I will forever be amazed that, after such a long absence from the Lord, He welcomed me back so readily and so lovingly into His large family of believers. At one point, I’d decided that, if He had indeed equipped me with all that I needed in the form of intelligence and common sense, I could set off totally on my own without His help. I had a number of reasons for doing this, not the least of which was that I’d be insulting God by not living up to His expectations of me as a smart person who used those smarts to the best advantage, that the wisdom he’d instilled in me would not only be enough to get me through life, but would also please Him and bring Him glory. Truth is, I was thinking selfishly at the time, and pleasing God was really the last thing on my mind. It just seemed to me the best way to proceed without acknowledging my need for Him.
After all, I hadn’t been given much in the way of instruction by all those adults who led me through my first 20 years of life. They had passed on a basic set of rules and very little doctrine, and I was essentially booted out of the nest with little explanation and expected to thrive and be a good Christian all my life. The way I saw it, as long as I did what I’d been taught, which amounted to not much more than imitating what I saw the adults around me doing, I’d be just fine. It wasn’t until recently that I realized that a child needs so much more than visuals and imitation to develop a deep love for God.
I vacillated for years between practicing my faith and ignoring it, and that was mostly out of a sense of loyalty to my parents, which I can see now was the wrong approach. Turning to God should never be about keeping someone else happy, but about willingly and joyfully agreeing to a life that doesn’t let HIM down.
As time went on, and I returned to my hedonistic ways, I finally came to the next most important excuse I had for keeping my distance from the Lord, which was that I did not believe that I deserved to be numbered among the many who’d been saved by simply repenting of their sinful lives and believing in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. My sins were too great to be forgiven, and my soul too blackened for me to ever even consider my name being entered into the Book of Life.
At the time, I was going to a church of a completely different denomination, and for all the wrong reasons, of which I was later to be ashamed. Time and circumstances eventually intervened, and when the pandemic hit and many churches were stopping their weekly services, I dropped out with great relief. I’d overstayed my welcome in that church, my original reasons for going no longer applied, and this would be the perfect time to do some soul-searching.
Many more years would pass before I was to start feeling like there was something missing in my life. And as so often is the case with me, I came upon the realization quite by accident. Now, I’ve read the Holy Bible several times from beginning to end, always getting more out of some parts of it than others. Then one day, I decided to do an internet search for any free courses that might help me get a better grip on the more obtuse passages. I found a few sites almost right away that sounded doable, so I entered the required contact information, hit “send” and waited for the first lessons to arrive.
When they did and I’d completed one or two initial lessons, I realized that Bible studies are geared to the belief system of whoever created the courses, with a subtle (or not-so-subtle) invitation to join their fellowship. I decided that I would stick to my original intention of expanding my knowledge of the Bible with no nod to any particular theology and created my own simple system that was based entirely on a single Bible verse: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that those who believe in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. It is actually one of the very few passages that I’ve been able to memorize, and it has become my mantra.
Despite the Bible being comprised of 66 books and thousands of words, anything apart from this verse simply supports God’s singular plan of reclaiming us as His own. And every single one of those words, beginning with the first line in Genesis to the final words in Revelation, is a stone in the path that leads directly to what happened on the cross 2,000 years ago. I also found that I can open the Bible to any two pages, no matter how far apart and distinct from each other they are. And somehow, their essence will flow into each other and back again. The entire test is a living pulsing entity, whose circulatory system keeps its basic message moving all the time. And no matter how often I reread certain books or passages, it always seems like I am reading them (again) for the first time.
Few people would argue that, after a long and tiring trip, it’s always good to get home again. Although I haven’t traveled much, my life has been a journey whose pathways have crossed and recrossed countless times, only to bring me back to where I started, each time with a few more stories to tell and not all of them inspiring. But despite that, there was a lesson in each one, if only to impress upon me the fact that they were events I would not want to relive or repeat.
At some point, I have no idea when, as most of the momentous decisions I’ve made along the way just sort of crept up on me, like a tiny ocean wave, growing a bit stronger with each attempt up the beach; but it was time to go home. I felt how the prodigal son must have felt as he wondered if he’d even be welcomed and forgiven, once he got there, but it was a chance I had to take, and at my age, my last one really.
So I took it, and I’m happy to say “It’s good to be home!”
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