It has been said that what we most hate about others is what we subconsciously hate most about ourselves. I find myself agreeing with a lot of the things that are said about truth, but the thing that comes to the forefront of my mind at the moment is: the truth hurts.
For years, while identifying myself almost in a partisan or cultural sense as a Christian, I criticized religious leaders or politicians that claimed the title of Christian. I was critical to the point of being judgmental and even hateful.
On some level I knew that I, too, was a hypocrite, but therein lied the problem. I couldn't bring myself to self-forgiveness, therefore had little motivation to forgive others. I attended church regularly and at the private Christian university I attended, daily chapel attendance was mandatory.
Church and chapel services allowed me prime opportunities to judge others. It was as if I was keeping score of the guys that I knew, or more aptly had heard, of being involved in activities that once again I judged inappropriate or (ooooh) sinful. It was usually guys around my age whom I believed to be doing something as sinful as (wow, gasp!) drinking alcohol or sharing leave-room-for-Jesus intimate moments with their girlfriends.
Consequently, no matter how awesome a devotional or how profound a speech a peer of mine might lead or make, in the constitution that had formed with me, I didn't have to take or heed their advice if I had any inkling that they had recently bumped uglies, consumed alcohol, or had engaged in any of the other indefensibles on my self-righteous checklist.
These rules that I held for others didn't necessarily apply to me because I wasn't up flaunting my Christianity behind a pulpit or on a chapel stage nor claiming to be a leader. So in my narrow, rigid mindset very few were eligible to be in leadership over me or to even offer guidance. I was cynical, sarcastic, and religious.
Part of what I despised about these hypocrites was exactly what I saw in myself. . . and what I couldn't seem to rid myself of no matter how much effort or prayer. I would set goals, try, pray, whine, pout, cry, and complain. Then, I'd give up for a season and try again. Repeat ad nauseum.
Life and God were really getting on my nerves. I never seriously flirted with suicide or atheism because there was much about life that I enjoyed and I did believe in God. I just felt that life often sucked and that God dangled the proverbial carrot in front of me teasing me with hope of a better life. I'd chase that darn carrot, getting ever-so-close to arriving . . . and it felt as if God would up the ante. I'd reach a goal, hit a religious milestone, get excited, and then it was as if God changed the rules. . . setting me up for failure. I'd get pouty and quit, trading in real prayers for the CYA-variety.
Spiritually, the above was the story of my life all of my growing-up years through my early-twenties. Some time in college, I began dissociating from the faith of my parents and of several generations of ancestors on both sides of my family. This filled me with hope and guilt, freedom and bondage, and numerous other paradoxes. I no longer believed much of what I had been taught so I abandoned it, but didn't know how to replace it. There was a giant freedom in the area of leaving something that I didn't believe, yet an equally large void where religion once had been.
There were some pesky Baptists and some hopped-up Charismatic influences in my life who talked of a relationship with Jesus and the Holy Spirit, respectively. How on earth does someone have a relationship with Jesus is what I wanted to know. Awesome marketing, for sure. Slick pew-filling slogan, but not too realistic I reasoned. As far as the Holy Spirit, was He really even real? C'mon, seriously? I kind of chalked the Holy Spirit up as a reason for well-meaning, and perhaps emotional, black folks and Pentecostals to get all riled up and have a pew-jumping good time. Not that there was anything wrong with that.
However, desperate as I was, I attempted a non-church-attending relationship with Jesus. Detox! I could no longer tolerate church, but had an unquenchable thirst for something more. In terms of my judgement, I had totally exhausted the church that I had grown up in as well as other churches that I had already refuted or shot down. Name a denomination and I could tell you my problem with, not only their theology, but also their leadership.
In spite of myself, I began to start to really like Jesus. I got in His Word and talked His ears off in conversational prayer, though at that point I talked way more than I listened. This man-God was really cool. Some of that stuff He was doing in the New Testament was way cool. The woman at the well would have never had a chance in the churches or chapels of my previous religious days, but Jesus really took a liking to her. In fact, he hung out with folks like that . . . thieves, sluts, liars. It was the religious church folks and political types that he rebuked. . . and I loved it when he did stuff like that. Some 2000 years later, I was cheering Jesus on from the sidelines. I started to really love and admire Jesus. More importantly, I started to really feel His love for me.
Some of the sarcasm and cynicism started to melt. However, I'd get cranky when confronted with my own junk - hypocrisy and being judgmental. I was justified and had good reason for my thoughts, thank-You-very-much.
