stress and my spiritual EKG was about to flatline.
Then, my closet prayer was answered, but I didn’t realize it. One of the youth told me he was going to Shenandoah Valley Academy, and maybe I could go too. I thought, I can escape! The next thing I knew, I was approved for three different financial aids, and on my way to SVA. That senior year at SVA was filled with many Sabbath morning walks and talks with the Lord on the gravel road behind the boys dorm, and also many regrets of the past. We had wonderful Sabbath Schools and vespers and visits to Rice’s Nursing Home. Jim Ayers gave me a new perspective on the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy that Richard hadn’t given me. But that’s because Pastor Ayers had connections with Desmond Ford. His theology was somewhat flawed. I adopted Pastor Ayers’ new theology, but it really never gave me peace of mind. My anxiety had returned after Richard left, and it would remain with me for many years except for a short respite periodically. At the end of the school year, I was recruited and joined up as a student Literature Evangelist in what was seemed to be the most sweltering summer ever, in the Farmville/Appomattox/Lynchburg part of Virginia. My dream was to be a pastor, as I had promised Richard and my parents, and I believed that experiencing door-to-door encounters with strangers would be a good preparation. But, all I learned from that ordeal was that I’m no salesman, neither do I have much faith.
Somehow I earned $1,000 that summer and was accepted into Columbia Union College, a Christian college, in their Theology department. The culture shock was that there was nothing taught from the Spirit of Prophecy—instead, the renowned humanist theologian, Paul Tillich, was to be the main attraction in this school for Adventist preachers.
But to my surprise, Elder Morris Venden came and gave the college its fall Week of Prayer. I had heard of him from Richard and now I was to learn first hand what Richard couldn’t teach me. I heard the love of God like I had never known. Finally, the anxiety left me during that week. Not only was I hearing of a Jesus who was loving, but I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard of a God who gave us the privilege of coming to Him, and required nothing else from us that He wasn’t going to do in us. If we would come to Him for friendship and fellowship, through His word and prayer and sharing Him to others, He would do everything for our salvation and righteous living. Salvation wasn’t based on avoiding sin; but rather on a friendship that Jesus was working to establish with me and all His children. Salvation was based on whether or not I would choose to let sin and caving to temptation destroy His friendship. Friendship, fellowship with God, love was the basis of salvation. Now, after all that I’d been through trying to be a super-Christian, that was some good news!
At the end of each sermon, I would stay in my seat, drinking in all the amazing love I had just heard, until I was afraid of being late for my next class. I didn’t want to leave the auditorium, because I knew that that sense of amazing love would all vanish. My next class was guaranteed to make that happen. I didn’t learn anything from that crazy math class. I remember just fragments from psychology. My other classes were designed to steer me away from God’s love because they were all founded upon the classical education system from ancient Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. But despite what Satan tried to do to me through this rabbinic education, the Lord preserved my hope in a God of love.
I left after one semester, but I gained two things from that Christian college: first, a knowledge of Righteousness by Faith through an admission of our own helplessness apart from the powerful love of our Creator who knows we must function off of love to Him in order to ever be good; and secondly, an amateur ability to play the guitar. Back at SVA we used to visit and sing to the patients at Rice’s Nursing Home. We had to sing a-Capella as we moved down the hall from one room to another. The thought interrupted, it sure would be nice to have an instrument to play while we sang--like a guitar. So when my room mate at my Christian college brought his guitar and was glad to teach me the basic chords, I practiced almost every day. Righteousness by Faith and guitar lessons were my diploma from CUC! In the Lord’s providences His preparation is always well ahead of His follow-through. He implants a desire in us, and then when we respond to it, in His wise timing He gives us that which we desire, even if we never outright asked Him for it.
So, at the end of that semester I said good-bye to CUC. The same friend, who offered the idea of SVA, offered me his job as a laborer so he could join a carpenter crew. After 11 months, he asked me if I wanted to his carpenter crew, and I jumped at the opportunity. During those early years, I would often arrive at the jobsite before everyone else and read from my Bible, Steps to Christ, or some other EGW book. But I received no blessing, although I knew a blessing was in it. It was like trying to beat my head through a brick wall or squeeze blood from a turnip. The Lord would not come for my help, and my anxiety only subsided when I involved myself in physically-intensive work.
