Testimony In Full

I can't tell you the first time I prayed a sinner's prayer.  Every time time someone did an altar call, I guess.  I still do it, privately.  Getting up in front of the church a few times is a few times but once too many.  That's nobody's business anyway.

I was baptized in seventh grade--twelve years old, the age of accountability.  Now I wonder if I did it prematurely.  Did I understand it then?  Probably not.  Not that I'm stupid.  Most people can tell I'm bright.  It's just I never really thought about it.

In seventh grade, I was still very much afraid of going to hell.  It's a bunch of rules and regulations.  I didn't hear sermons on For God so loved the world.  I heard "this is the end times," "hell is hot," "God loves a cheerful giver," and things like that.

I don't remember much about the Love of God.  I heard it in music.  I even may have written about it a time or two.  But, really, I didn't get it.

I'm a fan of Rich Mullins.  He sang about the reckless raging fury that they call the love of God.  I got into his music when I was six or seven, some time after my family moved from Louisiana to South Mississippi.

Some time in my senior year in high school, I saw a book in LifeWay called The Ragamuffin Gospel.  Rich Mullins had his Ragamuffin Band, and he was on the cover.  But it was by a man named Brennan Manning, who died recently.

Rich Mullins had done the testimony.  A few weeks later, I purchased it and read it.

By this point, I understood God loved people.  Loved me.  But it had never been presented in that way.  Few have topped Manning in teaching about Abba's love.

Overall, it's a very confusing place.  Here's the God of my youth, this vengeful, dictatorial God who will strike me if I do wrong.  And then here's this God who loved the world enough to die for it.

This is the part I struggle with.  This is also the problem with going with the flow.  How do you reconcile the Gods of the Old and New Testaments?

Why Do I Even Bother?

I grew up in church.  I didn't grow up on hellfire and brimstone sermons, although I've heard enough to last a lifetime too.

My mother used to listen to Revelation while she was cleaning.  Or the Book of Daniel.  Revelation is all prophecy, although there is a lot in Daniel too.

At the end of the day, I'm a Christian for 2 reasons:

1- I was raised that way.  There was no such thing as freedom of religion in my home.  You went to church, and that was the end of it.  I'm a go-with-the-flow person, so this part doesn't bother me.  I'm glad I grew up that way.

2- I'm afraid of going to hell.  I grew up on End Times sermons.  I have an idea of what's going to happen.  I hear almost everyday, "It's a sign of the times."  To this day, I hate those kinds of sermons.  And they say if you're uneasy during a sermon like that, something's wrong.

All that being said, I'm not a good Christian.  I don't think I mean it when I ask forgiveness, or it just doesn't take.  I still make the same mistakes and have the same failings.  I know prayer works, I've had answered prayers before, and others that weren't.

I try to pray every night before bed.  Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.  I keep a prayer journal, and I don't feel like I've prayed until I've written in it.

Most of the time, though, it's very mechanical:

Let me get a real job.  Give me patience.  Please forgive me my sins and keep me forever in You.

Never fails.  Most of my prayers include this.  Sometimes I'll remember someone who asked for prayer.

I hate when people ask me to pray for them.  Mainly because I almost never remember.  The other reason is that you have to ask someone highly favored, a prayer warrior, if you really want something to happen.  Not that I don't think God answers prayers.  I've heard and seen too much to the contrary, but that's just not me.

So, the point of this is that I'm trying to come to grips with my faith.  What I believe, and what I don't.  And if I'm really a Christian or if I'm just someone who believes in Christ but doesn't follow doctrine.