I Should Have Been Amish

Warning - this post went pretty long, so if you read it, get a cup of coffee and prop your feet up.......

The guys I went to see in concert last night are Mennonite, though not conservative traditional Mennonites. They talked about their grandpa, who was born into a horse & buggy Amish family, and as all to many Amish do, lived his life focusing only on the outward, believing that you couldn't know for sure that you were going to Heaven, and feeling like you could never be good enough.



I firmly believe I am in the right church, and though I don't agree 100% with everything that my church teaches, I agree with enough that I am not going to go elsewhere, but I feel there is something missing in our churches - and I am speaking of holiness churches like I attend. God's love. Sure, we mention it, we teach it, but do we do it enough?



The Bible verse that seems to be at the very center of the Gospel message is John 3:16. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son. That whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life". If God Himself has made love the central part of His message, why don't we?



Maybe it is just me, but I really can't remember many messages on God's love growing up. I remember many camp meetings and revival meetings where I heard a lot about God's judgement and wrath. It seemed the preachers tried to pull out every story to tell of people who died without God to scare people to the altar. I know it takes more than that to mess people up, but I think that is one thing that has caused me spiritual problems in my life. All too often, I went to the altar because I was scared into it, or the preacher kept holding the altar call open until a lot of people went.



Looking back, most of my Christian experience has been serving God out of fear. I didn't - and still don't - want to go to Hell, so I would go to the altar. I fought constantly with the idea that I could never measure up to God, and lived with the idea that He was just waiting for the opportunity to strike my name from the list of redeemed.



Dealing with the issues I deal with hasn't helped. The people I have been around and go to church with don't have big sins - if they do, no one talks about them. I'd hear preachers say you should pray aloud at the altar - don't hang over the altar and mumble into your arm - and things like that. Even as a teenager, I thought "you gotta be kidding! There is no way I am going to let people hear this stuff!" I came to a point where I quit going to the altar - not because I am too proud, but waited to pray in private where I could talk aloud to God.



There are churches who like to quote that we are not under law, but under grace, and act like they have a license to do whatever they want to do. God loves them, and they are going to Heaven no matter what they do, or how they act. Yet, it is just as wrong to portray God as a stern God who has a whip just waiting for us to mess up - and maybe the churches I have attended haven't meant to give that impression - when a guy like me has self esteem issues, grew up thinking no one liked him - including God - it is possible I only heard the hell & brimstone stuff, though I do think there was a lot more of that than messages of God's love.



I turn 40 in May. I have to admit I have never spiritually matured, and have been down just as much as I have been up. I have tried to live to please my family, and tried to serve God because it was the right thing to do, and I didn't want to go to Hell. Like the Amish, I still feel like I can never measure up to what God expects of me, much less what my family and people I know expect from me. I feel like a failure in so many respects. I know I should be a mature Christian by now, yet still doubt God's love, and wonder if it is possible for me to ever serve God out of love instead of fear. I feel Christians should be careful in dress and activities, yet wonder if I have focused so much on that, and not enough on establishing a true relationship with God.



Part of me knows that God never gives up on us, no matter how far we go, no matter how awful the sin. That He loves us no matter what, and nothing can separate us from His love - yet when it comes to believing that about me, I can't. I wonder if I went to far, fell too many times - surely I can never be anything worthwhile in God's eyes. Like the prodigal son, I feel like I should be like the servants, and God could never make anything useful out of me.



I will hear songs or read books that will light a small spark of hope and belief that God does care, but then the reality of life smacks me in the face and I sink back to my mediocre spiritual existence.



Surrender. It isn't something we hear much about. It isn't an easy thing to do, but I know it is something I have never truly done. Oh, I thought I did. I sang the song "I'll go where you want me to go, be what you want me to be, say what you want me to say" - and thought I meant it, yet I realize surrender is more than just giving God our worldly possessions and our talents - we have to give Him our doubts, fears, and struggles, but I, and many others, I'm sure, tend to hold onto them too tightly. The devil helps of course. It seems he knows our weaknesses more than we do, and magnifies them, raising as many doubts about God as possible.



