A change...

I have been engaging in my faith since Beth broke up with me back in 1973. I got involved with a pharmaceutical practice of my own which one day led me to a park and to ask a canine, "Why should I go on living?" As I was sitting on top of a swing set in Davis, CA the canine simply told me, "Believe in God." (no my dyslexia did not confuse this!)

As I was walking home I stopped by a yard sale, saw and picked up a copy of Francis Schaeffer's "The God Who Is There." I thought this was an incredible find and it backed up what the dog was telling me. I had never heard of Schaefer, I had never met the dog before and who would have thought that InterVarsity has a house in Davis and sells their books via a yard sale. The guy sitting behind the book table at the yard sale told me I made a great choice. I reached in my pocket and could only find a dollar and twenty seven cents, a roach clip, and a lot of lint which didn't add up to the asking price of the book. The guy looked into my eyes and saw that I was searching (and extremely dilated) and told me that was enough, "Enjoy. Come back after you read it and we will talk." I continued my trip on home. The next day I woke up, sat in my room, on my waterbed, and tried to read this book that i found stuffed in the pocket of my jeans.

"The Christian is to resist the spirit of the world. But when we say this, we must understand that the worldspirit does not always take the same form. So the Christian must resist the spirit of the world in the form it takes in his own generation. If he does not do this, he is not resisting the spirit of the world at all."
(Francis A. Schaeffer, The God Who Is There, Ch. 1)

I had no idea what that meant. I was not a Christian. I went to Sunday School until I started doing drugs. But Mrs. Anderson and Becky Ray never told us about "the spirit of the world" - only the books of the Bible, stories of the Bible, and to stop throwing paper wads at Debbie.

It took another year before I came to the point where I needed to change my life and believe in God. I didn't just believe in God, I began to live a different life. A life of resistance. As I read the scriptures it was more about living in the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE of Jesus, than not taking drugs or not throwing paper at Debbie. It was different.

The revolution began. It had nothing to do with rebellion, I tried that, it had to do with Way. And reading the Sermon on the Mount (The Sermon), I began to understand the Way. It was different. More than a change of paradigm, it was a change of heart... a heart attack. Drastic, life changing, eye changing...

Last year I had another "heart attack" not the kind that sends you to the hospital, but the kind that sends you to the grave. I had to die to myself and to a way that I had been living the last ten years or so. I began to live according to the way of christianity instead of WAY of Christ. I had forgotten The Sermon and started following the institution. Keeping people from hell instead of leading them to the WAY.

Well The Revolution continues...