I've been writing about a variety of
subjects on this blog, essentially determined by what I feel is
interesting or important at the time. It seems fitting, therefore,
that I write an article about the subject which is most important of
all to me – my Christian faith. I hope you will find it interesting
and will get something out of it.
I was born into a Christian family. My
parents were both committed Christians who attended a house church
twice a week. To give you some background, this church had started
out as a regular prayer meeting at a local Methodist church. When the
time slot became unavailable, the meeting relocated to the house of
one of the members – a man called Fred Dunn. He was overjoyed at
the answers to prayer that the meeting was receiving and said that
they could meet every night if they wished to. The meeting continued
to be richly blessed and in time Mr Dunn received a ministry for
preaching, prophesy and other gifts besides. The meeting became
essentially a non-denominational church in its own right under the
name Bethesda and still continues today.
I was taken to these meetings from
infancy and my parents certainly taught me that Christianity was
true. That said, in general it didn't take me long to start
questioning what my parents told me if other sources disagreed
(especially teachers). I remember my mother telling me about her own
journey to faith when I was very young. She said that she'd believed
when she was a child, then had some doubts as a teenager because
other people believed in other religions. How did she know that she
was right and they were wrong? I don't remember her answer, but I do
remember absorbing the existence of the question. This small house
meeting was not tied to the expectations of the wider community and
had very few young people, so it's unlikely that I'd have continued
in Christianity for very long out of simple inertia.
Of course, personal proof was not hard
to find in a place as blessed as Bethesda. I don't remember the first
time I heard someone speak in tongues or felt the blessing of God
myself, but it would have been pretty young. All the same, my
definitive moment came at home rather that at church. We left the
home in question when I was 6, so I was certainly younger that that.
I'd closed my eyes for some reason I
can't recall. As I sat there, the blackness of my eyelids parted
vertically and I saw a bright yellow light beyond it. There was a man
standing in the light with his arms upraised. He was wearing a white
robe tied at his waist with some kind of brown cord. The face was one
that I recognised. He looked exactly like the portrait of Jesus I
owned – one that Mr Dunn (who had himself received visions in the
past) had regarded as a good likeness.
I was very young, but I had a solid
grasp of the difference between fantasy and reality. Perhaps I'd have
dismissed this event in the intervening years if it had been the only
proof, but that would have been a disservice to my younger self. I
remember exactly what I thought at the time. I thought that this
settled the question of whether there was a God and whether there was
a Jesus. I was now certain of that. What I needed to know now was:
what is true about Jesus? This is still my attitude to Christianity
today and I am still learning the answer to that question – as I
expect I always will be.
This is quite a dramatic claim to be
making, I realise. Yes, I am flat out stating that I have seen Jesus.
That this was when my Christian faith first became entirely concrete.
There are reasons why I don't normally
make these statements. Many of my friends don't believe and what I
have just testified will not change that. Although they respect my
intelligence and integrity (I hope) generally speaking they regard
claims of miraculous visions as delusional. I therefore place them in
an awkward position when I directly claim to have proof. I have
observed in some prior debates on religion that claims I've made to
have proof behind my faith have been completely blanked.
Yet I find it displeasing that people
who I have treasured as friends for over a decade in some cases
honestly have no idea about this stuff. So I'm going to put it here.
You can digest it if and when you're ready.
This isn't the only vision I've had,
but such revelations are not commonplace. In the day to day, week to
week prayer life of the Christian answers are not received like that.
However, getting an answer IS normal. The way that Jesus normally
touches the heart is with a wonderful sense of peace, which radiates
out from the very centre of your being and fills you up. This is a
hallmark of God that no other display of supernatural power can
replicate, a display of his character that can move anyone to tears
through the sheer beauty and sense of love that is borne within it.
When you pray about something, you know
that God has his hand upon it when you get peace. When you ask which
way you should go, you follow the road that has the most peace when
you contemplate it. To feel such peace is one of the meanings of the
phrase 'being blessed' – although it can also thankfully refer to
having a bounty of good things within your life. Jesus has answered
many of my prayers this way, and he has led me well.
A powerful blessing of peace when you
ask for something generally means that you shall receive it. I've
prayed for help in many difficult situations and had things fall into
place. It's impossible to prove to another person what was a miracle
and what was just chance, but if I ask for something and it happens I
certainly always say thank you. However, feeling some peace doesn't
always mean everything will go away. I remember praying once when in
despair about bullying as a teen. The bullying did not immediately
stop – but the fear which was causing the vast majority of my
actual suffering melted away completely as I prayed.
Sometimes a small feeling of peace
simply means that God has heard you, rather than 'yes'. When my
Grandad was taken ill for the last time, I prayed for quite a while
that he would recover. I felt enough peace to know that my prayer was
heard, but not enough to expect a miracle. When I eventually prayed
that my Grandma would be okay if he did pass on, I got a very
powerful sense of peace. I knew well enough what that meant. He died
shortly afterwards, but my parents were able to extend their house
and take my Grandma into it. Despite her severe medical difficulties
they never had to put her into care, and she lived as a happy and
much-loved member of their family unit until her passing at the start
of this year.
