Did I ever tell you the story about how I lost my faith at a Bible college? No? Well, it's not something I've ever talked much about. Much of it is hard to explain, as I would assume the inner workings of anyone's head is hard for them to explain. Nevertheless, I probably ought to try. I've recently been called "inspirational", and I want to put a quick stop to that before the word gets out.
To begin, I must start my story with a bit of history. Where else?
About 160 years ago, there was a Danish man named Soren Kierkegaard. Very much like me, he struggled with depression for most of his life. He was engaged to a pretty young Danish girl, but realized that he could never be a good husband because of his melancholy (which sounds way better than "depression"), and broke off the engagement, and spent the remaining ten years of his life writing a string of books that mark him as one of the most engaging and challenging Christians to ever put pen to paper.
About the same time, this one cat in America with a pretty bitchin' beard started a Bible college.
Then I showed up about 140 years later. That's when the shit got real. So, like Soren, who's the guy I took this pseudonym from, I've been a very depressed man for the majority of my life. It's pretty much miraculous I've survived this long, and some days I'm surprised I'm still here. And, like both Soren and the guy that started the Bible college, I'm a very devout Christian.
At the end of 2008, a girl I kinda liked quit her job to go on a 3-month mission trip to Africa. At some point in that trip, and I don't know exactly why, she basically stopped being my friend, and has never really cared to talk to me since. Before that had happened, though, I'd asked God to make me a man that was worthy of having a wife like her. In the history of dumb shit I've prayed for, that kinda set a high bar for dangerous prayers. God, being wise, decided to set in motion a chain of events that I think is His way of doing just that.
I'm not arrogant enough to think it's working.
In August of 2009, I was given a copy of Kierkegaard's book "Fear and Trembling", which neatly exploded the plans I had for my life. See, at the time I was being tugged by God to change the direction my life was going, but hadn't really wanted to be obedient. I would have said that I was "faithful", but in reality, I was fighting against God as hard as I could.
Then I got F&T, and it simply shattered my preconceptions of what it really meant to have faith in God. It's one of those books that I absolutely love, but often joke that it fucked my life up. In a good way, but the whirlwind that book started has yet to slow down.
There are books that one must be brave to read, F&T is one of them. Kierkegaard has a way of forcing the reader to work to understand the point he's trying to make, only to realize that point is something that the reader must face in his own life, not a solution to be understood, itemized, and placed safely on a shelf.
Anyways, I read the book. Then my girlfriend broke up with me, I'd been arguing with God over how to save the relationship, He was telling me to break it off because it was time for it to end, but I refused. It ended anyways. Then He told me to quit my second job, and in my typical dumbass fashion, I replied that I'd need a sign if I was to quit.
Actually taking things on faith was rather new to me at the time. God, however, figured He could manage something like that, and the situation at my second job went to hell so fast that I quit in disgust about a week later. Maybe two, things are kinda blurry at this point.
In any case, I was like "OK, God, now what. I'm single, which sucks, and working only one job, which means I can no longer make my bills, so now what?"
God, being a patient God, replied with "Quit your main job, too. I'll provide."
Me, being an asshole who can't take orders, started to argue with God anew.
But the whirlwind that F&T had started in my life wouldn't let me hide behind pants-wetting terror at the idea of quitting a decent job, so after increasingly-tearful nights of prayer in the laundry room of a truck stop, I waited for the store manager to show up, walked up to him, and told him that I was quitting simply because God had told me to, and gave him two days to find a replacement.
Now, at this point, I should take a moment to describe what it feels like to do something like that. Imagine, if you will, walking on the edge of a razor, several thousand feet above the ground. You feel the adrenaline rush through your body, and it's absolutely exhilarating, but at the same time, you know that if you fall, you will die. Thrown in a touch of agony, as you reject everything you know to be logical, everything you'd normally call wise and rational. Now, add to that a sense of peace so commplete that you can barely comprehend it, and paradoxically, you feel all of this, the bliss, terror, peace, agony, and exhilaration all at once.
That might start to cover it.
To borrow a phrase from Kierkegaard, I took a leap of faith. It's not really a leap of faith if you can see where you'll land, and God certainly provided a most interesting set of jobs for the next couple months.
Then, in January 2010, after being unemployed for a couple weeks after another leap, I was drving around my hometown, looking for industrial-type businesses that would give me an idea of where I could work after getting the machinist's training I was planning on getting at the time. God, however, gave me the idea of seeing what the MAF needed, so I went there. They said, basically, that they didn't need machinists, but could always use pilots, so after about 30 seconds of prayer, if even that, I accepted God's call to missions.
The MAF, when asked which school provided the best training, pointed me to the bearded man's college. I was accepted after couple months, and was, if not happy because I'm melancholy by nature, was well-pleased to finally have a Purpose.
