Spiritual Autobiography

Mom. Momma. Mommy. Fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. Hugs. Kisses to make an "owie" all better. Taught me, what, 40-50% of everything I will ever know in this life? Maybe one of two people who would be willing to take a bullet for me (the other being my dad, of course).

I was the golden child. I was the receptacle of all her hopes and dreams. Older brother hadn't quite made it, so it was up to me. And I relished the role. I grew to love report card day. I would take it home and proudly share it with my folks and just bask in their approval.

I should probably say a word or two about older brother at this point. He was the smart one. I was in the sub-genius category, and he was in the category above that. Only he didn't apply himself in school, bringing home report cards with D's on them at times. And he didn't apply himself in college. As he approached the first semester finals in his sophomore year, realizing he was probably going to flunk out, he took off. We had no idea where he was for several weeks. Then we finally got a phone call from California. He was out there selling encyclopedias (and doing very well at it). How could a guy that smart not do well in school? I wasn't there, so I couldn't say exactly, but I'm thinking that when he wasn't stoned he was probably drunk, unless or course he was drunk and stoned. That's probably a little bit of an exaggeration, but maybe not all that much.

It wasn't until much later in life that I began to realize what a pivotal role this guy played in my life. You have to go way, way back. He as my big brother. What I didn't ask mom to explain, I asked him. How many thousands of questions? Then, when he started having a hard time in school, I discovered an entire identify by differentiating myself from him by being the good son. Didn't mean to do it to show him up or anything. Really, as clearly as I remember it, I was just trying to cheer up mom and dad; I wasn't really trying to show him up or anything.

But this is what I think. I think that when you are that smart, it takes longer to grow up because you have more inside you that needs to grow up. And if someone doesn't realize pretty early on how bored you are at the regular pace of instruction in the normal classes and get you out of there, then you are likely to go off the rails. Thoroughbreds are made to run. You can attach one to a plow and you can actually make it plow, but it won't plow very well. And it will never be happy. And you will never be happy with it.

Like I said earlier, the dude has a mater's degree now. He lives in Japan and is married to a woman how is almost, but not quite, as amazing as my wife. You know what I think? I think it's easier for him to live over there because learning a very, very different culture and an almost impossible language give him just about enough to keep his brain comfortably busy. That's my big brother.

You know, if he would just get on board with the whole Jesus thing and stop reading and believing the New York times, he'd be just about perfect!

To be continued . . .

Spiritual Autobiography

So I wrote for the school catalog, applied, and was accepted. There was only one problem. Prairie wasn't accredited. You couldn't get a degree there. You could graduate. You could get a certificate. But you couldn't get a degree.

Not so long ago I had gotten my score back from the ACT test. I got a 30. It was funny how clueless and out of the loop I was about some things. People would ask me my score, and I would tell them, and they would get a little bug eyed. And I was thinking, "That must mean that 30 is a good score?" I didn't even know. Finally some of my buds set me straight. I wasn't up there with the super geniuses, who got 32-36 scores, but I was had scored higher than 98.7% of the students who took the test in the country that year.

This seemed so weird to me. If you had asked me to guess, I would have put myself in the 80th percentile. Maybe 85th? But 98th? Apparently, I was smarted than I realized. Or maybe I was just better at taking tests? By the time you are a junior in high school you have sort of figured out where you rank in the old pecking order. I was a below average athlete, somewhat socially retarded, B+ / A- student. Then I got a 30 on the ACT. Go figure.

It would probably have made my life a lot easier if I had a bad day when I took the test and got a lower score. If I was pleased with my high score, mom was ecstatic. Her insecurities were eating her alive over her firstborn who had dropped out of college, so all of the hope and expectation came to be focused on little old me. And now, all of a sudden, I wasn't just a smart kid, I was in the almost/not quite a genius category! I could go anywhere and do anything!

