I Found Jesus And Then My Life Went To Hell

Continued from the previous post titled “True Blood”.

I love those stories of how “I once was lost, but now I’m found.” I love hearing how someone was at their lowest and Jesus raised them up, redeemed and beyond their afflictions. Drug addicts freed from the grip of addiction. The abused rescued from suffering and degradation. But have you heard the story about how “my life was pretty awesome, then Jesus came along and my world got turned upside down”?

My life was great, but incomplete. Then Jesus completed what was lacking, but the enemy who had been resting from his labors awoke to find he had lost another soul to the Great Redeemer.  What is seldom mentioned by the faithful, is that the enemy doesn’t ever just shrug his shoulders in defeat and walk away. He girds for war. Not against Jesus, because that war was already fought and lost, but against us.

The day after I gave my life to Jesus, I was under attack. Every night I was plagued with demonic dreams of my daughter being possessed and under horrific torment. Next came the loss of my relationship with my girlfriend. It seemed that my new found love of Jesus didn’t quite mix with our anti-Christian lifestyle. After that, I lost my job. I became homeless.  I lost my car (duh). I was accused and convicted of a crime I did not commit. My ex took my daughter away and I have never seen her since. She was three. That was 11 years ago.

Everything that I believed made my life blessed was taken from me. Finances. Shelter. Family. All gone. Sounds bleak, doesn’t it? But this is what God was doing in all of it.

During the nightmares, God was teaching me about spiritual warfare. When I lost my job and home, He taught me how to rely on Him. When I lost my car,  He gave me a different car that I didn’t have to make payments on. When I was put in jail, I witnessed to my cell mates and one recommitted his life to Christ that night. He found me several months later and gave me a praise report that He and his wife restored their marriage and were now attending a wonderful church. When I lost my daughter…

This wound remains with me. I still have not seen my daughter since that fateful day. But God had plans for me. He was raising up a wife for me with a ready made son. It took some time for my heart to relent, but when it did, God gave us a child between us. Not to replace the one I lost,  but to give me something good and to give me joy where there had previously been only pain.

God redeems, and He restores, and He fills our lives with an over abundance of His love and blessings. He doesn’t promise us that we won’t have to fight, but he does promise that we won’t have to fight alone, and the only way we can possibly lose is if we give up.

True Blood

In the first half of the 90s I found myself immersed in the study and practice of the metaphysical.  I dabbled with tarot cards, palm reading, astrology, and I practiced vampirism. Blood. Sugar. Sex. Magic.  It’s not just a Red Hot Chili Peppers album, it was my life style.

I was in a relationship and living with my beautiful girlfriend and we lived a life untethered to conventional social norms.  We even had a Ouija board, but found it useless except as home decor.  We tried to learn astral travel and become knowledgeable about things regarding inter-dimensional realms. We were open to all these things, but not once did we experience power.

The birth of our daughter brought change to our household. We still wanted to be edgy, but we also wanted to be responsible parents. We adored our little girl.

I took a job at the local casino, dealing cards and roulette while the lady worked evenings as a waitress at a Chinese restaurant. And then one day it happened.

My daughter was an her grandparents for the evening in the same town where the girlfriend worked, while I stayed at home alone. I surveyed the home around me, pretty pleased with most aspects of my life. I had a great job, a  lovely girlfriend, a beautiful baby girl, and a new car. Life was good.  So why did I feel empty?

Immediately, I became aware that my emptiness came from somewhere within me. I recognized right away that the issue was spiritual. I felt the need to be connected to something much bigger than myself. I wanted to know GOD. Given how me and the little lady were staunch anti-christians, it seemed logical to me to re-examine a time in my past when I was involved in the Baha’i faith. but as soon as the idea came to my mind, another thought came to remind me that I never found God in the Baha’i faith either. It’s why I left it. So, if not the Baha’i faith, what then?

The small voice was as clear as a bell. “Why don’t you try ME?” My eyes turned to the direction of the voice, and I stood in front of our library looking at the plethora of books on cults, mysticism, eastern religions, and…. a small NIV bible. How the heck did an bible find its way into our house? It was nestled in between the satanic bible and  a book on practical witchcraft.

“You can’t be serious…” I thought.

But the voice appealed to my sense of reason and said, “To be fair, the only logical way to dismiss Christianity outright is to study its precepts and pick apart its fallacies.” Sounded fair to me. At the very worst, I will have read the bible… something that most Christians don’t even do. And even if I cannot find truth within its pages, I might be pointed in the right direction. So I read. And read.

And READ. Truth was leaping out at me faster than my eyes could rove across the pages.  I felt a spark ignite within me and it quickly burst into flame. I knew that the emptiness I was feeling could be perfectly filled by Jesus Christ! I wanted Him so desperately. I felt like I had discovered a hidden truth that even the hypocrite church hadn’t discovered.

