It's funny. I was just accused of having a "rosie world view". Most people who know me would never say that! I'm a pessimist by nature and I have a knack for finding something wrong with just about everything. Hell, I've been unemployed for nearly six months! I can tell you for a fact this "rosieness" is not the "normal" me. This change in attitude is one of the main reasons that I continue on the spiritual path that I'm on. There are results. Change for the better. Life. Peace. So, I'll take that as a compliment!
Around about the time I quit my job I had a very powerful spiritual experience. I was in a lot of emotional, psychological and spiritual pain. I was confused, hurt and angry. Life was not turning out how I planned it. Our business plans were shot dead. I was in a dead-end, high stress job working with people that were not even civil a lot of the time. Blah, blah, blah... I guess all the years of wrestling with church and God, and all disappointments finally took there tole.
Then one day as I was driving to work, in that extreme pain, I found myself almost being an observer of myself. That's really the best way I can explain it. Then all of the sudden I felt peace. Not just relief, but probably what Paul talked about when he said, "peace that passes understanding." The tears began to flow. And then I had clarity. I knew I had to quit my job. So I did, not knowing exactly how we would get by. I don't know, you could call it faith, or stupidity. Maybe both.
I couldn't explain exactly what had happened. There was nothing in my christian experience that would explain it except that I had experienced this one other time, when I was first baptized as a new christian. What I experienced then, and many time since, can be best explained as a sudden collapse of the ego. The pain that I was in was caused by resisting what was.
I just could not understand how I could be a "child of God", a "follower of Jesus", a person of the "kingdom of God", a "worship leader" that gave up a great job to help bring people into the "kingdom" etc. and still be fed a shit sandwich in life. Why would a God who cared about his children allow that (feel free to look at my past posts for more on that)? In essence, I was unable to accept what was. I was fighting the Now because christianity had taught me about a God who does miracles, who blesses "his own" etc.
I had just turned 40 years old. Half my life was gone. What did i have to show for it? I was without a career, unemployed, unhappy, angry, mean and lost. All of this suffering because I had a wrong view of God, reality and how life really works.
I'll get into what has happened since in another post. That's the good stuff!!!
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8 comments:
I appreciate your candor here brother....
cheers,
Todd
would like to hear how this worked out...because i hope you still believe that God does miracles and blesses us...(perhaps the "his own" got a bit larger in number than previously taught)
i will be eagerly waiting for your Part 2
Anxiously awaiting your next post :)
I keep thinking of commenting, but then I realize I don't have much to say, I'm just looking forward to hearing "the rest of the story"!
When I began not blaming myself for some miracle I thought should be happening then peace in life started coming regularly.
Steve, not sure what you are saying here or how it applies to this post??
Roger wrote, "In essence, I was unable to accept what was. I was fighting the Now because christianity had taught me about a God who does miracles, who blesses "his own" etc." and another comment.
In also reading his past experiences, which a lot of us have gone through, we were basically taught:
God blesses you if you do something right. And if certain things are not well with you then you must be doing something wrong (e.g. your kids might have sinned and so you are not a good parent, etc.).
My experience with severe chronic depression was that I thought, and was told, that it was sin and if I believed enough then I'd be better.
So that only increased the stress and the pressure and the depression.
Once I realized that depressed or not I was still in God's favor because of Jesus' Work then the pressure was off.
Like Roger wrote I realized that maybe God does not work like I thought he did. Sometimes s*)t just happens in life to everyone.
Sorry so long. hope it makes more sense now.
Thank you Steve.. :)
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