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| In relating the story of my spiritual development, I should begin with my parents. My mother was raised in a strict Baptist home. Prayer and Bible study were elements of daily life. Her Father was very fundamental, and believed that using anything but the King James Bible was tantamount to heresy. Her mother was strong in faith. Suffering from Alzheimer�s in the later years of her life, she professed a faith and love for Jesus right to the end. My father was raised in a home that, while more relaxed, was still steadfastly Evangelical. During his teenage years, my father was deeply dedicated to his faith. He was active in the ministry at Grace Brethren Church as a youth pastor. He later attended Biola University and studied art and theology. He majored in pre-Columbian art and tribal art of the Aleutian Islands. To this day his garage is filled to overflowing with pieces he has collected and created over the years. As time passed, my father became more disillusioned with the politics and hypocrisy of his church and left a leadership roll. My parents met at a Christian retreat and after a short courtship, were soon married. As a child I was raised with a knowledge and love of the lord. My father would read to me from the Lord of the Rings and the Bible. It was years before I realized they were not the same book! I went to Sunday school every week and I always had a quarter to put in the offering. I loved the singing and the stories we shared. I took Jesus as my savior very early and I prayed and worshiped often. As time passed there was a leadership change and my family became more dissatisfied with our church. Eventually we stopped attending and I was without a church home. My parents paid for me to attend a Christian private school. Some times my mother had to work late into the night to cover the cost. There I ran into some administrators and teachers that I found most disagreeable. I also had my share of contact with bullies and was involved in multiple fights. My parents did not get along with the administration either. Before long I found myself attending public school (and being much happier as a result). I remember thinking �How could these people be filled with the love of God and behave in such a cruel and unforgiving way?� This was my first encounter with people whose professed beliefs were not in continuity with their actions and I found it very puzzling. The years covering my late childhood to my early twenties were characterized by a spiritual drifting. I felt that I had no anchor in my religious life. I always loved and believed in God, but I was without direction or teaching. I had a hard time fitting in with the people around me and I often was involved in physical altercations. Even though I experienced more conflict at public school, it was easier for me to deal with since at least the people beating me up were not claiming to be Christians at the same time. Slowly, I moved farther away from my moral convictions. Despite the fact that I never fit in with the other kids, I think the constant pressure was having an effect on me. I started to be more �conformed to the things of this world� as it were. I was investing less time in worship and seeking the will of God. I became friends with people who did not have a religious background or an interest in spiritual things. They introduced me to two powerful forces: Alcohol and Heavy Metal. My high school and early college years are a bit of a blur. I became conscious of emptiness in my life. I theorized that being a good Christian had robbed me of experiences that everyone else was enjoying. I wanted what everyone else had. I endeavored to fill my life with experience and excess. My Gods became Metallica and Johnny Walker. Every night was a challenge to see how much liquor I could ingest. I can�t claim that my friends were exactly a good influence either. Rather, they fed my degeneration. Together we created an atmosphere that reinforced our lifestyle of debauchery and we encouraged each other in it. Our one goal and aspiration in life was to achieve a state of being perfectly �Metal�. Usually this was through heavy drinking and disparaging everything else. Rude, crude, and drunken was our credo. I was willfully blind to the drawbacks of such a lifestyle. One of my friends was admitted to the emergency with alcohol poisoning. On another occasion, in Las Vegas, I consumed an entire of bottle of 100 proof whisky in under an hour. I awoke the next morning with vomiting and shaking that persisted for hours and days. You have not experienced being truly hung-over until you�ve been found hiding under the sink in a Las Vegas hotel room shaking and sweating. That was the one time in my life I found myself praying to God that if he decided to take me then and there, I would be ok with that because then the misery would end. In spite of all of this, I was back drinking on a regular basis again. Far from being a wake-up call, these events only served to fuel us. They were physical evidence that we had become Metal. One of my friends began hanging out with a group of Christians. He was seeing us less and less. He stopped showing up at our parties and at the bar (we went to the bar every night� EVERY night). We started talking about him. He betrayed us. He was weak. My friend tried to get me to go to his church but we shrugged him off. He approached me one day to tell me that I needed to change my life and get back to God. I was offended. I had my own version of God and I didn�t need anyone else�s. I could do whatever I wanted. God would forgive me, so why couldn�t I continue as I had? What I didn�t understand was that while it may be that God would forgive me, my sin was preventing me from having a fulfilling relationship with Him. It wasn�t until years later that I came to this realization. Every night when I drove home (usually after a �few too many�) I had a feeling that things weren�t right. I felt more empty and alone than ever and it was only getting worse. I pondered what my problem was. What was the root of my depression? I had a group of friends who were loyal to the point of death. I got to party every night. I had a girlfriend who loved me. On top of that, she could beat me shot for shot drinking bourbon. I had faith in God, so what was my problem? I dismissed it as being weak and prescribed myself equal measures of Megadeath and Southern Comfort. However, the feelings persisted. One night I was driving home and I heard Chuck Smith preaching on the radio and he was speaking about living a real, dedicated, Christian life. Pastor Chuck said that true faith in God was evidenced by behavior and lived out through your actions. Anything else was just fooling yourself. I had never heard teaching like this. It started me on a path of introspection. I began looking at where my life was headed. I never questioned my faith before, but I seriously needed to know where I stood. I decided that much of my life had been spent �believing� because I was too afraid not to. Looking back, I had not felt the presence of God in many years. My life in no way reflected my faith. I had become one of the hypocrites that I so despised. I prayed every night for direction in my life. I prayed God to show me that he existed. I spent months in a severe state of mental/emotional anguish. I could not confess that I had true faith anymore. I could no longer sleep. I couldn�t eat. I lost fifty pounds. I was a wreck. Then one day I got a phone call. My friend who had abandoned us for his new Christian friends called me out of the blue. I had not spoken to him for quite a while. He said that he was going to a new church he found in Buena Park and he was wondering if I would like to go with him sometime. I agreed and was soon attending church again for the first time in over a decade. In my most desperate hour, God had given me a direction and even though there was much I didn�t understand, I had to step out in faith and trust that He would lead me. Eventually, I would be baptized at Knott Avenue Christian Church. I have since experienced such renewal in my life that I now know what was missing all these years was God�s presence. He was knocking at the door of my heart and He brought me to a place where I had to make a decision to follow Him or go my own way. Now I�m that guy who doesn�t come around the bar anymore. I see my old friends less and less. I didn�t make a decision to cut my friends off, but our lives just went in different directions. I didn�t like what they were doing and they didn�t like what I was doing. I still care for them and would lay down my life for any one of them, but I�m a different person now. I think of them and pray for them because I know that anyone can make a change. My girlfriend started going to church with me and now we both want to live our lives in honor to God. What prevents me from going back isn�t fear, it�s the knowledge and memory that what I have now is so much more valuable than what I left behind. | ||