I would like to share the story of my salvation in my first blog. This to me is a very powerful and moving sequence of events in my life, and I figure as my first entry, what would be more appropriate, right?
(My apologies for the long post, there’s a lot to be said…)
So, before I had received Christ into my life, this is what I had been living… I was an Agnostic Darwinist. I had made the change from Atheist because I found science can’t explain everything… I thought, however ,that one day, or in some way, there was a logical explanation for everything, except the start of our universe. That is where God began to appear for me, I had a clockwork theory mindset God had created this universe, and promptly left, leaving things to unravel in whatever direction things unfolded. One thing I did know then (and I feel I know better now), is that people are inherently selfish, and cold. This is something that I thought was human nature (which the bible actually says it is). I figured this is why people have wars, hate, and kill one another. People just couldn’t seem to get along, or even simply accept one another. Seeing the world this way, I figured I have my beliefs, as you have yours. Leave me alone, and I’ll leave you alone. Nobody was any more right about God, (or lack there of) than I was. Churches existed to get money, and persuade people that their solution was right because they had nice stained glass, and high steeples. Your money and obedience was just how they existed. It was a dirty perfected art of brainwashing.
That all as I said was my old way of thinking. The day things got set in motion for me, is when I decided to move back home from Houston, TX. I was more or less at the very bottom of my life. I had a car, and about $1,000 of debt to my name. I went running home to my parents with my tail tucked between my legs, burned out from a myriad of drugs and addictions, and morbidly depressed. My life plans had been shot down. I wanted to save money, and work on cars out in Texas. I was making good money for being 19/20 years old too… But that didn’t happen, depression gave way to addictions. Addictions gave way to debt. Debt made me realize that I couldn’t do anything more than make ends meet. So, hence why I ran home, I was lost, and a total wreck.
I began to drive home after packing a whole apartment of junk into my car in a matter of 5hrs or so. I had a 24hr drive ahead of me. My first stop was Oklahoma, I was dropping my room mate off at his Aunt’s house (the apartment lease had expired), then I had to drive straight through to Stow Ohio (16hrs alone).
The 16 hour stretch of my drive was something that gave me tons of time to think about life. Where I was going (nowhere), what I had accomplished (nothing). I wondered for a good portion of the drive “What have I done wrong?” and “What the hell is wrong with my head?” and finally “Why does God hate me so much?”. Sixteen hours is a good long time to think when you’re alone on the road, but nothing came to answer this dilemma. I was just thinking “I’ve got to just been insane or retarded or something…. This doesn’t add up.” Perhaps I was insane… Who knows? At the end of my drive, I gave up, I figured I don’t have the answers. I decided to pray. I can’t quote exactly what I said but it was something along the lines of this “Dear God, I don’t know what I did to make things this bad. I don’t know if you think it’s funny to make such a mess of my life, or if you enjoy my misery for the fact that I deny your involvement in peoples lives, I haven’t been a good person, but I’m at the bottom. I can’t continue to live this way. I don’t even know if you’re listening up there, but just throw me a bone, give me some direction or something. I’m lost. I need your help. I’m totally f-d.”
After all this mess, I arrived home safely. I moved back in with my parents, got a job, and a wonderful girlfriend, and re-enrolled in college. This was my plan to make something of my life. I hadn’t seen that evidence of God that I was looking for though. I was also still very depressed. What was going to make me happy? This made no sense to me, I should have been elated to have been saved from the misery I made for myself in TX. Well I figured what the hell, if nothing else is making me happy, I know one thing that will, drugs! I made some calls to my old friends in Akron, and found a kick ass party going on. I told my girlfriend that I was going out that night and was going to be out late, and she wasn’t invited. She asked what was going on, I said “Just a party”. She then asked, “Why can’t I come then?”. I said “You shouldn’t see me when I party this hard”. She told me, why don’t you not go to this party then, and go to church with my brother Justin (now one of my best friends). I said, well God is all nice and good, but partying does some really good things for me that I don’t have to wait for. She told me that none of my friends there even cared about me, they just wanted to party like I did, and we had nothing else in common. I was pretty pissed, who is she to dictate my friends right? I thought about what was said, and thought, I doubt it, but she may be right… Well I stewed on that for over half an hour, and said all right, there will be other parties. I’ll go to church.
