mere freedom. (part 1)

Well it has been way too long since the last post, but a better time then ever to write a response to my bro. I feel like so much time has passed I should leave a little update for the readers and for us to look back on!

So much has happened since Jake posted. He has visited me twice (Colorado Ski Trip and Mavs NBA Finals Game 5!!!). We have shared some incredible times together, taken some great pictures (see below) and had some great conversations along the way. Jake wrote his last post right before he came to visit me for our Colorado trip. We had some short conversations about his post but not many at length.

I wasn't able to leave a comment at the time of the post, but I was really thankful for his honesty. It's about as open as I've known my brother to be about his own beliefs and it's great that we have it in writing. Any Christian out there reading should not be offended by my brother's comments and parallels to Santa. He makes a very real comparison that I'm sure a lot of folks haven't considered.  Believing a culturally accepted idea without careful examination of the personal implications on your life, can lead to a lot of disgruntled belief systems. "The Santa Effect"  if we want to call it that, has probably happened to a lot of Christians.

Let me be clear though: Santa is nothing like Jesus. Just on your logic brother, the reason people don't believe in Santa anymore isn't because they came to the knowledge of him not being real; it's because he is not real. Jesus is real. Historical and empirical data can back it up. Yet, even the bible clearly states that there are people that will never come to know who Jesus is (Romans 9:16), even though God desires everyone to know who He is (John 3:16). The people that love and trust Jesus, know Him because He is real. There wouldn't be an evangelical following of over a billion people for someone who claimed to have rose from the dead over 2000 years ago (something Santa can't compete with) if He wasn't real.

Another thought I had was on our upbringing. Jake's description of our childhood is accurate, yet his point of view on our community is obviously different from mine. Jake mentions that we were surrounded by Christians in our family. His description of an Aussie Christian is,

 "a belief in a spiritual God, but without disrupting a BBQ and a good drink on the weekends"

I would call this an accurate description, but my point of view would yield that this person is not a Christian. This is not to say that Christians don't participate in BBQ's or a couple of quiet ones (I certainly do!). However, if I were to continue on this line of thinking I could write a completely different blog post (coming soon!). I say all of this to say that from my perspective, Jake and I grew up in a loosely committed Catholic family that had thoughts about God but didn't know God. To catch a fuller context of this you have got to read Jake's previous post.

Those are just a couple of thoughts I have on your post, brother. I could go a lot deeper, but I'll save my others for later or in more of our conversations about this. :)

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As I started writing this post, I didn't realize how long it would actually become, so I've decided to break it up into 2 parts. Part 1 will be most of the context in which I lived before becoming a Christian. Part 2 will deal more with my conversion and the immediate changes I felt on my life once it happened. This event at age 15, where my relationship with Jesus Christ began, was one of the most joy-filled experiences of my life, that has continued to produce more joy every day of my life. My story, as I've come to realize has also had very little to do with me, however, this first part will sound very me focused.

As a child I attended the same Catholic school (from 1st - 7th grade) as my brother, which led to public school (8th - 12th grade). Entering public school I had an idea of who God was, but I wasn't too interested in pursuing what I thought about it/him. My life at that point revolved only around one thing: basketball. I played any chance I got and as many teams as I was invited to. I was blessed with opportunities to travel, to play in a national tournament and get selected to some very elite programs. 

My regimen was very disciplined, my diet extremely curated and life, for lack of a better term, was very Catholic. My training had taught me that the only way to get somewhere in life is through a lot of hard work, and if someone gets ahead of you it's because they wanted it more than you did. So in my high school teenage years, I wanted to be a professional basketball player more than you did. And I'm not saying that to my brother.....I'm saying that to everyone. No one wanted it more than I did. Yet, I soon learned that just wanting it more didn't necessarily make you the best. But that's what I wanted; to be the best. I certainly had it in my mind that I was the best.

I was given every opportunity to become a professional basketball player. I had personal coaches, encouraging and supportive family and a community of basketball players that challenged me and ultimately made me a better player. Most of these elite players that I was on teams with were very good basketball players. They also had the advantage of playing in very large established programs with lots of other great coaches around them. The program I played in was more rural, a lot smaller and didn't get the kind of exposure as the others. I put in a lot of hard work to get to the level of some of these other players. In my heart, I thought I was the best, but in my head I knew I wasn't.

