John 9

There are many times when I am reading sections of scripture and my mind starts painting a picture of what is happening, my mind seems to like thinking of it a a play on a stage.  I think it comes from Mr. Horatio, a 5th grade teacher I had that would read Shakespeare to us.  But not just read it, he would act it out in front of us giving life to the words.  Ever since then I enjoy reading Shakespeare, yes I will voluntarily read Shakespeare :)
So I start with a play going on in my head, and then my mind starts injecting modern language into the play, and then you add a distorted sense of humor and you end up with stuff that some may find blasphemy! I mean who am I to write my own version of a story out of the bible, a good question for sure.  I can assure you there is no disrespect intended, just the opposite.  Jesus has entered my life and saved me, I am nothing and would have nothing without Him.  There are just times when I read parts of the bible and find the situations worthy of another look, a different take if you will.
Whenever I read John 9 a whole scene burts forth into my head, and I finally wrote it down, enjoy :)

Jesus and his disciples passed a man blind since birth.

Disciples: Rabbi who sinned this man or his parents?  We need to know who to pass judgement on, ya know, for closure?

Jesus: (muttering to himself) So much to teach, so little time.

Jesus: This was not the work of sin, but that the works of God may be displayed. We must work the works of He who sent me while it is still day, night is coming.  As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

Disciples: Yes of course, we knew that!

Disciple 1 to Disciple 2: Dude, did you get that?  He lost me.

Disciple 2 to Disciple 1: I was really hoping you knew what he was talking about! Just nod and say "Yes Rabbi" a lot.

Jesus placed mud in the blind man's eyes and told him to wash his eyes, and he came back with sight.

His neighbors saw him and questioned whether it was the same man who had been blind just minutes before.

Neighbor 1: Nah, can't be him, who is this guy?

Blind Man: Bob, its me, we've known each other our whole life!

Neighbor 2: I'm not buying it, that dude was blind, nope you must be an imposter pretending to be a guy who used to be blind.

Blind Man: Really Joe, really? Thats the best you got? I'm walking around pretending to be a guy who used to be blind that just so happens to look exactly like the blind man you've been passing by your whole life? Seriously!?!?

Neighbor 2: Why you mad Bro?

Neighbor 1: Ok ok so how can you see now?

Blind Man: A man named Jesus healed me, he put mud in my eyes and when I washed my face I could see.

Neighbor 2: So where is he now?

Blind Man: I was blind when he put the mud in my eyes remember, how am I supposed to know where he went!

Neighbor 1: Good point.

The Pharisees heard the ruckus and came to save the day!

Pharisee 1: Stay calm and bow to our brilliance!

Blind Man: I don't have a good feeling about this.

Pharisee 1 to Blind Man: So you are telling me that this man, you call Jesus, healed you of your blindness on the Sabbath? 

Blind Man: Well, I was blind and now I see, and it happens to be the Sabbath....so I guess the answer is yes.

Pharisee 1: Then he disobeyed the law, he is a sinner and not of God!

Pharisee 2: Dude, keep it down, lets think about this.  Its not like you can cure a blind man. You have to admit this is pretty remarkable.  Who cares what day it is?

Pharisee 1: Dude, ever heard of a unified front? Go with me on this, its the Sabbath, the book says no works on the Sabbath, there's no addendum for the Son of God!

Blind Man: This is sounding like a you problem.

Pharisee 1: Silence!

Blind Man: Just sayin'.

Pharisee 2: Lets at least talk to his parents, they are right over there, maybe we can get to the bottom of this.

Pharisee 1 to Parents: Are you the parents of this disrespectful heathen that mocks us, says he was blind and now sees, this dirty rotten scoundrel of a Pharisee mocker?!?!?

Parents: He's adopted.

Pharisee 1: Was he always blind?

Parents: Can we consult with a lawyer first?

Pharisee 2: No!

Parents: All we're willing to commit to is that he was visually challenged, but he's a grown man so talk to him, gotta run, buh bye.

Pharisee 1 to Blind Man: Tell us again how you now see?

Blind Man: Did you not hear me the first time?  Why do you want to hear it again, do you also want to be his disciple?

Pharisee 2: We are disciples of Moses! We know God spoke to Moses, but this man we don't even know where he's from!

Blind Man: So if I get you his address we'll be all good?

Pharisee 1: Blasphemer!!!!!

Blind Man: But what about his acts, who has heard of a man born blind being cured before this?  How can this not be a man of God?

Pharisee 1: Don't go injecting logic into this discussion!

