Tuesday, November 29, 2022 My Story Part 9

Just prior to college graduation, I went to an initiation ceremony for an honor society and who should I run into but that guy from the public speaking class! He offered to walk me home and on the way inquired about spiritual things. I told him that I was reading a book about the Holy Spirit written by Billy Graham. He knew I wasn’t a Christian, so this raised his eyebrows a bit. We chatted for awhile and he got my phone number. Evangelism, right? He called and invited me to a Navigator dinner on campus (the Navigators were a college Christian discipleship group). He was participating in some sort of summer Navigator training experience and they were encouraged to invite the pagans on over. That’s not what he said to me, of course, but I was pretty sure that part of the proceedings would be some sort of gospel-sharing. I didn’t want to be pressured and was tempted to say no, but he was handsome and had a cute dimple, so I said yes.

After the dinner, the leader of the group asked people if they wanted to share anything about their experiences during the week. One girl timidly raised her hand and proceeded to tell us all about how she was in a laundromat with a stranger and after praying for courage, she struck up a conversation with this person and was even able to share some sort of testimony of faith with him/her. The most astonishing thing about this story for me was that fact that she’d actually been afraid to do it. What? There went the stereotype of the pushy in-your-face Christian. Afterward in a private conversation, I confronted my handsome dimpled friend about the audacity of Christian missions. “How dare you go into another culture and tell them that their god isn’t the right god?!” We had a lively discussion during which he had the wisdom not to quote Scriptures at me and didn’t claim to have all the answers. I had to respect that. As with the Easter experience, I wasn’t a Christian when I went back home, but I had gotten rid of some important baggage and came back a little lighter in heart for the experience.

God was working changes in me – slow and subtle changes. I began recognizing that I couldn’t control my life, and more than that, that I needed to relinquish that incessant desire to control my life over to Him. I started to see circumstances differently, as part of His plan. To know that He was present in some way was comforting. He was checking my selfish impulses and giving me the ability to be more patient with others. Things that I used to consider harmless fun I was seeing in a different light. I was reading the Bible more and copying verses that I liked, especially verses that had to do with hope. My understanding of who God is was starting to be informed by what I read in the Bible, rather than by my own flawed imaginings.

But weirdly, I was still schizophrenic about God versus Jesus Christ. I couldn’t reconcile what I considered to be the strange and cultish behaviors of certain Christians. I was stuck in an awful middle ground and complained to God, “You are too much a part of my life for me to reject You, but I cannot accept You wholly either.” In my mind, I had an image of me twisting and turning to get away from an iron hand grip. Sometimes I thought it was me trying to get away from God, sometimes I thought it was me in the middle with Satan and God both pulling my arms in opposite directions. I was beginning to have a theology of Satan and I cried out to God. “He exploits every weakness and tempts every temptation. He is full of cunning as he beckons me with that damn all-knowing wicked smile. Why do You let him win so often? Everything he says makes sense to me until I have fallen and tasted the bitterness of his logic. So why do you let him triumph in my weakness?” I felt very much in the midst of a spiritual battle.

I went up north with friends and began reading a book that someone gave me called “Hinds Feet on High Places.” It was a fictionalized representation of spiritual growth that had my name written all over it. The main character’s name was “Much-Afraid,” and I knew her all too well. It was not the Bible, but gave me a different paradigm with which to think about Jesus as the Shepherd. Jesus, the elusive and uncomfortable Jesus, became more real to me as I read it. I had become acquainted with my sin, but still dug my heels into the ground at the idea that I needed a savior. “Why is it that faith in Jesus Christ and commitment to Him comes so easily to others and not to me? Every step I have taken in His direction has been as difficult as if my feet were made of lead. I stumble, I halt, I turn to run and finally fall, unable to move at all. Believe in Him, screams my heart. I can’t because I don’t want to look foolish, says my mind. Where is the proof? I demand childishly. It’s a no-win argument and I stalemate myself.” So went another rant in my journal.

You are no doubt frustrated with reading this constant dithering and dragging of my feet, but not nearly as frustrated as I was living through it. I could certainly make this a shorter story and cut to the chase. I could, but I will not. The way the Lord wooed me in spite of my doubts and vacillations, the way He patiently pursued me when I was afraid, the way He allowed me to think wrong things about Him on my way to learning right things about Him, the slow and steady way He brought correction, how He loved my silly feet of clay – you can’t see all of that unless I tell it all. He’s the hero of this story, surely you must know that by now. If not, I’m telling this badly.