And I was not, no way, absolutely wasn't gonna happen, going to some hick school on the Canadian prairies where I couldn't even get a legitimate bachelors degree. Thus spaketh mom! She wanted me to be a lawyer, but she would have no problem with me being a minister as long as I did it right. You get a four year bachelor's degree, and then you go to seminary and get a master's. And then you get a job in a mainline denomination with guaranteed minimum salary and, hopefully, the cream will rise to the top and you'll end up in one of the big churches and make decent money and everyone will love and respect you (and your mom will feel good about herself!).

To be perfectly honest, it sounded like a good plan to me. I had no problem with it, except for the fact that, as far as I could tell, the Creator of the universe wanted me to go to this Prairie place. And when the Creator of the universe wants you to do something, you just have to suck it up and do it. Even if everyone, and I mean virtually everyone, in your life thinks you are crazy.

To be continued . . .

Spiritual Autobiography

My dad had seven brothers and a sister. They could have been a baseball team. Dad was second oldest, and then came his younger brother, Forrest. I had no memory of ever seeing Forrest. I think I probably saw him when I was a little snot, but I have no memory of this. Forrest was a rare and exotic creature. Forrest was a missionary. And Forrest was on his way to my house so God could use him to explode my life.

Forrest was a missionary to a native American tribe that was located so far north that they were just south of the Arctic circle. I think they would receive their "stuff," their supplies, once a year. Probably in the spring. That is to say that in an average year they got to go "shopping" just once. They placed an order with someone and the stuff got sent up to them. It was a fairly Spartan existence in a lot of ways. In my senior year of college, when my family had come up for my graduation, and Forrest and his family were living at the school (he had joined the school staff), my dad took us all out to a restaurant to celebrate. The older of my two cousins was around twelve years old. That was the first time she had ever eaten in a restaurant.

Forrest and family had arrived while I was in school that day. When I arrived home, it became clear that in my status as the leading religious fanatic in my family, that I would have a lot to talk to Forrest about. I hadn't told anyone that God and I were having this little argument. So I sat in the living room and we visited until bedtime. And then I got up and walked down the hall to my bedroom. And just as the door was closing, Forrest called out, "When do you think you might like to come to Prairie and get some Bible training?" If he had waited thirty seconds longer to say that, I wouldn't have heard him. And my whole life would have turned out different.

So I went out to talk to him about "Prairie." Where and what was Prairie? A Bible Institute up in Canada? I really don't remember anything specific that he told me about the school. The conversation ended and I went back into my bedroom. And as the door closed, the words of my prayer came back and hit me in the face. "You have no right to make promises in Your word that You won't keep." And I knew, I just knew, that this was my answer. I knew what the next step was. I was going to Prairie. Wherever, and whatever that was.

To be continued . . .

Spiritual Autobiography

It was the second semester of my senior year in high school, and the pressure was on. I was born at the height of the baby boom, and if you wanted to get into a good many colleges and universities, you had to be accepted by the spring of your junior year. There were just too many of us clamoring for the available places.

On top of everything else, I had the full weight of my mother's expectations and insecurities bearing down on me. I was the second child. My older brother had dropped out of college. (He has since gone on to finish his degree and then get a master's.) And my mom was a house wife. The kids were what she did for a living. The way we turned out either validated her or made her feel like a failure. My dad, as usual, was keeping it low key. My dear old mom probably didn't have a low key to keep it in. "What are you going to do? Would you please make up your mind? You're running out of time."

The problem was that I didn't feel like I had the right to decide what to do. I felt like I needed to do whatever God wanted me to do, but I wasn't hearing anything from Him. So as the pressure mounted, I got mad at God and told Him off. "You have no right to make promises in Your word that You don't keep!" I remember saying to Him. And then I stopped praying and reading my Bible.

Looking back after all these years, I hardly know what to say about this. I was beginning to know God. I was beginning to understand how wonderful He was. But my understanding was so limited.

