Disclaimer: By reading this, you may find out more about me than you ever wanted to know. But I’m putting it all out on the table. If you’re willing, grab a fork and dig in!
Confession:
I don’t know if I should set this up with any background or history of who I am, so I won’t. I guess if I’m going to title this entry as a confession, I need to keep it clean and simple. For me, this is my own personal band-aid. They say the quicker the better!
This confession takes on three parts:
1) I am a liar.
2) I am not a Christian
3) I am scared to death.
Ouch. So there it is. My three part confession. Some of you who might be reading this (if you made it past my fancy disclaimer) might need to take a minute to digest this. So put your fork down and take a moment to let that sink in.
I think this sort of thing might be better if broken into parts again.
1) I am a liar.
Yes. I am a liar. I have lied to myself more than anyone. However, that can be argued. I may have hurt others in my immaturity without even realizing it. If you have been hurt by this, I apologize from the bottom of my heart.
What have I lied about?
2) I am not a Christian.
I have lied about being a Christ follower. If you have read this far, please do NOT stop reading. Let me bring some context to this.
Yes: I believe in Jesus Christ. He died for my sins and has offered me a whole new, clean, and beautiful life.
Yes: I believe in the Bible as the word of God. I believe that it is a book of instructions for living life.
Yes: I have asked God to take the wheel. I have asked Him into my heart and I meant it.
Some might say that these three points are the basis of being a Christian, and I whole-heartedly disagree.
Dictionary.com gives this a handful of ways to define the term “Christian.” A couple of my favorites are, “exhibiting a spirit proper to a follower of Jesus Christ” and “a person who exemplifies in his or her life the teachings of Christ.” Looking at these phrases, I realize that my life does not reflect the teachings of Christ.
I think the main thing I am trying to say is that I believe in God. I believe in Jesus. I believe in the Bible. But I don’t believe I am living the life I am supposed to be living. Does that make sense?
For those of you reading this who don’t know me very well, I do sing on a worship team for an amazing church in Valdosta, House of Joy (www.houseofjoy.info). After the very first time I visited, I felt like I was home. I knew that this church was where I was meant to be. I knew in my heart that no coincidence or accident could have brought me to that place.
Even though I cannot believe it has been almost a year now, I have been a part of a worship band that feels more like a family to me than anything else. I am humbled in a way that God chose to give me that blessing.
House of Joy has just begun a new journey. The current series of messages are titled “This is Who We Are.” This series describes who we are as a church. Our new and improved motto is “Love in, Love up, Love out,” Love in means love those in the church. Build meaningful relationships with those who are fellow Christ followers. Love up means to connect with God through reading His word, praying, and giving back to His church. Finally, Love out means reaching out to the community and world in which we live.
This past week the message was Love Up. While Pastor Kelly was talking about the three steps to strengthening a relationship with God, I felt a huge pang of guilt. Lets just say that reading the Bible has never been high on my list of priorities. Naturally following that, prayer has slipped dangerously close to being non-existent. Therefore, some may call me a hypocrite. And yes, I fit the bill. By being a volunteer in the church and not exercising my faith seems like a lie, doesn’t it?
This leads me to number three.
3) I am scared to death
This has been a very scary hour, writing this entire thing out. It seems too real when I know as soon as click “post,” my heart will be out there for everyone to read.
I have nothing to hide anymore. This is who I am.
So after all of this, you may be wondering why even bother typing this entire thing out and making a goof of myself in the first place?
I need to ask a favor. More than anything, I need prayer and advice. I know that this is the perfect time to discover and define who I know God wants me to be. I know that taking these steps will offer me an adventurous, exciting, scary, thrilling, and beautiful life in Christ.
So here I go. My plan is to read God’s word. Find out more about the Man I have been claiming to follow for so long. I am dropping all of my assumptions about Jesus and about my faith. I am simply going to follow this path and find out where it leads.
Thank you so much for making it through this confession. It means a lot to me to know that you took the time to read all of this mess that I have put out there to be read. I feel closer to you just for that, even if we have never met.
So now to conclude all of this mess, I have a couple of questions for you.
1) Have you ever run into this realization? How did you feel? What were your fears or apprehensions?
2) What did you do about it? Did you read the Bible? Did you pray? Did you talk to someone?
3) If you could start your walk with God all over again, where would you begin?
I know that your story of your faith is beautiful and transforming. More than anything, I would love to hear how you came to know God and build a relationship with Him. Tell me your story while I venture out to write my own.
7 comments:
This is a good post. I like the whole idea. You aren't a goof for posting it. I have a few things to say about it.
1. I love these two definitions of a Christian: “exhibiting a spirit proper to a follower of Jesus Christ” and “a person who exemplifies in his or her life the teachings of Christ.” I don't think many Christians would define Christianity this way, as most of them would probably just say if you believe in Jesus then you are a Christian. I think these definitions are more true to what the word "Christian" means. But, now that you have these definitions, you have to find out what the spirit of one who follows Christ is, and what it means to exemplify the teachings of Christ. Hint: Love-whatever the heck that is. I have been trying to define it for two years. I would love some help.
2. Secondly, you say, "I believe in the Bible." What exactly does that mean? Does that mean you believe in the Bible as traditional Christians do? Do you believe it is the word of God? If so, does that mean it is the literal word of God? I would say you don't. If you haven't read it, you can't believe in it. You can only believe in whoever told you it was God's word. Anyway, I don't think belief in the Bible is essential for being a Christian.