Ultimately when I realized that I wasn't the best, and that all my might wasn't getting me to that position, my life took a downward spiral. It started slowly, but quickly took a turn for the worse. Thankfully, drugs and alcohol are not a part of my story even though for many around me it was. My struggle, however, came with a condition that is just as addicting as those other things: depression. As my desire to play basketball waned, my self esteem got really low. It's weird to think of low self esteem or depression as addicting, but it can be. My thought on this from my own personal experience is that you become so focused on yourself and how you are feeling that you block out everything else that isn't focused on you. I got to a point where I didn't want to be around anyone. By the time I was 15 I was in the darkest place I had been in my short life. I felt that I had no friends (even though I was always surrounded by people), my afternoons after school were filled with sleep (even though my body wasn't tired) and I wrestled with suicidal thoughts (even though I never acted on them or attempted to. Praise God!). I truly felt at that point there wasn't a way out. 

The only light I had in my life at that point (or so I thought) was this one girl whom I thought was really cute: Rachael (yep, you know her Jake, and yes I've shared this story with her and her husband!). I thought she was the best thing going and I did all I could to get attention from her. She was in my extended circle of friends at the time and at some point in a brief conversation we had with each other, she invited me to attend church with her. Being completely honest, I had absolutely no desire to attend the church service. But I was interested in seeing her. So apparently, that's all the motivation I needed to go to church.

Mum drove me to the service (as I was too young to drive) and dropped me off at Lesmurdie Baptist Church for their Sunday night service. My goal was to wait around until Rachael came, walk in with her, sit through the service and pretend like I cared enough so she would talk with me afterwards. But to make a long story short, I never got that opportunity. She completely stood me up and never came to that service.

The more embarrassing part of this story was that one of my classmates that I recognized from school was also waiting outside the church. I had no idea why he was there at the time, because i didn't take him as a church goer. I came to find out later that he was there for the same reason I was. He had also been invited by Rachel, and had the same crush as I did. Probably had the same plan too. (OK....he probably wasn't as desperate as I was :)

We stood there for a good 20 minutes. Waiting. Everyone went inside, and it was just us two. Standing outside the front of the church. Waiting....... At one point he graciously walked over to me and asked if I wanted to go inside. I reluctantly said "OK" and walked in with him, but quickly found my own seat once we entered. 

  

From the instant I walked into that church, I couldn't believe what my eyes saw. All my Catholic background had taught me was that church was a place with bible readings and boring music and hard wooden pews. This church was different. They had a rock band, a drum kit, a mosh pit full of teenagers and cushions on the seats! I was instantly overwhelmed with how excited people were. I couldn't understand what they were making all their fuss about. Especially at a church. 

My shock quickly turned to curiosity. As I took my seat, my eyes wandered all around the room. I was trying to see who I could recognize from school. There were a lot of kids my age there, many that I knew. And they all seemed really happy too. Did I mention the mosh pit?

What I couldn't grasp was why they were so happy. God didn't make you happy. God told you what was right and what is wrong, and if you did more wrong things than right things God was not happy. And I had never met anyone that did more right things that wrong things. Which meant you could never be happy or 'right with God'. That was my understanding of God at that point of my life, and my fear now is that there are many people trapped in this understanding of God.

As I sat and listened to the sermon, the youth pastor did something I had never heard before. He talked about characters in the bible like he knew them. Like he had met them for lunch earlier that day or something. If I hadn't of grown up being a Catholic, I may have mistaken some of the characters he was describing as his neighbors from down the street.

When he started talking about Jesus, things started to get even stranger. People would cheer, start clapping and some would burst out in tears. At that point if you were crying, people would surround you and begin to pray. Something had happened inside of those people that I just didn't grasp. At first I thought it was just for show. I quietly thought to myself that I wouldn't let myself do that. Crying didn't look like that much fun in front of all those people anyway. 

That was my first experience of church outside of my Catholic background. I was shocked. I'd never seen church done that way before. People were genuinely happy and excited about their lives. In my state of depression, this was very different to how I was feeling personally. Even more shockingly, they were excited about God! I couldn't figure it out. Why were people so excited about God? Wasn't he just an eternal policeman in the sky? Were they just masochists waiting for their lightning bolt to strike them? I had to find out what was different about these people.

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I'll end Part 1 here. Part 2 will deal with what happened at the joyous point of my conversion. I titled the story "mere freedom", because I hope you see from this part, the bondage I was in from my own emotions and thoughts. There is no need in this forum to go into great detail about how it deep that stage was in my life or the causes of it. But when I look back on this stage of my life now, I really begin to see the one thing that was keeping me there: my unrelenting focus on me.

Jake I'm not sure how much of this you were aware of or knew of, but I'm glad to share it with you. I'd love to hear your perspective of this stage in my life too, but I promise I won't wait to hear it before I start working on part 2 :)

Love you bro. Glad this conversation is ongoing...

 Jake and I in Colorado about to go skiing...

On the mountain with Bec....must have been bright out

 Heading into game 5 of the 2011 NBA Finals! Mavs vs. Heat!

At our seats! Mavs win!! Jake flew in from London just for the game!