Let me tell you about my God. He can't lie. I'm not saying that He has decided not to lie; He can't lie. Everything about God is perfect and perfectly beautiful. If God could get better, He wouldn't be perfect, He would be on the way to perfection. If He could somehow get worse, then He wouldn't be perfect. If you really are perfect, you can't get worse. You lack the capacity to become imperfect. If you had the capacity to become imperfect, that in and of itself would be an imperfection.

I was having my first crises of faith and trust, and I wasn't doing very well. I should have trusted Him. I should never, ever have said that to Him. I didn't know it at the time, but all I had to do was wait two more weeks. The answer was on it's way.

And the answer, when it came, was going to go off like an explosion in my young life.

To be continued . . .

Spiritual Autobiography

Now I want to go back to what I experienced when I finished reading the sermon on the mount. If I may be so bold as to quote myself, then Holy Spirit inside me said, “This is what you have been looking for.” I’d like to talk about that for a few minutes.

I’ve only heard an audible voice once in my whole life. It was so real that I turned around to see who was speaking, but there was no one there. All of the rest of the communication I have received from God has been what is referred to in the Bible as the still, small voice. Basically, what happens is that God puts a thought in your brain. Now if you think about it, if we believe in a devil who can put thoughts in our brains, then wouldn’t it make sense that God could and would do the same thing?

But how do we tell the difference between a God inspired thought, a devil inspired thought, or our own thoughts (which is like 99.999% of what goes on in your brain)? Experience will teach you. Unfortunately, this is something that is better “felt than telt.” And yes, you are likely to make mistakes from time to time.

The cards and letters I have been sending you are a perfect example of what I have been talking about. I had an inward sense, some might call it an inward intuition that I should reach out to you at this time. Originally I was just going to do the cards, but then I found myself having too much to say to fit it on 3 X 5 cards. With that, I began to get the sense the I should share my spiritual autobiography with you. I also sense that, if you haven’t already, these letters will lead you to believe in God in a new and deeper way, which is sometimes called “saving faith.”

So, how am I doing so far? Did I really hear from God? Was I supposed to share this material with you?

Here are two tests you can apply to what you perceive to be inward guidance. First and most important, is what you are feeling led to do in any way contrary to the clear teaching of the Bible? I have heard stories of people who had gotten a “revelation” that they were supposed to divorce their wife, and a woman was supposed to divorce her husband, and then the two of them were supposed to get married. Obviously anyone who thought God was telling them to do this hasn’t been reading their Bible very much.

The other test you can use is to ask the question, “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” In this case, the only bad thing that I can think of that could happen because I have written this to you is that you might decide I am some kind of a spiritual wack job. I guess I’m willing to take that risk to do what I believe God is asking me to do.

To be continued . . .

Spiritual Autobiography

All of this happened when I was 16 years old. That means that I have been disciple of Jesus for 40 years now. I became a Christian when I was five or six, but I didn’t become a disciple until I was 16. A disciple is someone who tries to do what Jesus said to do. He studies it. He thinks about it. He prays about it. And then he tries to live like that.

Let me give you an example. A couple of years ago I got into a power struggle with some of my employees. They went behind my back and told my boss some lies about me. They really hurt my feelings. When the boss investigated, she found out that they were lying, and we dealt with that situation. But I remember my boss saying to me, “Can you continue to work with these people who have treated you so badly? Should I try and assign you to another house?”

And I said, “It’s not going to be a problem.” And it wasn’t. Here’s why. Jesus told me to forgive them. You’ve heard his instructions on the matter, I’m sure. It’s in the Lord’s prayer. “Forgive us our debts (sins) as we forgive our debtors (those who sin against us).” In other words, Jesus said that I should pray to be forgiven to the same extent that I forgive others. I don’t know about you, but I want to be forgiven for everything; but that means I am supposed to forgive everyone in my life who does me wrong.

In the sermon on the mount He told us to love our enemies and to pray for those who do us wrong. I have learned to apply that literally. If I am upset at someone, I try and say a little prayer for them everything I become aware of anger or resentment against them. “God, please bless and protect so and so in everything they do today.” If you pray that little prayer consistently you will find that resentment will begin to fade away. The point is, I did exactly what He said to do and it worked.

