The Journey

Life really has been such an incredible journey. I love looking back and seeing how Jesus has used my circumstances to guide me more and more into His transforming truth. Seeing how far I have come blows me away, but what gets me even more excited is the thought that if He has done this much so far, I can't imagine what all He has left to do in me over the rest of my life! Life truly is an adventure. But for the moment, I want to take a look back, to trace briefly part of my journey over the last seven or so years.

Many young Christians reach a crisis point around college age as they leave their Christian homes and are faced with the world. I know of many who at least for a time set aside their former beliefs and searched into all sorts of other non-Christian beliefs. Well, I never hit that point. But what I did hit shook me for years.

I began attending Bible college and was inundated with more perspectives on the Christian faith that I could possibly deal with. I generally followed whoever seemed smartest at the moment. But by the time my second semester was over, I was in overload. I left college to get married and though I had been an avid reader, I did not pick up a book or even the Bible for about two years. I went to church and was a "good Christian" but was confused to a huge extent.

It was in December of 2008 when I hit a crisis of conscience regarding my vote in the presidential election that I finally cracked open a book. What was wonderful was that while reading had been so difficult or impossible for the last few years, I was suddenly back where I was before college and started devouring book after book. I was looking for answers to political, economic, philosophical and moral questions, but found so much more.

As I devoured books on history and economics, I found someone within the pages that I had not expected to find--God. As I looked at the universe and studied the interactions of humanity over history, I began to see how everything was connected. Human action, natural laws, physical laws, happiness and contentment and so much more started coming together into the most incredible whole. I realized that the different aspects of life can not be separated from each other. Everything is connected and the whole beautiful web points to Jesus. I still could not bring myself to read the Bible, but began finding Jesus in everything I read. Studying economics became times of worship for me and I was utterly in awe of our omnipotent Creator.

As I grew closer to Jesus, I did begin reading His word again and absolutely fell in love with Him all over again. I was particularly blown away by John 1 and the concept of the Word becoming flesh. I was able to see how looking at flesh, or the physical universe as a whole, you could see the Word clearly displayed. This truth blew me away and drove me to see what else the Word had to say. I dove into the gospels and poured over Jesus' every word, finding that the truth in His words fit perfectly with the truth I had been learning through observing history.

But the more I pondered His words, the more I saw how far we (the church) have strayed from them. This led me to search for those in history who best represented Jesus to the people around them. Those who stood out most clearly to me were the early Anabaptists and the Quakers. They devoted their lives to being like Jesus and paid dearly for it. (Jesus wasn't kidding when He said that persecution would follow His true disciples)

Something surprised me, though, as I studyied these people. It was that even though they had a healthy respect for the scriptures, their lifeblood came from direct revelation with Holy Spirit. This mystical side of Christianity intrigued me and as I studying more into it, I realized that that was exactly the kind of relationship I wanted to have with Jesus.

So that leads me to where I am now. One might call me some sort of neo-Quaker charismatic. I could care less for the labels, but what I know for sure is that I know Jesus, I hear His voice, and I follow Him. That is my belief system in a nutshell.

It has been a wonderful journey so far and I can not wait to see what is next :-).