“The heart is deceitful above all else, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”
I was raised modestly Catholic. I was baptized, confirmed and received my first holy communion as a lad. I went to church on Sundays, dressed up nice and uncomfortable for Easter and Christmas. I sat, stood, sat, kneeled, sat, and stood again with the best of them. But belief was never part of me. It was an obligation I didn’t – and didn’t want to – understand.
I went to catechism with classmates in an upstairs room of the parish office building, which was little more than a hundred year old converted farmhouse (at least, that’s roughly how I remember it). Our instructor, whom I cannot remember anything about save the fact that she was a woman, tolerated me and few others in those after school sessions. I paid no attention and preferred to amuse myself with some of the clownish friends I made in those dull, stuffy afternoons. Religion was of no use or interest to me during those days. Oh, but for the occasional guitarist that played upbeat catholic worship songs during certain seasons. I do remember some of the songs, and the sing-songy tempo with which he played. Other than that, I don’t remember a single homily or lesson from those days.
Suddenly, my dad was different. He talked differently and about different things. The language of “Lord and Savior” and being “born again” entered the household. We started to go to a different church. It was a Baptist church that seemed very concerned with Jesus, salvation and hell. I don’t recall being afraid or amused or…anything whatsoever. But clearly this was going to be the new course, with my mom reluctantly obliging my father’s newfound direction.
Of that church I only have the faintest recollection. It was the next church that I remember the most. It was in a nicer part of town and had what seemed like a less grumpy pastor. My most-loved hymns were learned here – hymns I never forgot and comfort me during these times. As a boy in this church, I would learn that I needed to be saved, and that Jesus was the one to do it (Acts 4:12). I didn’t want to be, though. It seemed less fun (a tactic of the evil one) and the other boys in the church seemed miserable. Somehow it was planted in my mind that I would have to marry an ugly girl and do missions work in Africa, the latter of which I had no knowledge of other than the fact that I heard it was an awful place. And so through my pubescent and teen years I would I would attend church, go through the motions, without much inward movement toward the Kingdom of God. What I saw was a guaranteed fire escape in exchange for an unhappy life.
Do note though that during all of this there was some change in belief. God was now a feature of my belief system, I was mildly afraid of Him, and knew I needed to be saved.
SDA
Last Things 