I didn’t do this because I saw it on Oprah. I didn’t do this because I read it in a self help book. I did it because I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I did it because Jesus spoke with God’s infinite, perfect wisdom. I did it because Jesus is my boss (that’s pretty much what the word Lord means). For forty years I have been trying to connect every part of my life to what is taught in the Bible.

I haven’t always succeeded. I have a lot that I needed forgiveness for. But I keep on keeping on, trying to become more and more like Jesus. I have never regretted trying to live like this.

To be continued . . .

Spiritual Autobiography

So there I was, a kid in high school, looking for some guidance about my life, and I wasn’t sure where to turn. I remember trying yoga. The meditation was kind of cool, but it didn’t fill the need. I decided to read a book about Sigmund Freud; he was supposed to be the big expert in human behavior. Please, please, please do not waste the precious hours of your life reading this man’s drivel. Most people in the mental health field have pretty much abandoned his cockeyed ideas. So I read some self help books. I was searching, but I wasn’t finding what I needed.

Now I’m sure you’re probably thinking, “But Mark, you were a Christian boy. Why didn’t you just crack open your Bible and find some answers in there?” I suppose I would have done that if it had occurred to me, but remember, I didn’t really have an role models when it came to Bible study. But one day, when I was down in the basement lifting weights, this program came on the TV. They were offering a free book called “Planet in Rebellion,” that was supposed to help you understand about our place in the cosmos. Well, that sounded a bit like science fiction to me, and I was reading a lot of science fiction at the time. So I sent for the book.

It turns out that the people on the TV were Christians and with the book came an offer for a free Bible study course. So I sent for that sucker and started to work on it when it arrived. I was studying the Bible. Imagine that.

Meanwhile, my mom had become good friends with this Baptist lady. She came from the kind of Baptist church where the pastor still believed in the Bible and actually had something to say that was worth hearing when he preached.

Now the only Bible I had was the Revised Standard Version. It was okay, but it was a little bit much for a junior in high school to handle. But the Baptist lady gave everyone in our family a translation of the New Testament in modern English by a man named J.B. Phillips. The only problem was, she was short one copy. So I didn’t get one. I believe the reasoning was that I was already the resident religious fanatic, doing a Bible study on my own of all things, so I probably didn’t need another Bible. Well! This peeved me. I decided I would go and buy a copy. And I did.

I think I was done with the other Bible study by this point, so I decided to just open this New Testament and read it like a book. The Bible study I had done had sent me from verse to verse, spread out all over the Bible, to teach you things. But this was going to be different. I would read the New Testament just like you would read any other book.

Matthew is the first book in the New Testament. It begins with a chapter of so and so begat so and so. Boring, but I decided to persevere. Then it got talking about the dude named John the Baptist. That was a little more interesting. And then I got to chapter five, the beginning of the sermon on the mount. I can still remember reading it for the first time (this was a little before we voted not to study it in Sunday school). I couldn’t believe all this stuff was in there and nobody had told me about it. I couldn’t believe that a pastor could preach week after week, year after year, and never get around to teaching people about the sermon on the mount. I was absolutely dumfounded.

And then I reached the end of the sermon and read what Matthew had to say about the crowd’s reaction to what Jesus had to say. “The crowd was astonished at the power behind his teaching. For his words had the ring of authority, quite unlike those of their scribes.” Apparently the teaching of their scribes and the preaching of my pastor had something in common and this problem of having unqualified, unequipped religious leaders has been around for a loooooooong time. That was my first reaction.

Then Holy Spirit inside me said, “This is what you have been looking for.” And I knew it was true. The Bible would help me to understand life and show me how to live.

(You probably can’t find a copy of the Phillips New Testament apart from a used book seller. If you wanted the modern equivalent, I would recommend the New Living Translation.)

To be continued . . .