One day Richard contacted me. He was at a self-supporting school in New Hampshire, called, Mountain Missionary Institute. Would I like to come up to visit him? Yes, of course I would! I got permission from my boss and went up there for a week. It was so good to see my beloved friend again. But I didn’t know that Richard was struggling with his faith in God. He was in major spiritual trouble and on the verge of throwing in the towel. At the end of that wonderful week with him, I told him I would like to go to that school, too; but that in all fairness, I would have to give my boss some advance notice. So I came back to Virginia, gave a 2 week notice, and returned to New Hampshire. Maybe I scared Richard with the thought that I expected him to be like he had been in the past. Nevertheless, during that period of two weeks, Richard and his wife had packed their bags and left New Hampshire. So, when I arrived he was gone. This seemed very suspicious and confusing to me; but I had made friends there during my short visit before, and decided that since I was at MMI I would try it out for a while; maybe my anxiety problem would go away. One thing was for sure, I could leave anytime I wanted, because, as a self-supporting school it wouldn’t cost me anything. I could work and make the money needed to live there.
The school had many good qualities. But I began to realize that I had a certain freedom in the Lord over the other students there. They had been cloistered away with other hyper-conservative SDAs and, I hate to say it, programmed to think they were following the counsel of the Lord. I was free from that programming because the Lord had taught me through Richard’s loving instruction, and their straight-jacket was a source of sadness and concern to me. I was somewhat of a suspicious outsider because I wouldn’t completely conform, a danger of infecting other kids there with my freer attitude. I wanted love and grace. I had had it from Richard and, later, straight from the courts above, and nothing would suffice to substitute.
I knew personally of the gracious love of Jesus and it gave me a liberty it seems they couldn’t have. They were walled in with their conception of the Law and EGW, and became prisoners of their own making. The grace of God was not taught and believed in and lived out, especially the kind I had heard from Morris Venden. While there, one of the staff suddenly left his wife and children, and walked off the campus. No one seemed to know why. I felt like I understood. It’s what I ran from at my church.
The school’s invisible, suffocating environment, devoid of grace, had slowly settled on his honest psyche. Simultaneously, an anger, a revulsion from inside rose up and drove him to escape the oppressive atmosphere. It was basic, instinctive survival, like we have when we are drowning. The man fled in search of a remedy for a problem he didn’t even believe existed there. How could he find the remedy if he couldn’t locate and label the disease? Nevertheless, everyone on campus took pity on him and prayed for his spiritual condition. Nobody took any personal responsibility for his troubles; rather, everyone felt concern for him because they thought he might apostatize due to his personal problem. They never blamed themselves, or their system. How could they? They had need of nothing.
After nine months at the self-supported school, I left. I returned to civilization and the previous luke-warm, non-loving, graceless atmosphere in the church. Back to the acting, the running on my own steam along with everyone else. The church’s new group of young people and I had Christian friendship, but not the love and fellowship of hearts I had once known there. I have never yet experienced a youth group like the one the Lord nurtured through His servant, Richard. If I had had a deeper experience with Jesus and His righteousness, I could have led these young people in the direction of faith. But the Pharisee in me was still alive and well.
Sabbath after Sabbath, for months on end, I lived with an emptiness, a church without Christ's love. My plague of anxiety grew to terrible proportions. I was empty, and wanted nothing of the church. But I knew too much. I knew that to reject light was to lose eternal life. We are living in the investigative judgment, and it is very true that we are being judged by the truth we know. I fully believe that, and I fully believed it then. A vague consciousness of God’s love still abode in my mind, but no preaching, no Sabbath School, no songs ever revealed the love of God. It all just beat back any remnants of God’s love I still remembered. I was back at the starting point when I told my Dad I would never go to church again. I was stuck in the religious Blob that ate up the Advent movement. But leaving Adventism all behind was scarier than staying with it because I was working in and in daily contact with a loveless world, and already knew how cold and heartless the world would be to live life alone. Nevertheless, in the church I was in critical need of love. My spirituality was in great stress and my spiritual EKG was about to flatline.
posted by David | 11:03 AM
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