Blind Man: C'mon Man! 

Pharisee 2: Sinner! You are have been voted off the island!

Blind Man: No big loss there, later!

Jesus heard of the blind man being cast off and found him.

Jesus to Blind Man: Do you believe in the Son of Man?

Blind Man: Lord I believe.

Jesus: I have come so that those who do not see may see, and those that see may become blind.

Pharisee 1: So does that mean we are blind Mr "Son of Man" guy?

Jesus: If you were blind you would be without guilt, but because you say "We see" your guilt remains.

Pharisee 1 to Pharisee 2: Dude, pretty sure he's mocking us but he lost me.  Did you get that?

Pharisee 2:  I was really hoping you knew what he was talking about!

 

Do I Look Fat in this Robe?

As I move thru this spiritual journey I come to certain moments of clarity, breakthroughs if you will.  As young as I am on this journey, I realize these are not earth shattering discoveries or ones that most Christians haven't already made.  If nothing else I may be able to entertain you or just remind you of something you already know, but we all need reminders at times.

  

As my life started turning in a positive direction I spent a lot of time working on myself, with Gods help changing the way my mind worked.  Going from being glass half empty to glass half full, from feeling like a victim to feeling blessed for all I have, from feeling unworthy to feeling the wonder of Gods unending love.  It was time well spent, but it put me in a place where I was thinking about myself all the time, thinking about how everything impacted me, thinking about why I couldn't change faster, everything was about me.

 

But this was a very comfortable place for me to be.  You see I've been a bit of a mess my whole life, in fact if you look up "hot mess" in the dictionary you'll see my picture!  So I've spent most of my years realizing I was different, and not in a good way, and trying to understand why.  I became very used to looking at life thru the lens of how things impacted me, life became all about me and why I was reacting a certain way to things.  I became obsessed with self analysis, it was under the guise of improving myself but it was still a selfish way to go thru life.

  

One of the things that always bothered me about myself was that there was an image I had of myself that wasn't coming to fruition, the real me that was locked inside the fear and anxiety that I was suffering from.  I was constantly trying to understand why I couldn't let that person out, why shame and guilt was keeping that person from coming to the surface.  And I was still struggling with it this summer as I was once again focusing too much on myself and what was wrong with me.     

Simply put I got carried away, I had gotten to a point where I needed to stop being so singular minded, after all Jesus didn't spend his life thinking about himself. I was sitting at work, knew something was wrong, and I stared out the window for a few minutes....thankfully no one else was at work yet.  I closed my eyes and started praying for guidance. I started thinking about one of the main themes of New Life Church being service to others, about Jesus' driving message being to help those that are less fortunate and loving your neighbors as he would love them, and I realized how different my mindset was to that, and how being self absorbed was not getting me more like Jesus or closer to God. Then I was given an image, a vision of Jesus that really brought home a very important lesson I desperately needed. 

The vision was of Jesus, in his robe standing in front of a mirror, standing to the side looking over his shoulder at himself.  As he stood there he said to himself, and yes my visions have soundtracks....its my vision!, and he said to himself "Do I look fat in this robe?" Thats right, I said it!  I was immediately hit with the realization of what this meant....that is after I stopped giggling.  But I was giggling because it seemed ridiculous that Jesus would say that, but thats the point, he would NEVER say that.  He would never be so self absorbed to spend the time thinking about something as trivial as that.  His mind was focused on helping others to the point that he sacrificed himself for the forgiveness of all our sins, that is the purest definition of service to others and loving all your neighbors as God loves them.  

It was time for me to flip the script, to change how I looked at the world, and to start small with my immediate surroundings.  I started thinking consciously about taking every interaction I had during a day and looking at it from the perspective of the other person.  How can I make that person's day better, make them laugh, feel better, console them, understand them, listen to them,  let them know that I care about them and want to help them.  The point being to take the focus off myself and put it where it belonged, on other people.  

At this point many of you are probably thinking, well no kidding Sherlock what did you think life was about?!  May I remind you that I never claimed to be a brain surgeon! Some things take me a while, better late then never :)

Many things started making more sense, the value of serving others and how we get closer to God by helping other people, the fact that we're not meant to travel our paths alone but with the help of each other, and the real meaning of the scripture that its more blessed to give then to receive.  But another amazing thing started happening, the more I thought of others the more the real person that had been locked inside of me started coming to the surface.  The less I focused on myself, the more progress I made in terms of being the person I wanted to be....what a concept!  This is pretty mindboggling for a stubborn simple minded guy like myself, but I immediately realized this was paramount in me becoming a better christian.