The feeling of peace can be felt
anywhere, because God isn't limited to church buildings. All the
same, it is possible for certain places or church gatherings to be
inherently blessed. Simply entering what I can only call Holy Ground
can give one a sense of peace – when I lived at a house opposite
St. Michael's church I always noticed it the moment I left the town
centre and entered the square. Likewise, peace can be felt more
easily and powerfully when praying and worshipping in a good church
gathering – the blessing at a Bethesda meeting is stronger than
I've felt anywhere else. This is a genuine endorsement by God –
meaning that rote rituals of consecration do not of themselves ensure
such an effect. Lincoln Cathedral was dead as a doornail when I
visited it and seemed more interested in raising revenue than in
functioning as a place of worship. It also means that the feeling can
drop away if the preacher or group leaders make a mis-step, allowing
you greater ability to discern God's truth from what people say is
God's truth if you're paying attention.
This method of discerning the truth is
at the core of how I explore my Christian faith. Many Christians
believe that the Bible is the infallible word of God. Since our
perceptions are not infallible, they argue that the scripture should
always have the final word in what we believe. Unfortunately this
neglects that our interpretation and application of these scriptures
is entirely fallible, even assuming that the original meaning was
accurately translated from a uniformly inspired and perfectly
expressed set of originals. In fact, my faith in the Bible is based
upon the endorsing blessings that my God gives me when I read it –
blessings I've found almost entirely lacking from the teaching of
other religions. If I feel that God is leading me to do something
different from what I'd have guessed based on how I read the Bible,
I'll generally follow his metaphorical 'voice' if I'm sure.
Sadly, many Christians don't really
understand the way that learning works. When I did science at junior
school, I was taught things as facts. When I did science at secondary
school, I was taught that these were oversimplifications and
therefore technically untrue – then taught new facts. When I did
A-Level science, the pattern repeated. I am sure that if I had done a
science degree, it would have done so again. This is not a pattern
distinctive to science – learning always works with broad strokes
first followed by refinements and deeper mysteries, and you never get
to know everything.
Christians should expect the same sort
of paradigm shifts as their knowledge of God grows. Unfortunately
most denominations set up certain 'core beliefs' which cannot be
challenged within that church. The sorry state of understanding
regarding the Trinity is an obvious symptom of this, as is the
historical backlash by religious groups against paradigm-shifting
scientific ideas which have sometimes proven accurate.
Of course, Christians do have good
reason to be ideologically orthodox. Every spiritual or scientific
teaching (and they are both just ways of trying to get an accurate
picture of the reality around us) will claim to be 'the amazing
truth'. Many spiritual teachings which claim to develop Christian
teaching are erroneous or outright lies. Having found the Way, the
Truth and the Life (even if we don't comprehend every fact about Him)
Christians are naturally wary of being led astray (as some sometimes
are). How do we discern truth from lies here? Ultimately, we do it by
the same test that we used to determine if Christianity was true at
all. It's simple, but the inertia created by being attached to the
rest of a denomination can slow down the process or drag you the
wrong way.
This is not to say that fellowship with
other Christians is bad. Lives dedicated to Jesus should be fruitful
in changing the world around us for the better, yet it's naïve to
think that this is a one way process. The world changes us too, and
eventually we will reach an equilibrium that is appropriate to the
relative sizes of the two parties. As well as providing a more
blessed atmosphere, more answered prayers and the teaching we need to
grow, church is a reset button that allows us to notice if we're
slipping away from God inch by inch and correct it. When I say this I
don't mean that it's a chance to receive peer pressure and a lecture
on the virtues of conformity. I simply mean that you can forget how
special your walk with God used to be if you busy yourself with other
things for a couple of months, or develop wrongful practices without
ever sitting down and listening to the Spirit for long enough for him
to challenge you about them.
This balance with the world around us
brings the discussion back to my own life. Many Christians come to
faith as adults and have to begin learning the new lifestyle after
decades of practising a different one. Being raised a Christian with
a personal commitment to it, I never faced that critical life change.
However, there are complexities to being a child Christian too. There
are many life lessons that the Bible cannot teach you – simple
facts and norms about living day to day and in relation to other
people that have to be learned by actually living in the world. To be
a Christian child is to learn how to live like everyone else, whilst
also learning how and where to positively differ from it at the same
time. This is a tough ride, and it's lonely to know that most of the
people around you can neither understand nor value the part of
yourself that's more important than their approval.
I got baptised on 9th July
1995, at the age of 13. By this point I had been a dedicated believer
for a long time, but I felt led to make the important step of taking
that particular action. Christianity isn't just about arriving at the
moment where you repent of your sins and receive forgiveness, nor
about agreeing to a set of rules. Furthermore, repenting in that way
isn't about going through your diary and denouncing specific deeds in
your past, but about regretting any wrong you have done because you
want to do rightly.