This is where it gets good… To me, “church” was this cordial place where you went and shook hands with a bunch of well dressed friendly hypocrites who needed their God fix to feel good about themselves. There was no place in an institution for a person like myself. Coming in with no true faith, a bunch of piercings, a tattoo, a bad attitude, some addictions. The people I ended up meeting and spending time with seemed to tolerate me, and actually like me. They cared. It was very odd, I had never experienced anyone doing anything like this except when people try to scam somebody. I figured it was a scam, a cult, something… It wasn’t quite right. It didn’t fit with the world.
I attended another Central Teaching after that one. It was the same thing, people listened, people cared, nobody was pushing anything on me, I was accepted. (I liked the message too…) I began to think “Hey maybe I am just that cool… Damn…” Nothing else made sense, I had never witnessed strangers that cared about somebody they didn’t know.
I decided later on to go to the Labor Day retreat. I liked the people in this fellowship. I remember Keith giving a teaching about something along the lines of “Institutions are evil… The Devil works in systems… Cosmos… Power… Fight the system… Down with Institutions…” I wasn’t really listening to my fullest attention, but I got the gist. This really did not make me feel comfortable. I was thinking, this sounds a crap load like what cults do… I thought about that teaching for the better part of perhaps, 10 hours. I had went around and talked to every stranger I could find that I could see giving me the stink eye for who I was. I asked all the hard questions about God and faith and theology that I could muster up. I had finally made up my mind. This has got to be a cult. Everyone was too nice. This didn’t make sense, this kind of creepy caring stranger thing was very foreign. Then I thought later, you know, even if this is a cult, I want in! I have never believed that man made systems would prevail, and “The devil is in systems” sounded so absolutely true to me.
I talked to Keith late that night after my 100,000 questions that can’t be answered about God and the Bible (that got answered with a smile and no hesitation… wtf? That never happens in the institutional church…) I got to understand that The Word isn’t about nice buildings, and pretty institutions, rules, legalism, etc… Actually it’s quite the opposite. It’s real relational selfless love (agape), imitating Christ, spreading the word, and not getting caught up in the world’s games. Keeping track that God is important, and God has the best guidance to offer.
I was then asked by Keith “Well Matt, do you want to accept Christ?” This really threw me off, a thousand things flew through my head at once, I was about to say “Well I’m not sure if it’s for me, I don’t know if I’m ready yet…” but that was a lie, I loved this stuff that was being taught and I knew it. I shakily said “Umm… Yeah…”. Not the best response, but it was a yes. We prayed then for Christ to come into my heart and to lead my life, and to ask and accept his forgiveness. Then Keith (at 12:30 at night) belted out “YYYYEEESS!!!!”. I damn near jumped out of my skin, he continued “Matt, do you know that the angels in heaven are having a fucking party for you man!!!?!!? It says in the bible (something about how the angels sing and rejoice for a new salvation)” I was startled, but very very excited. I called my girlfriend, told her the news, she started crying, she was very happy. I went home after the retreat and told my parents, they were relieved seeming, and proud, and excited. This is how I became saved. Experiencing the love of the body had opened my eyes to the truth about The Word. I had never experienced this love amongst people even once in my life. Not even in family functions!! I wanted in because this was crazy, this was new. It was exciting, and I was accepted and loved, even as the mess I came in as. This was something I’ve never seen in a church or the world.
This is something I think most people never experience, or no longer believe in (in my generation). Where in the world do you see selfless caring people? There are tons of churches that practice reading and studying the bible, without knowing how to imitate Christ, this is what we need to do, because I can testify first hand that this is what gets people saved! We are told in the bible to love one another! Be sure to spread the love amongst your friends, family, fellowship, strangers, everywhere! This is what starts a revolution. That selfless love is what changes things. Love never fails.
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