But the story doesn't end there, as with most things in life there are bumps in the road. For the second time, soon after I made a significant step towards God I was challenged and my faith was tested.  A series of bad things happened to people around me and I started asking myself questions like "Why did that have to happen? Why are people I care about suffering?"  This weakened me to the point where negativity started creeping back into my mind, old habits started re-appearing and I started focusing on myself.  The questions became "Why am I struggling?  Why don't I get those breaks? Why is my job so frustrating?" 

 

Satan was tempting me, challenging the strength of my resolve and my ability to get my focus back where it needed to be.  Thankfully I have God on my side, and he provided me the messages I needed to hear.  I'm currently reading several different books, thanks to generous friends and baptism gifts! A common theme started appearing over and over, a theme I needed to get me back on track.  The message was that I needed to focus on God and praise him at all times.  That I needed to trust that everything that happens is a part of God's plan and to question "why" is to question Him.  Rather then questioning why I don't have something praise him for providing my friends with good things and providing me with everything I need, rather then question why I'm having problems at work praise God for providing me clear signs that I need to move on, rather then be impatient with my life be grateful that He will provide all things on His schedule, instead of worrying about what I can't do anymore praise Him for what I still can do.  

Put my attention to God and living in the present, appreciate all He has done for me and have faith that he will provide all that I need. Strong faith in His plan removes fear, removes the questions, removes the "why's" because I know why things happen....everything that happens is part of his plan for me and has happened on purpose to bring me closer to the person He wants me to be. Job's faith kept him from questioning, worrying, fearing...Job never lost trust in God and always believed that whatever happened was part of His plan.  

Life will always present challenges, having faith doesn't mean bad things won't happen, having faith provides the strength to withstand life's challenges.  And focusing on others and my relationship with God puts my focus where it needs to be and removes anxiety about what will happen next. And I now have an image in my mind that will always remind me to focus on others, an image of Jesus looking at himself in the mirror asking "Do I look fat in this robe?" 

Message to my new friends at New Life Church!

Hello New Lifers! For those I haven't had the chance to meet, my name's John and I've been attending the Linton Hall campus for a few months.  First thing I'd like to say is thanks to the wonderful community of people at New Life, its been an amazing experience and there couldn't be a better group of people to share my spiritual journey with.

 

I've recently made the decision to get baptized and I wanted to share my testimony as to how I got to this point, what coming back to God has meant to me,  and why I made this decision.  We recently heard a sermon about being bold, and I'm going to be boldly honest, so if you are squeemish about challenging personal stories this may not be the post for you...on the bright side it does have a happy ending!

I guess the first thing I should mention is what baptism means to me.  In my mind its not a finish line, its a starting line.  I am making a commitment to spending the rest of my life joyously praising and serving God, who has saved my life, given me hope and purpose, and has made all things possible thru Him.  The decision for me to make this commitment was a very easy one, due to the overwhelming changes that I've gone thru since He saved my life a few months ago.  Everyone's path is different, and mine isn't unique but I thought it was worth sharing.

A mere 3 months ago I was in an extremely dark place, I reached an all time low which for me is really saying something because I thought I had already hit that point.  I had let life get to me, was in the grips of severe depression and was seeing life thru the filter of negativity.  I was letting health problems cause me to feel like a victim, was letting a difficult childhood fill me with shame and self hatred, and saw no way out or any chance of things getting better.  I felt so unworthy that I isolated myself, I was afraid to experience life and meet new people for fear they’d find me as disgusting as I found myself. I got to the point where I decided there was no point, no point to go on as there was no chance of things getting better.  And I spent a Sunday morning researching the best way to kill myself, and had it all planned out with the day and time picked out.

Then a funny thing happened, I got really mad at myself.  I became furious at myself for letting things get to me like that, letting life turn me into an ugly monster on the inside.  For fans of the Penny Dreadful series, I was feeling a strong kinship to the Frankenstein monster when he spoke about realizing that he had become as ugly on the inside as he had always felt he appeared on the outside.  But the anger I felt that day brought me to a breaking point, I gave myself two choices, quit complaining and whining and just get it over with, or make the commitment that day to make the changes necessary to make the rest of my life better than the first 45 years of my life.  

Since I'm writing this its obvious which choice I made, thankfully.  I didn't realize it at the time, didn't understand where I got that energy from to put on the brakes as my mental train hurled down the tracks to an abyss, but now I clearly understand that God intervened when I needed him the most.  He was always waiting for me, and I made him wait too long but thankfully He's patient and was always there for me. He helped me realize there was another choice to make, and he gave me one last chance to turn to him and turn my life over to him.   