The Christian walk of life isn't about
following rules – rather it is about a relationship with God and
about gradually allowing him to perfect you within it. This isn't a
process that any follower of Jesus has ever completed on this Earth,
and no-one can ever become like Jesus (the definition of perfection
in this model) without letting him take the lead. It is of course
easier to theoretically dedicate your entire existence to Christ than
to actually change any specific part of your life in response to his
leading, but the act of making that commitment is a really important
one. I got a wonderful, peaceful blessing as I came out of that
water, which persisted undimmed for the entire rest of the day.
The last thing Mr Dunn told me before I
left for university was this - “people say that the way is straight
and narrow, but it's not. It's just straight.” This sounds like a
strange thing to say, as it appears to contradict Matthew 7:14. What
I have always taken from it is that not all Christian lives need to
be carbon copies of each other. We are all following Jesus and desire
to be like him in terms of spiritual righteousness, but we can come
toward him from any point and bearing in the world. Just because two
Christians have extremely different lifestyles, it doesn't
necessarily mean that one is automatically a better Christian than
the other. We might have to abandon any number of paths we've laid
out for ourselves to keep moving in the right direction in our
Christian life, but 'running the race' doesn't involve stepping
sideways into anybody else's lane.
This was a word that I definitely
needed to take with me into university life. As I mentioned before,
Bethesda didn't have much of a youth element. With the exception of a
Christian meeting at school, I had little history of socialising with
other Christians my own age. The new church I joined in my student
town had a large youth culture and there were university societies as
well. These groups were wonderful to have fellowship with, but they
had a very unified culture which I did not automatically fit into.
Even more strangely, many of them seemed to have very limited social
links with the non-Christians around them – whereas I naturally
formed strong links with several 'alternative' societies very
quickly. It would have been very easy for me to make the mistake of
trying to change myself to fit the local Christian scene, but
changing to myself just to be like everyone else wouldn't have been
beneficial for me. Whilst my theological differences sometimes caused
friction with the leaders of student Christian scene, the
non-Christian societies gave me something very important – an
environment where people could equally belong whilst being different
to one another. It's only in the later years of my time in this town
that I've developed a solid group of Christian friends – many of
whom regard themselves as misfits in the local Christian community.
But I've had enough fellowship with them to know that Christ is truly
in their heart – and on that basis I call them brother and sister.
I've often been told that I'm not like
other Christians by my non-Christian friends – and I can't say it
hasn't worried me form time to time. After all, Christians are
supposed to stand out as different. I've also found myself standing
bemused as my brothers and sisters in Christ fretted over the
presence of sinful practices within the rest of the student
community. Surely this should bother me more, as it does them?
I have a naturally blasé nature in
many respects – yet I like to think that the main reason I'm more
able to accept the non-Christian society around me is the faith I am
able to place in God's plan for others. I firmly believe that God had
a plan for my life before I was even born, and unlike some Christians
I am equally sure that he has a plan for everyone else. These plans
will work in God's own time – and if they can succeed, they will.
At my age, Fred Dunn was a drunken, brawling thief with no visible
interest in Christ. I'm sure melodramatic Christians would have
declared that he was 'going to Hell' at that age, but the truth is
God had the entire thing in hand the whole time. It is not given to
me to know whether my friends will make it (with the exception of
one, whom I asked God about many years ago and got a reassuring
answer) but I see enough love of goodness in them to hope that one
day they will come to love Him.
Becoming a Christian is your own choice
– one that I cannot make for anyone else. Until it is made,
everyone is a sinner in need of God's forgiveness. While desirable,
reducing the rate at which a person commits sins doesn't actually
change that one way or the other. I don't even believe all sins
should be illegal under state law – whilst we might regard them as
morally wrong, Christians were never commissioned by Jesus to
confiscate free will from all nations under threat of force. People
have a right to make their own choices – even wrong choices –
unless the harm to others (or more contentiously to themselves)
outweighs the harm in tyrannising them. Our duty as Christians is
simply to pass on the revelations we have received about how a person
should live – revelations that make no sense without Jesus at their
core. Thus we preach him foremost, and what the truth of him means
after that.
Christianity is a reaction to the
truth. If it is not true, I have no interest in basing my life around
it. Since we are fallible creatures doubt will always be possible,
but a person who doubts all information about their environment
cannot function. Seek him and you will find him. Ask other Christians
and they will tell you their testimonies. Ask them to pray with you
or pray on your own, and he'll be there. Christianity isn't the
easiest life, but I recommend it.
God bless.
The Bethesda meetings now have a
website which archives some old recording and gives contact details
for their continued fellowship. It can be found here: http://bethesda-fellowship.co.uk/index.html
God's Place In Life by Kingspikearcher