3. "So here I go. My plan is to read God’s word. Find out more about the Man I have been claiming to follow for so long. I am dropping all of my assumptions about Jesus and about my faith. I am simply going to follow this path and find out where it leads." I am so proud of you for doing this. Almost no one in the world does this and I have found that it is almost impossible but also essential to anyone building a true belief system. But, in this passage you said you are going to read God's word. I assume you mean the Bible. If you are going to drop all assumptions about your faith then you have to drop that one as well. Your buddy Ben told me once that an honest and thorough reading of the Bible will turn any moral person to atheism. I think he was absolutely right if you go into the reading thinking that the only real God is the one described in the Bible, and that description is literal. You won't make it past Judges before you lose all faith. That is what happened to him and dozens of other Christians-turned-atheists I have talked to about this. In my opinion, there are several things your should learn about the Bible before you can give it an honest reading. Probably the most important is that there is no such thing as a good English translation. It is simply impossible to translate a language that had six thousand words into a language that has over a million. We cannot understand what the Bible writers were trying to say. We can get an idea, but we just cannot understand completely. Not many people speak ancient Greek and no one alive today knew the people who wrote those letters. There is just no way to know what they were saying philosophically with any certainty. On top of that, politics got involved with Constantine and the Bible has changed dramatically over the centuries. You have to learn the history before you can even give it a fair reading. Secondly, I say start with the New Testament. I started with the OT and I got bogged down. It will literally drive you to depression if you read it honestly, without the Christian lens. Also, you have to realize when you are reading about Jesus that you are really reading the writers' interpretations of Jesus words as they can remember them 40-50 years later. I know they were used to going through memorization and all that but I think it is important to remember that probably none of them were eyewitnesses and it was decades after Jesus' death when they wrote these things.
I know this is a lot, but I hope they will help you. I think reading the Bible honestly is a huge challenge. Like I said the other day, there is probably not a single person who has honestly heard an unbiased representation of Jesus' message alive today. I used to think you could just read through the Bible like any other book, but you will only be reading someone else's interpretation of it if you do. You have to read into the history of the Bible and read different opinions and choose for yourself. And most importantly, you have to know why you believe what you believe or you don't believe it at all.
Wow! Your painful honesty will be healing to you. What you need to know though is that everyone that is truly seeking the will of God and believes in Jesus Christ will go through these soul searching struggles and although you are special and unique to God you are no different than everyone else. We all have to search out our beliefs to build our belief system before we can justify it to ourselves and hopefully others. Do we ever reach perfection? Not in this lifetime! Just don't beat yourself up. You are on the right path grasshopper. Remember, God loves you just the way you are. After all, He made you the way you are and He is in control.
Thank you Jimmy. That is encouraging. :) It's also wonderful to be called grasshopper! Haha. Thanks for the support!
that was amazing, Cortni.
I have to say, when i started reading, and i read number 2, my heart sank. I thought, oh my goodness. This isn't the Cortni I know. And then i read further, and i couldn't help but just smile. Its so amazing that you've realized these things! And even more amazing: you're trying to find out what God wants you to do! I recently just went through a rough time and rededicated myself to God. I realized I was completely faking it. I had it all wrong. And now I'm trying to have a genuine relationship with my Savior. I'm so glad I read this, because it's inspired me a lot. Thank you so much for being the awesome friend you are, and I hope to come see you at House of Joy next sunday.
I love you!
-danielle:)
Thank you Danielle! Knowing that others have been through similar experiences really lifts my spirits! And I would love to see you at House of Joy next Sunday!
Great post.
I agree with some of what Keith is saying. Though at times I think he approaches life from an over-intellecutalized standpoint, but tha's how God made him, right?
The bottom line is you don't have to go through all the rigorous intellectual hoops he's suggesting, because the Holy Spirit is above and beyond our intellects.
He gave us our minds, and for good reason, but our minds only operate in this natural realm.
It's in our spirits where we connect with the divine, though we see it in the natural realm from time to time if we choose to look.
Like I said, I do AGREE with Keith that you're search should be YOURS and not based on the interpretations of others, but at the same time, I don't believe you should pigeon hole this into ONLY an intellectual search.
You can sit under the stars and gaze into the vast expanse of our night sky and experience God, if you so choose to. Now I'm not talking about earth worship or weird mysticism, though I think we could use a dose of eastern wonder in our western greek driven minds.
Part of the reason we CANNOT understand fully what the Bible says in this day and time is because we approach it from an over-intellectualized greek mindset.
The hebrew way of life and seeing life is vastly different from the academic approach of the greeks.
I guess where I can find A LOT of common ground with Keith's suggestions is that you DO need to dig deeper than what's on the surface. Learn more about the historical and cultural context of the people who wrote Scripture, not necessarily the hellenistic greek transcriptions of scripture.
And above all, remember that God's ways are bigger than ours, his thoughts are higher than ours, so even in our best and most intellectual efforts to figure it all out, we can't and won't.
Thank you for your honesty.
I might suggest you start on APRIL 1st. in Proverbs. There are 31 chapters. One for each day of the month. Depends on which month you are on, but roughly you can read a proverb a day each month. It's a great place to start in reading the Bible.
Cortni, I appreciate you honest heart. I can't wait to talk over all this with you and share my heart.
Love you.
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