What foes it mean to be dead? Of course it's very cliche to open a book like this with a question, and honestly thats not the question I'm here to answer or the story Im here to tell. I grew up a child of a pastor in brookfield, Ct. Never at one point did I ever question the christian faith or ponder it's commandments. Inspect it's flaws or delve any deeper. I was faithful or at least half of the words definition. I knew it to be true. The only truth, and I wasn't so stupid when it came to the subject of theology and ethics. My dad is a baptist, Calvinist, hardcore pastor that hangs to the faith like nothing I've ever seen. I envied him for the sole reason envied everyone else at my church. They felt. That may seem confusing but quite self explanatory. They felt the remorse and power of Gods word. They cried and felt helpless and humble and the feet of the almighty savior they so firmly believed in. They had a holy spirit that drove them to do works that went far beyond what anyone could do. Just like what it says in the songs "take me deeper then my feet could ever wander"
That's all I ever wanted.
And when I saw people fall on their knees and worship all I felt was death. Not just being devoid of a conscience but having the inability to feel anything. Mourning, and crying were only things I could achieve when I encountered physical pain and punishment, and not something I could do by listening, hearing, or remembering. Until my salvation I never felt sensitive emotion or pain and at the age of 10 I took a bath in Previously used water or as I called it back then Baptism.
Do you know how it feels? For everyone around you to be moved and you stay still, expecting the holy spirit to come upon you in a glorious fashion but only to lie cold shivering in unholy water? Its terrible, unbalanced pain, the likes of which I can only explain as a dead spirit overlooking its own living body.
And who was this Jesus? To me he was the son of God, exactly what he claimed to be. When he exclaimed that he was the way the truth and the life it seemed to me only as words. Thats it. Until you are touched by the holy spirit that's what the message is to you; hollow words and failed promises. It wasn't till I had reached my final point did I see him. Not when I was happy, rich and gleeful. But when I had no where else to reach, no more voice to yell, and no more hardness of the human heart. By the time I was saved I was on the point of Agnosticism. It seemed likely enough. Why invest in riches and powers I could not feel when I could indulge in the pleasures and shallow yet attractive ideas man had to offer. The bible was a book, Jesus was a man, and God is an idea. My mind was clouded mainly to the High school environment.
My whole life up to that point I had been taught at a first assembly of God school. My critiques of the school are beside the point, but what does matter is that I was sheltered, and was never taught to defend my faith outside of that building. So when the first naturalist I had ever met asked me if God contradicts science I stood speechless, and for the first time I saw chinks in the shining armor which my very life was dedicated to defending. I spent hours with my face planted in my hands. The evil one taunting my hands to pick up a knife that would only bring my demise. In those days of silence I felt loneliness. My father felt this feeling and describes it very avidly saying that there was a vacancy that couldn't be filled by any idea. In the words of the philosopher tostoy "There is a god shaped hole in man's heart that only God can fill."
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