My Manifesto of Faith (SmoothJazz)
It may have occurred to you by now that I am a Christian. And it has certainly occurred to me that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the King, and my personal Savior and Friend. With that announced forthright, I reckon I'll use this opportunity to explain how this is so, and what it means for me. So, without further to do, let us commence!
I come from a home of two parents and multiple older siblings. My parents are both professing Christians, although my father has gone through bouts of depression and anxiety in which he ceased to participate in the local Church. He came from a poor family with 11 children, and my mother comes from a smaller family with only two sisters. They were both raised to live by Biblical values. However, my mother has the more mature faith, as she has come to ask questions in order to understand what God is really like, what the world is really like, and what the scriptures are really trying to say. My father, on the other hand, possesses a faith that is largely uncritical and inactive. They have both influenced me in in positive and negative ways, creating boons to my faith as well as obstacles. However, as my faith is really due to my own experiences, their influence is limited.
As a young child, I had my tantrums, of course, but I behaved well overall and gained a reputation as a goody-two-shoes. By observing the praise and validation that I received by being someone who listened, helped, and worked studiously, I began to become self-righteous, and as that trend progressed, my very identity was secured by being a "good boy" and by performing tasks with near perfection. This, however, was destined to culminate in my earliest life crisis.
Around the age of ten-twelve, the age at which a child develops the cognitive faculties required to think abstractly and morally, I began to struggle more and more with the fact that I was not perfect and wholly good, as I tried so hard to be. This created an identity crisis, as I lost my only self-definition. This was further exacerbated by the dark, disordered passions that I was beginning to experience, partly due to the influence of some neighborhood boys, who were older than me, and of course puberty. These passions included most notably rage, pride, and sexual lust. Thus, my life was dichotomous. There was the perfect me that I still acted out despite its clear falsity, and there was the rebellious, angry, and wicked me that began to capture the heart of who I really was. Amidst this all, there was a feeling of suffocation, as I felt the goodness and purity deserting my inner life, which was being overrun by pride and hate, hate towards many people, although self-hate was the source of most of it. More and more I felt the darkness within and the terrible suffering of knowing my own inability to change the course that my life had taken. The best I could possibly do was to return to sinful self-righteousness, which had started the whole damned process.
During this time, I remember being isolated at home, doing schoolwork and living in superficial happiness that would regularly be broken by intense remorse, shame, hate, and mourning. Many were the nights that I cried myself to sleep. However, the positive of this experience was that I began to really look for existential answers for the first time in my life. Originally, I tried every method under my power to make something of myself that I could respect and still call "righteous" in an effort to save face. Eventually, I began to think about all that stuff that I'd been told in Church all of my life. I began to listen to the sermons, even to sing some of the songs. In so doing, it occurred to me that my ultimate well-being didn't rely on my being perfectly good by my own efforts. WHAT A RELIEF. I heard about what Jesus had done to offer His righteousness to helpless sinners like me. WHAT A REVELATION. The more I thought about these things, the more I became convicted that He was the only way to redeem my pitiful life- so pitiful, in fact, that He loved it so triumphantly. Nonetheless, Satan still had a hold on me through the sin in my life, and I was still tormented, not quite able to make the step, the step which seemed like stepping off of the highest cliff, surely to the result of losing the life I had, not knowing that anything else was truly available. However, I continued to wrestle, and I finally talked to my parents, barely able to communicate over the wrenching of my heart and the tears of my eyes. I told my parents about my sins, and they told me about forgiveness. That Sunday night I was baptized, and everything changed.
Or did it? I was on a high for several days, and life seemed so full of new light that pierced my tired soul with beams of uncontrollable joy. Yet, my daily life was still just as much bound up in sinful habits and anger and hate and lust. I continued to live with these things and found myself often discouraged. At this point I didn't even have any friends to go to with these struggles. However, after some time I got involved with the youth group of the local Church. It was among these new companions that I set my face to heaven and determined to allow myself to allow God to change my life in all the small ways that mattered so much, one little thing one day at a time.
I would read scripture everyday and meditate on certain practical instructions to the end of intentionally following through in my life, particularly in my strained relationships with my siblings. It was the hardest thing I have even undertaken and currently undertake. I was daily reminded of my weakness and the embedded selfishness in my heart, but God's grace was always with me.
This would be my path for the following years, although their were certainly some detours through various valleys. I gradually began to desire a faith that went deeper than simply focusing of God's grace and trying to do better. I started to study my Bible seriously and to talk with a good friend of mine about theological interpretations of the Word. This continued for a while, and was accelerated to a magnificent degree when I discovered my unquenchable thirst for Christian literature. I began reading book after book that challenged my narrow worldview and refined my self-understanding, especially in relation to God Himself. I also became a big fan of Christian apologetic. (I have since taken a step back from any simplistic attempts to "prove Christianity.")
Through short mission trips and other experiences with the youth group, I began to realize the missionary aspect inherent in the Christian faith, as well as the communal aspect, and I made several friends for life, including the spectacular young lady who is the object of all of the love songs that I have shared on here. I have found brothers and sisters in whom I can confide the worst parts of me, and I have been liberated accordingly. I continue to submit to God, His liberation, and His plan of redemption of which He invites me to participate. I have become much more open minded and critical of Christian faith, while also more sure and convicted of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. I have also been gladly challenged by responding to the ideas of New Atheists, behaviorists, postmodernists, and so on. All of their ideas have been a pleasure to understand as best as I can, and I can confidently say that new tools for a life of ministry and holy service have been discovered. I have especially become espoused to the idea of theology as a metadiscourse that integrates other narratives into a holistic system of faith that relies on Christian beliefs for ultimate explanation and meaning. Most importantly, I ask God everyday to show me how to love as He loves. I really feel like I am coming into my own, and that God is making me who He intends, in spite of my persistent selfishness and rebellion. PRAISE YHWH.
Anyways, that's about all I can say right now. My personal evolution continues, and I look forward in confidence to what He will show me through the blessings and trials that await me in life, Lord willing. I hope that my story has come across clearly, and I hope that you may be spurred to thought about your own position in life. God bless you, even if you don't know Him. In fact, may He bless you with revelation of His Holy Self. I love Him more than anything, and love you enough to earnestly desire that you all might know Him and love Him as well. He is so good. So surprising. So faithful. So gentle. So fierce. So paradoxical. So jealous. So compassionate. So Holy, Holy, Holy. If that sounds good to you, open your heart and find a Church friend or two to talk to. Peace!
Superbly,
SmoothJazz
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