Following up on my first post, the SteemIt Community's requested introduction of ourselves, early this morning seems like a great time to write my second post. Specifically, "my story" of coming to the answers to what are arguably the single most important questions with which we all wrestle in one way or another. Who are we? Why are we here?
Background
I am the firstborn child of parents who, at that time, were involved with leading a small church in middle America. Specifically, my father was a young pastor there. So, at least on the surface, it can be reasonably stated that I grew up in a Christian home.
The reality "under the surface" was considerably more complicated. My father left "the ministry" when I was 2. Why? He always cited great difficulties with various aspects of the ministry and the challenges he was facing within his marriage to my mother. In addition, my father moved us around. A LOT ...
The marriage of my mother and father brought together two of the most unlikely people to marry you can imagine. My father, a young man who moved a lot in a rural part of America, came from a deeply troubled home - highlighted by his father's battle with alcoholism. He barely got through high school and his mother lied about his age, so he could join the Army in World War II. My mother was a young woman raised in the same home into which she was born. In a large city. As the valedictorian of her high school.
What brought them together? They were both attending the same Bible school in the city in which my mother was born. My father's testimony, barely escaping from a life of crime and trouble, had received the blessing of a small church taking up a collection to send him off (one-way ticket) to this Bible school. My mother, although she had received several scholarship offers for college, had been raised in a Christian home and believed she was supposed to be a missionary instead. So … Here two very diverse "streams of life" came together and against the advice of some of their elders, married.
For 18 years, they attempted to work through their various challenges. They ultimately failed and our family was shattered by the bitterness of their divorce, while I was in high school. As an angry young adult, God forgive me, but I thought my own journey to salvation would've have been much less troubled, had I NOT been born into what was deemed to be a Christian home. Such was the power on me of my parent's failed marriage ...
False Philosophical Base
From this background, entering young adult life, I had some serious challenges to resolve around the critical question of what I believed. There were not only difficulties from my past, but on" the paths of life," as is the case with each of us, I had encountered many different people with many different ideas of what was right and what was wrong.
There were 4 very specific groups of thought with which I wrestled - the testimony of my own family, close friends who were Mormon, close friends who were Catholic, and a mentor at a major university who was from India and the Brahmin caste there. Mormons and Catholics both believe the heads of each of their institutions is an infallible, divinely inspired spokesman for God. And each believe the "other one" can't be right, because their leader is right … The young doctorate candidate from India, of course, made no pretense to any sort of Christian faith whatsoever ...
In each case, as far as any normal person could discern anyway, these people were very sincere in their beliefs. Equally true, at least to the mind of this young engineer in the making, they could not all be correct. Their beliefs were "mutually exclusive" ...
How to resolve this profoundly troubling issue (to me), as to who / what was right? Well, at the time, influenced no doubt by some of what I was learning at this major university, I settled on the answer being there was NO absolute truth. Instead, a "just God" allowed for a diversity of opinion about what was true and "judged us" not by some absolute standard of truth HE established, but rather by how closely we adhered to what WE believed to be the truth.
And, with this false philosophical foundation somewhat firmly established, I entered the early years of my adult life. I got married to a wonderful young lady. And we began to have a family.
Moment of Truth
After several years of marriage, my many failings had brought my marriage to the brink of collapse. There I was, not even 30 years old, at the greatest crisis of my young life. By our Lord's grace, I had managed to meet and marry a young woman who I believed would provide me the greatest desire of my heart. The wonderful blessing of a loving, close knit family. There was only one small, but "fatal" problem. She was doing her part. I was not. I could not. At least, so I believed.
At this time, we were attending a local Bible-believing church. To the "outside world," I appeared as a "success" - a wonderful wife, two children (one of each!), a "fast track star" in my profession, our own home out in a peaceful suburb neighborhood. Attending church, while I was listening (as much as a "dead man walking" can be listening …), my primary focus was on the perceived hypocrisy of those around me, more than anything else. I was simply "going through the motions" ...
At our time of crisis, desperate to save her marriage to me, my wife asked me to go see our Pastor. I was not even close to interested in doing this. "Out there" in the pew, my distant view of this man was he was going to "let me have it" and I would be "skewered by the Sword of the Lord," if I were to go see him. Even if this were to be proven out, it was NOT that I wasn't deserving of this, but needless to say, I couldn't generate any enthusiasm for going through it. Besides, in my false, delusional thinking, I had grown up around the Christian church and "knew" all about what the Bible had to say. So … What was he going to tell me I didn't already "know?"
At the time, my career required me to travel all the time. One fateful morning, in the midst of this crisis, I held my precious little daughter on my lap, preparing to leave for that week's business trip. While not yet speaking, looking up at me with her big, brown eyes, I felt like I could audibly hear my daughter asking me, "What now Dad?" It was a devastating "moment of truth" to me. How was I going to respond?
In the hardness of my heart, I had much "against" my wife. Or so I thought. Although most of it was baloney, most of us would understand over time any two adults can do enough harm to each other, through words and actions, to create hurts, etc. that can be barriers to progress. Particularly true of those close to us ...