I knew what changes I had to make, I just didn't know how to make them.  That is until I visited New Life for the first time.  A dear friend of mine was suggesting I give it a try, and I was at the point where I thought what could it hurt, its not like I was batting 1.000 at life doing it my way!  I hesitated once or twice, but I got myself there, and nothing has been the same since.  The sermon that first week was on shame, a topic I am intimately aware of.  What struck me was the act of writing down what we're ashamed of on a piece of paper, putting it in a basket, and handing it over to God.  I remember thinking, “you can do that?  Wow this God guy is pretty cool!”  I walked out of the service that day knowing I had found a home, and knew my life wouldn't be the same.  In the following few weeks I started reading the bible, thinking about my life in different ways, and I came to the undeniable conclusion that I was a believer.  I was able to say that I believe in God, that He loves me so much that He sent His only son to live among men to save us, that He has a plan for me and will make sure whatever is meant to happen will happen, and will provide all I need.

That assertion changed everything for me.  How can I find myself unworthy and shameful if God loves me so much that His son gave his life for me.  How could I feel like a victim when God saved my life and helped me realize how lucky I am to be alive and how blessed I am.  How could I be envious of what others can do and have, when I know that God will look out for me and provide all I need.  How could I feel anxious about the future when I know that God has a plan for me that will lead me in the right direction.  And while I don't have all the answers and I don't know exactly what He has in store for me, I have faith in His infinite wisdom and His plan for me, and I look forward to seeing what unfolds.  Quite a change in a few months, how blessed am I!!

Saving my life and giving me a whole new outlook on life would have been enough, but God wasn't done providing me gifts.  He had another one in store that I still can't believe.  My shame and self loathing came from my mother and things she did to me starting when I was 4 or 5 years old.  I won't elaborate, probably don't need to, safe to say it involves things no mother should be doing to a child.  But even worse then what was done, was what she taught me to believe about myself.  That I was shameful, unloveable, unworthy, pathetic, ugly....you get the idea.  Unfortunately I'm a very good student, and that stuck with me my whole life.  My solution to my past was trying not to think about it, it was too painful.  Any thoughts of her were surrounded by anger and hatred for what she did.  I hadn't dealt with my past and I was letting it define me, and was letting her description of me become my description of me.  I knew I had to let it go and take responsibility for defining who I am, but wasn't quite sure how to do that until there was that sermon on forgiveness.

That was a tough one for me, I felt like a zombie after that one, because I immediately knew that I had to forgive her to move on with my life.  So I prayed for guidance and help, and low and behold I was given the vision to understand my past in a much different way.  The vision of a monster that was trying to hurt me was replaced by a vision of a woman that was severely mentally ill that was trying desperately to stop herself.  My eyes and heart opened to see that she tried everything she could to stop herself, finally taking her own life in a final desperate attempt to protect me from her. 

 Once God opened my eyes I was able to reach out to my mother thru prayer and tell her that I forgive her and that I love her.  The instant I said those words I was given another gift, a vision that will stay with me forever.  I saw my mother’s soul floating a few feet off the ground, held down by chains on each wrist.  At the base of each chain was a cement block with the words Shame painted on one and Guilt painted on the other.  As soon as I said the words I forgive you and love you, the chains broke and Gods hand reached down and lifted her soul to heaven.  And that is the image that I will have of my mother for the rest of my life.

Needless to say the last 3 months have been remarkable.  God has saved my life, changed my entire outlook on life, replaced feelings of unworthiness with love, replaced anxiety with excitement about the future, replaced feelings of despair with gratitude for all I’ve been blessed with, and feelings of hatred and shame about my past with feelings of forgiveness and an appreciation that with Gods help anything is possible.  Having said all that how could I possibly question whether to get baptized?  It was an easy decision for me to commit myself to serving God the rest of my life, He has saved my life and given me a new outlook on life and I will joyously praise Him and serve Him the rest of my life!

I apologize for the difficult read, but my honesty was with a purpose.  I want all those who get to that dark place, or those that have unfortunately suffered thru similar trials, to know that there is a way out of the darkness.  There is no place you can't recover from, there is no place so dark that He can't find you, there is no span of time away from Him that will cause Him to forget about you.  Anything is possible with God's help, He is the light and the way.  With one small step in His direction He will lead you the rest of the way!