Day 42 – A time of innocence…
A lot of people join groups or churches so they can have company on their journey to find or just experience God. But the truth is, it’s a personal and very private journey. Most Christian parents do all they can to get their children to accept God or the faith they believe in and as a parent I certainly understand that desire.
However, the truth is God has no Grandchildren, everyone is a direct descendant…meaning you have to fine God on your own.
My journey was no different. I was a part of the Methodist Church since birth, as far as I know, Granddaddy was a Methodist minister, so that’s what we were. We went to Jarvis Memorial United Methodist Church right next to the fire station downtown which was really fun when the fire alarms went off. I’m not sure when it became “United”, we just called it Jarvis, and everyone knew what we meant.
When I say I was part of “Jarvis” that’s what I mean. I went to Sunday school and church every week, Methodist Youth Fellowship, Boy Scouts, Choir, and whatever was provided. It was a great community and a lot of friends and classmates were there. They had the best church picnics ever; I can’t even describe how good it was…nothing better than a Southern Church picnic.
It was a fun place and I enjoyed it a lot, but even though I heard about God there, I never really met Him there. It’s nothing against the church, I’m sure a lot of people did meet God there, just not me.
I don’t know why I never understood that finding God was a very personal journey. I just went along with the crowd, so to speak, thinking everything was fine. I had very general beliefs, but nothing very personal. That’s why when I wrote about “the dark night of the soul”, I was so shocked that “I” had to do something specific.
Perhaps if I had looked harder, it would have been there at Jarvis, but I didn’t know I needed to follow that process.
Since 1320 AD with Dante’s Inferno as this character explores hell by himself and later in 1678 AD with John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, as the hero of the story, Christian, endeavors to stay on his lonely path, mankind has had to figure out destiny on his or her own and make a decision.
Perhaps no one reads these masterpieces anymore, but even the example of Christ’s journey along with the apostles should have told us that it’s a personal decision and we have to discover what that means.
Anyway, after talking to Earl Burton that night up in the dorms, I started my personal journey. For 19 years, I devoured the scriptures, read everything I could get my hands on about God. For 16 years, I served in the ministry I was a part of in every capacity possible, was ordained and at one time, managed the entire United States. I give everything I had, to the ministry, the people I served and to God.
I have taught the Bible in all 50 states, except Mississippi and even though I lived there when I was young, I never taught there on my journey as an adult for some reason. I have also taught the bible in 8 countries outside the United States. The size of the audience didn’t matter from a handful to thousands, I did it all…and loved what I was doing.
I can’t absolutely say for sure what happened to the ministry that was so innocent when I first became a part of it. Was it greed, egos, money, power, maybe all of it. I don’t know, but the “infighting” became unbearable and in the fall of 1989, we parted ways.
I looked at my ordination certificate and it said that I was ordained as a minister of the Lord Jesus Christ. I took that to mean that my ordination was before God and not to an organization, so I have continued to serve in my own way and have for 48 years now and it has been and is a very personal thing to me.
One thing I have learned over the years and is not to judge anyone’s journey. We all have ups and downs, we all hit the mark and miss the mark and as the scripture says, “To your own master you stand or fall”, so each individual’s stand is before God, and I’ll let Him sort it out. In the meantime, I plan to love and respect each person’s choice to the best of my ability.
I apologize if this story is a little on the heavy side, but this has been my life and that’s what I agreed to share with you, so there it is.
Recent Comments