So … While falsely struggling with this around the challenge of my wife 's request to go see our Pastor, what could I say about my own daughter? Had she "hurt" me in any way? Of course not. Not possible. I was faced with the grim reality and despair of knowing the one thing of supposed greatest importance to me - a close family - was about to be destroyed. And I was about to inflict on my own children that which had caused me so many problems.
That evening, from my motel room, I called home and asked my wife to call our Pastor and arrange for a time to meet him. In my false reasoning, I had no realistic expectation it was going to help, but had decided I was going to have to go through it, so I could then say "I had tried everything" to save my marriage.
What did I experience? As stated above, I was braced for the worst. Expecting, once it was over, that I would never come back, now "armed" with a foolish "I told you so" attitude to justify whatever I would've gone on to do from that point. Instead of what I was expecting, our Pastor was a remarkably humble man who told me many things about himself that left me very confused. Specifically, I kept thinking to myself, "Why are you telling me all of this?"
Very simply, he was letting me know he was no better than me. And no different. He was a sinner saved by the grace of God. Otherwise, his story probably would have been similar to mine. There were very specific verses he shared with me from God's Word which I frankly had never seen before or certainly had no memory of having ever read them. And they were "daggers through the heart" to this proud and defiant man. Somewhere deep in my soul, I KNEW they were declarations of absolute, sovereign truth that I could not escape.
At the same time, they were liberating and it was here that our loving Creator met me. And delivered me! I knew that what I was doing was wrong, but I felt powerless to change my pattern of behavior. I was enslaved by it and hopeless in my ability to break free.
The Gospel Truth is our loving Creator and Lord knows all about us and who we are. And with what we struggle in our own individual lives and which will ultimately lead us to destruction. While the particulars can and do vary for each us, the "central theme" of our challenge is universal. We are designed and created to live ONE way. In our brokenness, we are hopelessly incapable of it, yet in our "heart of hearts" know that we should.
The Gospel Truth is our loving Heavenly Father provided ONE way to escape our universal fate. He paid the highest price possible, the sacrificed life of his son Jesus Christ, that we might be free. In the Spring of 1984, my life changed forever as I surrendered to this Truth. The almighty Lord of Redemption immediately began His tireless work of transformation, which He will faithfully perform to my last breath in this world.
How did I "know what I know?" Very simply, I was suddenly able to successfully live free of that which had previously enslaved me. I had Hope where previously I had nothing. And, praise be to the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, as stated in my introductory post, I have now been married 41 years. And blessed with many more children and grandchildren.
Divine Intervention and Timing
Over the years which followed "my story" above, I have had many opportunities to deepen my understanding of what happened. One of the greatest concepts to me is the growing awareness I have of the Sovereignty of God and His timing.
Our Pastor did not save me from my tormented life. He was simply a faithful "tool in God's hands" at this man's "moment of truth." And, by our Pastor's own words, he might not have been "ready" for it, at any earlier time in his life, given the challenge of what my "details" represented. He shared with me the enormous impact, in his own life, of a very humble, elderly missionary. This man, in his 80s, had spent his entire adult life in China, ministering to the lost there. He had come home to the U.S. to die and, in his final months of life, had spent time with our Pastor. What he had imparted to our Pastor, he said had come at the right time, because he was not sure he would've been able to "bear it" at an earlier time.
This elderly missionary taught him, in some very profound ways, more about the essential nature of the "spiritual war" in which we are all engaged (whether we think so or not). Specifically, about the "weapons of our warfare" not being of this world, against our Adversary.
Years later, our Pastor, in asking me to share my testimony with a group of people, introduced me by saying he had been in the ministry for over 25 years, at the time he met me. And, given that experience base, at least as the natural mind of man reasons these things, he told the audience, "I wouldn't have given their marriage a 'plugged nickel's' chance to survive!"
Wow!! To whom then should credit go? Ultimately our Heavenly Father. Under His sovereign will, I was one beneficiary of this wonderful elderly Chinese missionary's final acts of obedience in this life, before passing into eternity. While I never had the blessing of meeting him in this life, I know some day I will.
The Sovereignty of Almighty God and how He works through us all, so that "all things work together for good" is such a source of comfort, hope, and peace.
Closing
In closing, I would like to say "my story" is not intended to be an exhaustive presentation of the Gospel - the greatest love story ever told. There are others far better suited to that task than am I. I would like to emphasize, though, if in any way unclear, that I no longer live under the delusion there are "many paths" to God. No!
There is ONE path and ONE path only! "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me." John 14:6. Understanding the historically proven existence of the life of Jesus Christ, who He said He was, and why He came here, holds the answers to the questions cited in the beginning of this post. Who are we? Why are we here?
As you struggle, with your own version of the "central theme" of all of our lives, I do hope you might find some encouragement in what I have written. And, ultimately, some Hope. If I can help in any way answering any questions or anything else, I will certainly do what I can.