For years I had been drinking the blood of another and finding neither eternal life nor satisfaction for my soul. Now here, the True Blood was before me, and one drink would quench me, and I will live forever.  That day, in an epic ceremony my mind does not recall, my name was written in the Book of Life. I could have died right then and that would have suited me just fine, but the enemy, who had long been silent in my life preceding this event, came roaring in to claim what had once been his. I didn’t get to live happily ever after. The battle was ON. War had been declared.

More later

The Devil In The Details

Thursday. The end to a pseudo five day weekend.  I say “pseudo” because even though I didn’t have to work, I did have a lot of responsibility while my wife underwent minor surgery (she’s fine, thank you). The reason that Thursday is a significant is because I swore that the previous Sunday was to be the beginning of my full on, unapologetic, bull in a China shop pursuit of chasing after God’s heart and will for my life. But today is Thursday. I haven’t even begun. Again.

I’m not a fan of procrastination, yet I appear to be somewhat of an expert in its practice. I do desire God with all my heart and strength, but my bastard of a soul contends with my desire and I find myself utterly distracted by things that truly have no hold on me. Today, I was going to sit down and play a little poker while the babies were asleep, when I was reminded of the dusty cover of my unread bible, and I was convicted. Inspired that today may well be as good a day to start as any other, I became quickly overwhelmed by the enormity of all the life changes I need to make. I need to lose weight. Bad. I need to be a more tidy person both personally and around the house. I need to really work on introducing my child to God in a more tangible way than just once a week, and praying over over him while he sleeps.

Proverbs 1:23 tells us to “Turn to my reproof. Behold, I will pour my Spirit on you; I will make my words known to you.” And this is my prayer. That I am reproved by God. That He show mercy to me while in my iniquities, but gently, but firmly guide me back to the course of pursuing Him above all others.  Is He not more worthy than this? Lord, let my actions mirror my beliefs.

Somewhere along the way, perhaps I will become a better husband and father in such worthy pursuit.

Hurry Up And Wait

Last night I attended Gateway’s live recording concert. It was epic! All the names were there: Zach Neese (my personal hero), Kari Jobe (she brought the thunder), Walker Beach, David Moore, and other assorted badass worshipers of Christ laying it all down before the Father and leading us all into the Holy of Holies.

I went there, not only for the best worship music this side of the equator, but to see if I could touch God’s heart and maybe hear His voice. Surprisingly, God kept silent to me.

With all the incredible music flooding the building, it was hard to be disappointed, but I found occasion to get alone for a bit and voice my concern to God. I said, “Father, I am tired of trying to manufacture your presence in my life. I have faith in Your awesomeness, but I’ve seen so few miracles. From this point on, I’m done saying, ‘God is in the house’ unless you are really going to show up. So, from here on out, the ball is in Your court. You are either going to show up or You won’t. I’m done making excuses for the Creator of the universe.” And then, I felt as if a weight was lifted from my spirit.

Every encounter from this point on is going to be a fresh experience or no experience at all.

The Open Connection

Today I was asked by a close friend why I never say “amen” at the end of my prayers. It is true that I make my supplications to God and omit the final religious utterance, but allow me to explain. Much of the time I am prayer for and with other people.  I’m not so arrogant as to assume that I am the only one who wants to speak to the Father on their behalf, so an omission of “amen” allows my prayer partners to continue from where I left off.  But this is only part of the full answer.

When I pray, I envision opening a direct channel God… like a  parting of the skies where God’s light shines down on me during our communication. If I am to be truthful, saying “amen” feels akin to me as hanging up the phone and ending the call. It actually saddens my heart to think I am hanging up on God and closing that heavenly light beaming down on me. So rather than “hanging up”, I just set the phone on my metaphorical pillow so that God can just listen to me breathe while I sleep. No hang ups. No good byes. Just an invite to remain and share an intimate encounter.

Often enough we see God as a sounding board for our complaints and dissatisfaction, or worse still as this omniscient Santa Clause who gives us the items on our wish list that we are diligent enough to pray for. Both pictures of God are valid, but so incomplete. God is a Father, a confidante… a lover. God has a passion for His people, so when I try to delve into the full experience of getting to know Him, I try to give Him my complete adoration. I crush on Him. He is the only person who knows what I have done, where I have been, and all the dark thoughts of my heart, yet loves me so unconditionally. You just can’t put a price tag on that.

Welcome Welcome Welcome!

This is it. Blog numero Uno. When the annals of human history are perused and we reminisce on the social conscience of the era we will look back and see that we elected a mullato president, and PDX Jeff wrote his first blog on WordPress.

Let’s hope I can keep a civil tongue in my head and remember that above all else, God loves you and I really need to be nice to you because of that.

I may not be very religious, but I really do love me some Jesus. I promise not to be judgmental, and will strive to not be too hypocritical.  I am, however, just a man, and trust in your forgiving natures should my sorry butt go temporarily stray.