I reached a point in my Christian walk where I finally confessed and repented of the warped view of God that I had and asked Him to show me Himself, as He really was; that I would believe what He had revealed to us in Scripture, and not the lopsided view of God I had been raised with.
And He DID.
I was filled/baptized/(whatever you wish to label it), with the Holy Spirit that night. It’s been almost four years and they have been awesome.
With all the religiosity, dogmas, church doctrines...all the various interpretations/denominations/high church, low church, all the theological gobble gook, throwing scripture versus at one another in an attempt to win the interpretation tug of war...God just looks down at man’s attempt to figure Him out and shakes His head. They still don’t get it!
Our Father made it so simple. In fact, so simple it boggles the mind. I guess you could say, “the peace which passes ALL understanding”. When one finally comes to the end of that spiritual struggle, to the end of himself, surrenders out of spiritual exhaustion....they then will find true grace.
I tell folks from time to time a story of an old fella in a liturgical church I once attended. This old guy always wanted the service a certain way. Sat in the same spot and by goodness, better not be in his seat on Sunday morning.
Always seemed displeased by the priest’s sermon, actions. As the plate would come, he’d raise a one dollar bill, high enough for others to witness, then place it in the plate as a symbol of his displeasure with “whatever”.
I was pretty close to the priest, and once heard, “this is our church, we were here before you came, we will be here after you leave”. Kinda my last straw was when this old fart chastised a young acolyte for wearing tennis shoes with his cassock rather than black dress shoes as the official rule book suggests. Imagine how this kid must have felt. Trying to serve and get verbally smacked cause it wasn’t good enough. There were several others in that click, but this gentleman seemed to be the head...gotta do it my way crowd.
Never ever, ever ever ever ever want to go down that road again. Modern day Pharisees.