Some Random Thoughts About Christianity

I was just having a thoughtful hour or two, and was pondering what happened when I first *really* became a Christian, and what that has evolved into, for the good or the bad of it.

I was 21 years old, driving home after graduating from my senior year in college, having made a mess of my life in many varying ways, and I remember praying, "God, I've heard about you all my life. I don't know if you're real or not, but if you are, I need you to help me. I need you to please forgive me, and I need you to be real to me right now." And I remember, driving my friend Barby's truck, with all of my various and sundry belongings in the back, how overwhelmed I was immediately by His supernatural presence in the cab with me, and how absolutely and unmistakably real He was in that moment... It was a life-changing moment, almost impossible to describe. Like real arms were around me, and like love overflowing and huge beyond my ability to contain just flooded the cab in a second. I was overwhelmed and overcome. If you've ever experienced a moment with the God of creation, then you'll know that it is beyond words. It is real, and it has a lasting impact. That moment has defined my life since then. I gave my life to it, to the truth of it, to Him.

I remember the days and even months after that experience. My circumstances didn't change, but my view of the world and myself was changing drastically. I was a theater major and had decided to become an actress, and had spent years trying to "become" someone else, to escape myself, and had felt all the pleasure and the pain that comes from "losing yourself" in a character, or a lifestyle, all for the sake of art. And I remember saying to my mother one day shortly after the car ride with God, "A relationship with God is the only thing that makes us more like ourselves." I think I was trying to say, "God *really* knows me. And because he *really* knows me, I'm beginning to know myself." It was falling in love. I don't know any other words for it. I was in love with Him, and in love with His vision of me, a way I had never known myself to be. The world suddenly looked completely different through His eyes.

As an example of the extreme closeness I felt with hin, after college, I began working as a tutor at a business my mother owned while I "figured out" the next step (little did I know I'd be trying to figure out my next step well into my 30's) and she lost her keys. I remember praying with such childlike confidence, "God, you know where her keys are. Where are they?", and as crazy as it may sound, I heard the words in my heart, "They're behind the plant." So I said to my mother, "Look behind the plant," and, sure enough, she moved the potted plant and there they were. And I wasn't at all surprised. I knew that He knew where they were, and I knew He would tell me if He wanted to, and He did, and there they were.

The entire experience was so organic. I grew up in a Christian household and in Christian evangelical churches, but as a little actress I always knew what was expected of me, and none of it at the time seemed very organic or natural. I remember being very young, and in Texas, and having many people "lay hands on me" to receive the gift of tongues to speak in a spiritual different language, and having seen other people "receive" this gift many times before, I just faked it. I had no idea what it meant, and I had NO desire to speak in different tongue. I just wanted to be loved, and though it made absolutely no sense to me, I figured, "This is what they want, I'll give it to them," and it gave me a rush to perform. So they prayed for a while, and I determined, "Now is the time to 'receive' this gift," and I started muttering nonsense words that sounded like the words I'd heard other people speak. Everyone believed me, so I made some determinations of Christianity in my 8 year old mind in that moment.

Most of Christianity I viewed that way. The only exception was during worship, when the music was playing, and I was singing, and everyone else was singing, and all around me was beauty. THEN I believe I truly touched God, but it wasn't personal. It was a group dynamic thing, and it was never lasting. It was never "organic", and I never had any desire to pray or read the Bible. That was all empty to me, and lesss attractive than the real life and drama and beauty I craved. I have many memories of Christianity as a set of rules or bizarre expectations, far removed from the "real" cares and concerns of life. Most of the time all I ever heard was, "Don't drink, don't smoke, and don't have sex," and that if I obeyed all these rules, vigilantly denied all of these forbidden fruit, then I was a Good Christian (which, by the way I never aspired to be. The more I was told not to taste it, the more I wanted to.)

But that car ride was the real thing. For the first time in my life, that was me and God. Me, a genuine "sinner", with quite a few nasty things on my roster, and God, whoever He was, immediately covering me with the most beautiful peace, the most beautiful presence, the most beautiful promise of hope and future and contentment. I was immersed in His spectacular reality, and that reality was not the God of Rules of my childhood, the God of Strange Behavior that I had witnessed and pretended to experience... No, this was a God who saw me in all my frailty, in all my imperfectness, and loved me beyond the ability of any human being.

Again... you have to have experienced it to understand what I'm saying. And you can experience it. Even right now at this very moment. Ask Him, "Who are you? Are you real? Please be real to me," and He will. It's so amazing, but He wants to be a real, individual Person to all of us.

And this is what I've realized tonight that I keep losing sight of. The more you get wrapped up in a church, the more you get wrapped up in what is expected of you socially, the more you want to please others around you... Well, the more the "actress" pops up and starts performing and faking things, and the more the real, organic thing that actually happens with Christ starts to fade into the background. And this fake Christian thing is so far from what I want, and is not what EVER attracted me to Christ in the first place. The Christian thing is so often NOT Christ because I am a person, and the church is full of people, and people can never, ever be God. I can never love myself the way God can. I can never love another person the way God can. I can only sit in God's presence and experience the love He has for me to love myself. I can only hope to reflect this love to other people, so that they will then look up to the Source of that love in the first place. And, in the end, it's not about what anyone thinks of you, or even what you think of yourself - it's whether God had anything to do with it or not. And oftentimes, even in our best efforts, God was not even invited to the party.

And this is what turns people off about Christianity. I am a Christian, and in all honesty I can say to you now that this is what turns ME off about Christianity. It's what turns me off in myself. I turn Jesus Christ into a set of rules of social behavior... How absurd for the God of the Universe who became a man, who socialized with prostitutes and tax collectors, who was condemned by the church for being too "out there" - how absurd for me to make Him anything less than what He is. God, please forgive me.

And I don't condemn church. Oh, goodness, I love church. Here in Korea, I have found the most alive and vibrant and sweet and welcoming church I've found in ages. I honestly live for Sundays just to be with other Christians, to hear His word, to be in His presence. But I still see in myself the seed of trying to "pretend" with other Christians, and therefore to discredit the whole Christian life.... Yuck. I want to be real as He was real. As He is real with me. I want the church, globally, to be real as He is real. But, that has to start with me.

And that's getting back to my savior in the truck cab. That's the Jesus Christ I fell in love with. Literally fell in love. He's real, my friends. He's real. And if any person has ever made you feel otherwise, I would bypass the person, and go right to the Source. Ask Him if He's real, and see what He says. I have no doubt you'll be amazed at His response.