Tuesday, March 15, 2022 My Story, Part 3

I thought I had a negative view of Christianity before starting college, but in looking back through my journals I realize that it was much worse than that. I treated it as a harmless and optional belief system that hardly had any sort of thing to do with me. In seeking to share the gospel, I would much rather meet someone who agitates against Christianity than someone who is indifferent, as I was. The one who agitates against it has some idea of what it’s all about and they don’t like it one bit. There has perhaps been some work going on in the soul already. “The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” as Shakespeare wrote. The indifferent person is just drifting along not caring much one way or another and you can talk yourself blue in the face to them and they’ll just mildly agree or defer comment all the way to hell.

Well, that was a spicy way to start this third part of my story! So, yes, I was fairly neutral and indifferent to the gospel at that time in my life. My mother was directing a church choir at a United Methodist Church and twisted my arm into joining, so there I was, attending church again. The pastor’s name was Reverend Ramstad. Remember that name – he’s a small but important character later in my long journey to Christ.

Reverend Ramstad had a cherubic round face and was a cheerful, sweetly shy man. I mentioned him before when I wrote about my joining the choir late in my high school years. Sometimes I commented in my journals about his sermons and usually in a positive way. He was very real and accessible. I still didn’t have any concept of what the gospel was or how it applied to me, but I was listening, which is more than I used to do in church.

One Sunday, Reverend Ramstad decided to try out an experiment in sermon application. The sermon must have been about loving one another, for at the end of the service he exhorted us all to find someone in the church and tell them “I love you.” What was he thinking?!? My older sister Leslie was in the choir as well. We had a quick whispered consultation and decided that this whole business was to be avoided at all costs. We spotted a small alcove by the side of the church and devised a plan to make our way swiftly over there and wait inside the alcove until it was safe. It was a perfect plan…until we got into the alcove and found Reverend Ramstad in there too. He smiled at us and said, “I love you.” Leslie and I were stunned into silence at this turn of events. I was the one who eventually broke, replying awkwardly, “Me, too.” At that, the good Reverend ambled out of the alcove and then we laughed until we were gasping for breath.

Ahhh…good times. But my soul was untouched as far as coming to terms with sin and its consequences. As I started at the University of Minnesota, I had no particular convictions at all. By this time I had started dating an interesting young man who shared the Desiderata with me and spoke about obtaining what he called the “Ideal State of Being.” I had no idea what he was talking about, but assumed he knew something that I didn’t. Fortunately, I didn’t get trapped into going down that particular rabbit hole – sometimes ignorance really is bliss.

The Desiderata, by the way, is a very nice essay which presents what you might call a “Christ-less Gospel.” It’s a beautifully worded paragraph about how to live, and includes the phrase, “Therefore, be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.” I loved the Desiderata, really loved it. And although I didn’t know it at the time, that phrase planted deep seeds in my psyche about the necessity of each person being allowed to define God in a way that made sense to or pleased oneself. “That way lies madness.”

I’ll probably delete this in the morning unless thou dost protest too much.

My Story Part 1
My Story Part 2
My Story Part 4
My Story Part 5
My Story Part 6
My Story Part 7
My Story Part 8
My Story Part 9
My Story Part 10