I suppose I should mention what the folks around me thought about the events described herein. Across the spectrum, I think the phrase "What the hell are you doing?" pretty much covers it. Well, there was a little bit of "You're insane" and "You're too much of a fuck-up to succeed" thrown in, but that mostly came from my family and the local clergyman.
At the end of summer, I left for the Bible college. So, that's the history, and now it's time for philosophy.
I left for that Bible college with literally nothing to my name but a car and faith. I drove 400 miles to a school that I'd never visited to train for a career that at the time, I didn't want (Oh, didn't I mention that? At the time, I really hated the idea of being a missionary.) I had enough money in my bank account to buy groceries and pay the first month's rent, no job, no cash, and no real plan for school other than living in my car once I got evicted. I actually let another student, a total stranger, borrow my car, simply because I figured she'd bring it back with more gas than I had in it at the time.
But I had faith, righteous and pure. I had a conviction that I should be on this path so strong that I went against the advice of everyone who weighed in, against my own desires to do nothing resembling missions work, and against my own history of failing at academic activities. Having come face to face, metaphorically speaking, with God in a laundry room, I had nothing and no one to hide my desire for disobedience behind, so it was impossible for me to say anything other than "I will go."
Then again, these folks were the experts, so I reasoned that soon, I would not have to have quite so much faith in God, since other people could reassure me that I was on the right path. Soon, I reasoned, the call to missions would be logical, and I would have no need to remain on that razor's edge. I could be accepted, I could be reassured, and I could retreated from God into the mass of the crowd.
If I could just find one person who'd tell me I belonged there.
If I could just find one person who thought the way I do.
If I could just find one person to justify my actions, so I wouldn't have to say "Faith alone" in my defense.
If I could just find a reason other than "God" to do what I did.
If I could just leave faith behind for knowledge, to get off that razor.
And so, on a Bible-college campus of about 450 students, I searched high and low for a way to escape my Faith in God. It didn't really take long, either. I soon found distractions, in the form of debates, arguments, doctrine, and classmates. I found all sorts of people who were true believers, and so, I reasoned, I would soon find a justification for my actions that I could point to, instead of "Faith".
But I could never remain distracted, and never found acceptance from the Mob, so I started feeling depressed, simply wishing I wasn't so alone. As the second semester dawned, I was more alone than ever, having few classes with my friends, and fewer of those even being able to stop by and hang out.
Consider the situation! Having been contentedly face to face with God before I came, I now wished simply to not be alone! What foolishness that He was enough in a laundry room, but not at a school dedicated to serving Him!
Then, as my story goes, I got too depressed for the bearded one's college to accept, so I was cast out, and rendered homeless, and even my family would not take me in. I was truly lost, then. I had wished so hard to hide from God in the shadows of the mob, to be reassured by a collective instead of the Absolute, that when I lost them, I could not even find God. The God that had invaded my laundry room had been lost in the static of the mob.
Exactly how I'd wanted Him to be.
I often refer to the day five cops woke me from my bed as the epitome of a "wake-up call". As my life progresses, I often find new things the events of that day woke me up from. I realize now how far I'd fallen from the leap of faith I'd taken when I arrived at that school.
And I still can't quite believe how badly I fucked that up.
I wish I could point to the "friends" that did such an excellent job of abusing my friendship, but then, how many more times has God given me a second chance?
And if I could simply say "well, I should not have cared so much what they did to me", then would I not be saying at the same time "Well, I should not have loved my friends so much, despite how much I am loved"?
And if I should say "Well, I should have asked for help sooner", would I not be saying "I should have asked for help before I was ready to accept it, giving me one more thing to fight against"?
I've spent the last ten months searching for my Big Mistake that lead to the Bad Day. In the end, facing the Absolute, all I can honestly regret is wanting to be accepted by the Mob, so I would not need to be face to face with Him. The only thing in that entire seven-month period that I would change, including how it ended, was that I so earnestly desired to be accepted there.
To wish that just one person there would say I belonged, when I had not allowed myself to even slow down for a single person back home, who knew me so much better, that I regret.
To wish for just one person to take the burden of Faith from my shoulders, instead of simply continuing on the way it had begun, crying on my knees in faith. That I truly regret.
In light of the terrifying thought that people look to me as an inspiration, I will simply state that being alone with God, Loving and Absolute, is a far better fate than being accepted among humans, hateful and minute. Woe that anyone should look to me for comfort, instead of God!
The only thing that can truly be worthwhile in this world is to be close to God, and if you should find yourself kneeling before God, take care that you remember the infinite scale of that encounter should anyone ever attempt to waylay you one the path He dictates for you.
No matter what happens, there will never be anything you regret more than turning your back on God simply because the crowd hates you. Let them hate you, God Himself loves you. In the infinite scale of our minuteness to His Absoluteness, the mob is totally fucking irrelevant. Not to mention manipulative, abusive, forgetful, and totally absent on the Day we will all stand alone before God, facing all the things we've ever done.
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