Prior to accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I was aware of roughly 1/3 of the Trinity. . . and that's a liberal estimate. I only knew the KJV Old Testament God who seemed to run around setting people up for failure. . . and turning them into salt? What in the world was that all about? Really? I desperately wanted to please Him and hoped to be good enough to get to Heaven some day, not because harp-music and angels were my cup of tea, but Hell! Good Lord, I was never one for extreme stench or heat. . . and teeth gnashing, who came up with that? I didn't have good teeth, but I darn sure didn't want them gnashed! I sure hoped I was good enough to get to Heaven, if only to escape Hell.
Jesus, though, had become my Lord and I was realizing that it was more of what He had already done for me on the Cross than it was about what I was to do. This helped immensely and allowed me to take some deep breaths and relax a bit and just chill. Though not as urgent or as intense, I still felt guilt for not being in church and for things in my past and present. I hated that I was beginning to love Jesus, yetcould still be so cranky about life and still had the same hang-ups and struggles. Shouldn't Jesus have done something about this by now? However, I had accepted Jesus even if I didn't understand Him. I was now operating with 2/3 of the Trinity.
I had made friends with some people who were very spiritual, but not Christian, and privately I really admired their outlooks on a lot of things. They were so calm and mellow and open and accepting. They weren't cranky, religious Christians with rules and checklists. They weren't judgmental. They were spiritual - influenced by Buddha and the Great Spirit and maybe some mushrooms and marijuana for good measure, of course. I was a preacher's kid from Arkansas and this should not have appealed, but it had tremendous appeal. I didn't want to run around and eat vegetables and wear Birkenstocks, but I did want to be carefree and love others regardless. These sandal-shod, flower-loving, tree-hugging hippies got me thinking in spiritual terms. I thank God for them.
Obviously, I knew that God the Father must be spiritual, but He didn't seem spiritual. Jesus, the Son, seemed like a man and therefore not a spirit. I started wondering about the role of the Holy Spirit, but wasn't He lyrical at best and dead with the last apostles at worst? I had heard a lot of nonsense about the Holy Spirit and didn't know what to believe about Him, but secretly I started appealing to Him to help me out of messes that I'd get myself into or for Him to prove to me that He was real. When He would reveal or prove Himself, I would reason that it was my effort or explain it as simple psychology, but my mind was at least partially open to His existence, but I absolutely did not want to get all blow-dried televangelist creepy if He was real. I just wanted to know, then use the knowledge to my own advantage. . . like to get A's on tests or to have the ability to have really clever conversations and appear deep and spiritual . . . because chicks might just dig that. My own little cosmic bellhop is kind of what I had pictured in my mind.
Through a series of events, mostly painful, tragic, faith-testing life events, I was coming to the end of the road with God, Jesus, and Christian spirituality. I kept failing and I wasn't feeling anything. Relationships weren't working. I was mildly successful in career and education, but nothing much really mattered. Life was flat, dull, blah. . . and showed little sign of getting better. God should really do something, I thought, because this sucks. Nothing is working out and, frankly, I'm hopeless and bored.
Enters the Holy Spirit. He used a wise man and two friends of mine to ever-so-gently confront me. Hungry and desperate for more of God, I cooperated. Somehow this wise old, gray man knew all the right questions to ask me. In mere moments, I was confessing fears, worries, sins, anxieties, many of which I had forgotten about or hadn't realized that I was still holding onto. I couldn't believe how this kind, old man knew all of this stuff. . . and I darn sure couldn't believe that I was telling him the truth. Twenty-five years worth of filth just spewed forth from me accompanied by that many years' worth of grief-stricken tears. I confessed, I repented; and it was real. I was truly convicted. No longer was it a save-my-butt prayer, but a full-fledged Oh-My-God-I'm-so-sorry-please-forgive-me prayer of repentance. It was as if the world were being lifted from my shoulders and fears were evaporating as if into thin air. I had an incredible moment, the defining moment of my life that I now refer to as my first Holy-Spirit-experience. I had an encounter that 20 minutes prior, I would have denied even being possible.
The Holy Spirit, 3/3 now, came in and revealed Himself. God -Father, Son, and Spirit - came full circle. Now, that I had the Holy Spirit in my life and was allowing Him to live within me, God the Father and God the Son made much more sense to me and became even more real to me. Though, now the Holy Spirit was showing the Father to me not as some Old Testament Control Freak, but as a Loving, Doting Father and He showed Jesus to me as not just a Friend, Playmate, or Confidant but truly as my Lord, my Savior, my Redeemer.
My personality and sense of humor still contain bits of sarcasm and cynicism simply because I find amusement in their qualities, but I am not held in their grips and I don't wallow in negativity. I've long since forgiven those college boys, my old peers, who were either doing the same sinful things as me, or doing things that I desired but didn't have the wherewithal or confidence to make happen. I've even forgiven myself for being such a self-righteous, judgemental jerk.
The truth really doesn't hurt so much anymore. It set me free.
