Well. Somehow I landed myself a blog. I’m not exactly sure why, bit seems as though the how is pretty self-explanatory. I’m not that smart. I was invited to join another blog that I was invited to join as part of a discussion group. When I went to the page to join the discussion, I mistakenly signed up for my own blog. Since I keep getting emails from the nice WordPress people, and since I seem to never have a shortage of opinions about everything, I thought to myself, “self…(I know, oldest joke blah blah blah) why don’t you start putting some of these things out there (instead of letting them clog up your head) and see what happens!”
So without further rambling, I do believe that an introduction would be a nice place to start.
I am a Christian. There. I said it. I believe that not only that a God exists, but a personal and loving Creator that is omniscient (all knowing), omnipresent (everywhere), and omnipotent (all powerful). I wasn’t always. I grew up in a denomination that stressed performance. once I hit a certain age I started looking around at the structure and tenets of said denomination, and some things just didn’t quite make sense to me. So after looking around at how everyone else did “church” I decided in my infinite wisdom that since no one could agree on any of this “God-stuff” that it was all just a bunch of hooey designed to bilk money from weak minded fools.
So I started living life the way I wanted. If there’s no God, then there’s no heaven. If there’s no heaven, there’s no gates. No gatekeeper, no rules, no one to whom I needed to stand accountable. If it feels good, do it. That was ok, for a while. But for some reason, I could never shake this nagging feeling of being unsatisfied. The parties always ended, the booze always dried up, most of the friends and/or relationships I had with people ended for one reason or another. Which kept me wanting for more. I didn’t know what the answer was, so the search got more and more intense. Usually that meant getting to the bottom of another bottle. As you can imagine that never usually ended up well. It also didn’t help finding an answer. It almost always created a new one.
After a while I got to the point where all this, we’ll call it “me-ism” began to wear on everyone around me except one friend. (well, two, but we’ll get into that later.) He had started going to church with his wife. They had both grown up in church and learned what it was like to have church as a vital part of life. I resisted for a while, insisting that the church thing was NOT for me. He was persistent and gentle, giving me space and time to “make up my own mind”. Eventually I could no longer find anymore excuses or rationalize my wanting to not go. I guess part of me wanted to just go and have the people look down their nose at me, not welcome me, I’ll be right about the judgemental hypocrites and go home and never darken their door again. I didn’t really know any of that from experience, just got it from what other people had told me.
When I did finally relent and go I was shocked and amazed at how wrong I was. The people I met were warm, friendly, and very welcoming. Nearly everyone seemed genuinely concerned that I enjoyed my time there. There were a few curmudgenly types that seemed to not want me back, but as I came to find out those people were always grumpy. Kind hearted, but grumpy. These people changed my mind and seemed so sincere that I felt that I needed to go back. I began to think that this “God fellow” may actually be real. I began going to Sunday School and learning about God and that He has a plan for each one of us. Now, lest anyone accuse me of falling for their “brainwashing” let me state clearly and emphatically that my cynicism would override ANY brainwashing system. If stuff don’t make sense to me, there’s usually a reason for it. The transformation from cynical agnostic to believer had begun. It took some time, but I did finally get to a place where I finally decide that I had enough information to begin following God. I don’t have all the answers. There are still things that go on that don’t make sense. But I have also come to put my faith in a God that loves us. He wants nothing more than each of us to love him back. It seems to be too fantastic to some. Their reasons I’m sure are valid. My job is not to change minds. My job is to let you know my experience and maybe you’ll change your own mind if you don’t already believe. Too many people who don’t believe just want to “win the argument”. Most don’t want to be honest enough with themselves to think that there may something better; Someone looking out for them. Maybe they don’t want to change. Maybe they don’t want anyone telling them how to live their life. Been there. Done that. Bought the hat and t-shirt.
The point of this blog will to be to share my experience of God, His love and faithfulness to me. I may even share stories of other people. I will be more than happy to answer questions, or anything like that. However, I will not answer anyone that just throws out thinly veiled versions of the “nuh-uh” defense. Thanks for reading and tell a friend!
Leif P Gjellestad's Blog 