God doesn't always act in ways that we expect and want. Sometimes it seems He doesn't act at all. Surrendering all to Him has to take that in. Part of me feels like to do that, I have to become a robot - just march blindly along, no matter how rough life gets, no matter if it seems God is forsaking us, yet I am realizing more and more how good the devil is at his job. He doesn't care how we fall. He doesn't care if we have just been dealt a hard blow in one area, he will attack us in another and not give us a break. My best friend has told me I listen to the devil too much - oh not that he is telling me to go rob a bank - though that would help my finances out a lot! - just kidding - no, he hammers it home over and over that God doesn't care, doesn't love me. If He did, then wouldn't He do that? Help me in that area? That no one truly likes me, even God, and that if people knew the worst about me, no one would be my friend.



Why is it so easy to have faith in what the devil says, and yet not in what God and His Word says? In my own life, I can see a few reasons. I believe the self esteem issue has a lot to do with it. It is one weakness I have that the devil uses. My view of God has a lot to do with it. Instead of viewing Him as a loving God, I view Him as a stern taskmaster, and also tend to put God in a box, which doesn't work. When He doesn't perform or act as I expect, then it reinforces my warped view of Him. Being up and down spiritually has not helped. Thinking God surely wouldn't forgive me again.



I find myself wishing I could start over. Go back before I became so cynical and jaded about life and God, but we can't live our lives over - all we can do is set a spiritual marker and work to be different. God doesn't give up on us - we give up on Him, and that is what I have done. I threw out the idea that God loves me and that I can ever be a success in any area, especially spiritually.



High Valley, the group I went to hear last night, opened with a song that I didn't particularly like at first, but it has grown on me, and as I have listened to it lately, it has helped drive home the point of what I need to do. The song says if you wish you were someone else, if you are tired of fighting battles with yourself, then change your mind. Once I really listened to the words, I got it. The Bible talks about our mind being renewed, and that's what I need to do - change my mind. Quit dwelling on how rough life is, how unfair it is that I have this issue or that issue to deal with. It is really a big undertaking, to change one's mind. To actually trust God after a lifetime of not ever really reaching that point. To somehow believe that God truly does love me - I really don't know how to reach that point. I have prayed about it, and seemingly God didn't help.



I do know I can't live the rest of my life serving God out of fear and to escape a fiery eternity, and that to ever reach true spiritual maturity, I have to go beyond the doubts and believe that He is all that He says that He is, and I am not the exception. A tall order, and a lifetime of doubt and fear will be hard to overcome, but if God truly can do the impossible, then surely He can help me.

Change Your Mind (High Valley)

Hey, Hey
Did you ever think
There might be another way
To just feel better,
Just feel better about today

Oh no-
If you never want to have
To turn and go away
You might feel better,
Might feel better if you stay

Yeah yeah
I bet you haven't heard
A word I've said
Yeah yeah
If you've had enough
Of all your tryin'
Just give up
The state of mind you're in:

If you want to be somebody else,
If you're tired of fighting battles with yourself
If you want to be somebody else
Change your mind...

Hey hey-
Have you ever danced in the rain
Or thanked the sun
Just for shining- just for shining
Or the sea?

Oh no- take it all in
The world's a show
And yeah, you look much better,
Look much better when you glow

Yeah yeah
bet you haven't heard
A word I've said
Yeah yeah

If you've had enough
Of all your tryin'
Just give up
The state of mind you're in:

If you want to be somebody else,
If you're tired of fighting battles with yourself
If you want to be somebody else
Change your mind...

Hey hey- what ya say
We both go and seize the day
'cause what's your hurry
what's your hurry anyway

Yeah yeah
I bet you haven't heard
A word I've said
Yeah yeah
If you've had enough
Of all your tryin'
Just give up
The state of mind you're in:


If you want to be somebody else,
If you're tired of fighting battles with yourself
If you want to be somebody else
Change your mind...