All right, what happened to make the change . . .
I was meeting with this pastor, a Wesleyan if you're interested in that part of it, and I was having fun asking him questions that he wasn't completely sure about, but he always took the time to look up the answers and was always patient with me, even after being a bit of a dick about the whole thing (Calling baby Jesus a bastard child just to see his reaction and the such)
One day, I was just sick of it, so I had a question that I had been playing around with and I decided that if he couldn't answer it right then and there I was going to leave it alone and stop waisting my time. The question was, "God claims to care about me and know me so well, and expects me to believe in Him and have faith, but he has never felt doubt, which is what He has given me if he really exists, because that it was I have. When has God, the Almighty, ever felt doubt?"
These were not my exact words, but the main question was there. When has God experienced doubt, and how can He claim to know me and understand me if He has never been in that position.
So, I went to his youth group, planning on asking him the question after their activities (remember, because I was trying to stay open to all possibilities at this point). I had the question in the back of my mind, but before I even considered getting it out the pastor spoke to the group and quoted the line "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"
It floored me.
So I came back to Jesus, not that night - I had a lot to digest, but even when hanging out with the Wesleyan and this hugely patient pastor, a good guy too, i still didn't feel right about the whole thing. The pastor knew that I had a Catholic past and asked if I would be interested in meeting with one of the Catholic youth groups on campus. I said yes and gave him permission to give them my number. I was also checking out some of the other Christian groups he had suggested, but hesitant to go back to the Catholic Church, I waited for that group to contact me.
A few months went by and after giving the pastor permission to give my number to the Catholic group several times I still didn't hear from them (figured it was providence, I wasn't really interested in those crazy angry Catholics anyway).
Then Dave Matthews came into town. He was my absolute favorite at the time and my favorite album of his was the Live at Red Rocks album. So when I heard that was where he was going to be playing I succored my tickets, as any fan would do.
When I drove there I followed the parking attendants and parked where they pointed, I was about three hours before the opener and I wanted to roam around and check out the DaveHeads. But it was raining, I sat in my car for a bit and read a book I had taken with me (Catcher in the Rye I think it was). Anyway, the people in the car next to me were making it hard to read because I kept hearing them joking around. So when the rain let up, I got out of the car and started to rome around. I bought a beer but didn't realize when I got it that it was not a twist off. Being the painfully shy guy that I am, I didn't ask anyone to open it for me. I just roamed around with an un-opened beer bottle until I got back to my car.
When I got back the people in the car next to mine were outside of it sitting in some lawn chair and joking around. I wanted to drink my beer so I went and asked them if they had a bottle opener. The guy who got the opener for me started to talk to me, asking me the usual questions, and I found out that he was in the Catholic youth group on my campus, they all were.
He knew the Wesleyan pastor that I had been talking with and that pastor had given him the number of a young man who was interested, but every time he called the number it was the wrong number. It turned out the pastor had several people in his phone that had the same name as mine and he always gave the Catholic youth guy the wrong number by accident. When I told him that I was the guy that he was trying to get ahold of, we were both floored.
And now here I am.
I was meeting with this pastor, a Wesleyan if you're interested in that part of it, and I was having fun asking him questions that he wasn't completely sure about, but he always took the time to look up the answers and was always patient with me, even after being a bit of a dick about the whole thing (Calling baby Jesus a bastard child just to see his reaction and the such)
One day, I was just sick of it, so I had a question that I had been playing around with and I decided that if he couldn't answer it right then and there I was going to leave it alone and stop waisting my time. The question was, "God claims to care about me and know me so well, and expects me to believe in Him and have faith, but he has never felt doubt, which is what He has given me if he really exists, because that it was I have. When has God, the Almighty, ever felt doubt?"
These were not my exact words, but the main question was there. When has God experienced doubt, and how can He claim to know me and understand me if He has never been in that position.
So, I went to his youth group, planning on asking him the question after their activities (remember, because I was trying to stay open to all possibilities at this point). I had the question in the back of my mind, but before I even considered getting it out the pastor spoke to the group and quoted the line "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"
It floored me.
So I came back to Jesus, not that night - I had a lot to digest, but even when hanging out with the Wesleyan and this hugely patient pastor, a good guy too, i still didn't feel right about the whole thing. The pastor knew that I had a Catholic past and asked if I would be interested in meeting with one of the Catholic youth groups on campus. I said yes and gave him permission to give them my number. I was also checking out some of the other Christian groups he had suggested, but hesitant to go back to the Catholic Church, I waited for that group to contact me.
A few months went by and after giving the pastor permission to give my number to the Catholic group several times I still didn't hear from them (figured it was providence, I wasn't really interested in those crazy angry Catholics anyway).
Then Dave Matthews came into town. He was my absolute favorite at the time and my favorite album of his was the Live at Red Rocks album. So when I heard that was where he was going to be playing I succored my tickets, as any fan would do.
When I drove there I followed the parking attendants and parked where they pointed, I was about three hours before the opener and I wanted to roam around and check out the DaveHeads. But it was raining, I sat in my car for a bit and read a book I had taken with me (Catcher in the Rye I think it was). Anyway, the people in the car next to me were making it hard to read because I kept hearing them joking around. So when the rain let up, I got out of the car and started to rome around. I bought a beer but didn't realize when I got it that it was not a twist off. Being the painfully shy guy that I am, I didn't ask anyone to open it for me. I just roamed around with an un-opened beer bottle until I got back to my car.
When I got back the people in the car next to mine were outside of it sitting in some lawn chair and joking around. I wanted to drink my beer so I went and asked them if they had a bottle opener. The guy who got the opener for me started to talk to me, asking me the usual questions, and I found out that he was in the Catholic youth group on my campus, they all were.
He knew the Wesleyan pastor that I had been talking with and that pastor had given him the number of a young man who was interested, but every time he called the number it was the wrong number. It turned out the pastor had several people in his phone that had the same name as mine and he always gave the Catholic youth guy the wrong number by accident. When I told him that I was the guy that he was trying to get ahold of, we were both floored.
And now here I am.
". . . let the atheists themselves choose a god. They will find only one divinity who ever uttered their isolation; only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist." -G. K. Chesterton
