My faith, untangled

When my parents married, my mom chose to leave behind the Catholicism of her childhood and attend a Methodist church with my dad. My brother and I were both baptized as babies in a Protestant church and that’s the type of service we attended while stationed on military bases.

Back then, we attended Sunday School before service — where we usually made a Bible-themed craft out of a paper plate and pipe cleaners — and sang out of hymnals, along with the organ and the robed choir. As a kid, the highlight of going to church was seeing friends or spouting out the Scripture verse I spent all week memorizing.

I can remember singing the songs, “Jesus Loves Me" or “Go Tell it on the Mountain,” and learning the motions to “Pharaoh, Pharaoh.” Santa Claus brought us many of our Christmas gifts, but it was stressed that the baby Jesus was still the real "reason for the season." During Easter week, my brother and I would sit at the kitchen table with our parents and each night open a Resurrection Egg. Each plastic egg contained some miniature visual from the week leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection — a crown of thorns, a purple cloth or a goblet, for example — and we would read the corresponding Bible verse.

I only ever listened to contemporary Christian music and I never felt I was missing anything. I still really don’t. In sixth-grade, I got introduced to Steven Curtis Chapman and Michael W. Smith, watched McGee and Me and listened to Adventures in Odyssey. In ninth grade, I fell in love with the Newsboys and Audio Adrenaline — I went to a gazillion of their concerts — and some guy named Tony Vincent who I haven’t heard from since. (I apologize if these people and things are Greek to you … Google them if you have some time :)

I know I was taught all along about staple commandments: honoring my parents, telling the truth, being a peacemaker, not fighting with my brother, etc. I gave a weekly offering from my allowance. I had a student’s study Bible and a Precious Moments Bible — one Old Testament story told me I couldn’t hide from God and there was a little illustration of a Precious Moments child in a closet with a blanket over his head, trying … it made me wonder if that meant God could even see me in the bathroom.

I was told that Jesus loved me and died for me and my sins, but I never understood a) how HUGE that was and 2) that he hoped I would love him back. In high school, when Jars of Clay sang, “I want to fall in love with you,” I couldn’t comprehend it. And honestly, I still struggle with the idea.

Through no fault of their own, my parents and other adults in my life didn’t really talk about what it meant when I became a Christian at 11 years old. I knew I had accepted Jesus into my heart, but I thought that he was just hanging out with me all the time and that I needed to be a good daughter, student, sister and friend. Don't get me wrong, my parents were great examples of what it meant to love others — even when it was hard — and serve others , and to walk daily with Christ. But for me, it wasn’t until I was much older that I realized the two core commandments Jesus gave — love God and love others.

Along with this — and blessing those less fortunate — I also realized how much Jesus desired to have a relationship with me. I tried several times to build it. I would go a week reading my Bible, following along in a study book, and praying before bed. Often I would fall asleep in the middle of praying, realize it in the morning and feel guilty about it all day. And remarkably, I’d repeat the cycle later that night.

To shorten this a bit, I strayed away from Jesus in college and for a few years after graduation — I went to St. Mattress every Sunday — and instead became depressed with my relationships — or lack thereof — and a thankless, this-is-not-what-I-expected job. But a few years ago I came crawling back to Christ with a tear-soaked face and a hanging head, which he gently lifted and wiped. Then he whispered, “I missed you.”

When I came back, I saw something different: for the past few years, a generation has awakened to a realization ... things should be a lot simpler, like they were when Jesus walked dusty streets. There is less 'organized religion' and more non-denominational churches, like the ones my parents and I go to. Dress is casual, hymnals are out and praise songs are accompanied by an array of instruments. Activities for kids are vibrant, enthusiastic and stress loving God and others.

Church (which is actually people, not a building) isn't supposed to be about seeing friends — though it is nice to have that common-hearted fellowship — but coming to serve those who are seeking and to worship.

Christianity isn’t about being a good person or being moral or following certain rules. Anyone can check those boxes. Check out this verse: ..."small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." Matthew 7:14.

There is also this one: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast." Ephesians 2:8-9.

I still think it’s important to make the right decisions (in what you read, watch, listen to, say) because then there’s this verse: "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen."

And wow, do I have to slap my hand and start over with that one each day. Sometimes I'm a terrible picture for Christ ... gossiping, losing my patience, being unloving and unlovable.

The faith I follow, as I wrote earlier, isn’t about isolation from the rest of the world, but it is "being in the world, and not of it." My faith isn’t about judging others — we each have enough planks in our own eyes to get out first — but of picking each other up. It isn’t about following a routine or rules; it isn’t about being a ‘goody-goody or, even worse, an ugly repellent. Rather, it’s about intrigue, passion, acceptance and challenge … and walking that road less traveled.

I’ve vented repeatedly to my husband about getting this across to people. Then my dad gave me a book by Don Miller: “Searching for God Knows What.” He talks about, with wit and creativity, what it means to know who God is, not in the self-help Christianity many cling to or the kind that squeezes Him into a box, to be taken out only during times of crisis.

I’m only into the fourth chapter, but in the third, I came across what my mind had been trying to articulate.

Here are three excerpts that wowed me. They are long, but worth it, so please read.
“... if it is a story about humanity falling away from the community that named it, and an attempt to bring humanity back to that community, and if it is more than a series of ideas, but rather speaks directly into this basic human need we are feeling, then the gospel of Jesus is the most relevant message in the history of mankind."

..."Jesus was always, and I mean always, talking about love, about people, about relationship, and He never broke anything into steps or formulas ... I began to wonder if becoming a Christian did not work more like falling in love than agreeing with a list of true principles. I had met a lot of people who agreed with all those true principles, and they were jerks, and a lot of other people who believed in those principles, but who also claimed to love Jesus, who were not jerks. It seems like something else has to take place in the heart for somebody to become a believer, for somebody to understand the gospel of Jesus."

..."If the gospel of Jesus is relational; that is, if our brokenness will be fixed, not by our understanding of theology, but by God telling us who we are, then this would require a kind of itimacy of which only heaven knows. Imagine, a Being with a mind as great as God's, with feet like trees and a voice like rushing wind, telling you that you are His cherished creation. It's kind of exciting if you think about it . Earthly love ... is temporal and slight so that it has to be given again and again in order for us to feel any sense of security. But God's love, God's voice and presence, would instill our souls with such affirmation we would need nothing more and would cause us to love other people so much we would be willing to die for them. Perhaps this is what the apostles stumbled upon."