Shh, peace be still, wait

 

Shh, peace be still, wait.

God’s word speaks that is what I was told for many years. Then this year in the first year of my deconstruction, I am finding out that the Bible are stories of the Life of Jesus Christ. Jesus is The Word (John 1:1). So, what does the word tell me? For many years now it seems that The Word has been silent to me. I have read almost everyday for the past 20 years, give or take a month or two. I went through the bible several times. I read commentaries like John MacArthur, Williams, Phillips, and Matthew Henry, but I was not satisfied, I felt that there was something missing. What was I missing? I did what it says in 1 Thessalonians 5:2 to test everything. I also did as it says in Jude 3, “Contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints" to defend the faith, later finding out the meaning of apologetics and Biblical hermeneutics and to bring light to the dark world of false teachings and preach the truth to those in need, to apply salve to their itching ears, (2 Timothy 4:3, NKJV), or ears tickled in the New Revised Standard Version. I did that last one a lot, I was constantly on Facebook and twitter telling my friends, family and followers to stay away from this pastor and that pastor and most of the televangelists because they were all frauds, not knowing that I was the true fraud.

I was a fraud because I knew that I really didn’t know anything, at all, I was just repeating stuff that I had heard from MacArthur, Friel and Comfort, if anything I was able to repeat like crazy anything that was taught. I really trusted in these men, they sound like what my parents would preach to me about TV preachers, so they must be sent by God, right? Not necessarily. They might be right about a lot of false teachers sure, but they were not right about cultural teachings, like the lgbtqia and abortion and politics. It was due to these men and many more YouTuber’s that I would watch, that drove me into the world of Christian Nationalism. They even spoke out against the democrats calling them devils and saying things like you cannot be a Christian and Democrat and that there is no such thing as a gay Christian. I was not using my own brain to learn the facts about anything, I trusted in men to tell me what to believe. It wasn’t a real life for me not at all, it was my dark days in my faith.

Then I moved out of Oklahoma and to Ohio and found other people to lead me in the word, testing my knowledge of the bible and to really find out what the scriptures say. It has been an awakening ten years for me in many ways, I found out that nothing I was doing was real. It was then when I felt like God was saying more to me than any other time in my life, through the scriptures not through men. It scared me so I backed off. I needed to really, I had to find out who I really was. So, with the encouragement from a pastor friend I went too counseling and then in to see a psychiatrist, getting a diagnosis that will be for a different entry. But it started me to work through everything in my life to start to see the real me. I stopped pretending I knew everything in the bible and start afresh and anew.  It was also a time to find the real me and to acknowledge my admiration and attraction to men. I still love my wife, I will forever so what was I? I really have like the look of men ever since high school when I saw my first naked friend. But that was sin, what the hell was I doing all these years, and why, when watching porn, was I focusing on the men instead of the woman? I would have rather watched the guys, so I started watching gay porn. So, now I had that sin on top of liking guys. I am going to hell, so I need to go back to basics I thought, so I moved to a church that would help me do that, I went to most fundamentalist church that I could find, which nearly destroyed my family and myself. I was on the verge of offing myself. So, I told my therapist, and we have been working on that, he suggested to me why I was still going to the church that made me feel so bad. So, I stopped going to that church and started to find out what I really believed in. So, in 2019 we stopped going to church and didn’t go back there nor anywhere. We did start watching a Methodist church online during covid and still do that. I am happy with watching them at this time.

Here I am in 2022, been out of church buildings since January 2019 and now have seen the real church, the people. It is the first time in my life that I am doing this life by my rules not by the fundamentalist rules, not my grandmothers rules, not by man’s rules. Trust, yeah, I don’t trust man like I did. I trust in only God through Jesus Christ from here on out.

I look back and see that God was quiet to let me work this out like the bible says, “work on your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Phil 2:12-13, NRSVUV). I know that God is with me and was with me but kept silent to let me think for myself while I was utterly broken. He wasn’t completely away from me though. I could see him doing things for me, building me up to handle the stresses that came from going to that bad fundamentalist church. I could see him blessing me in many ways while I was near the brink of suicide, giving me hope. Through my wife and kids and now grandkids too, he managed to talk to my wife and build me up through her words when I needed it. I learned that he may be silent, but he is not far from you in the silence, it’s like The Holy Spirit was saying, “Shh, peace be still”.