The Bit and the Hook
Finding God the Hard Way
I’ll tell you a short version of my story, since Jesus Christ is Lord is trending.
I didn’t find God until I’d already started leaving my old religion, Social Justice. I had been “inoculated” against Christianity, as a lot of us in the modern world are - my pastor uses that phrase. It fits.
I thought I knew what Christianity was, and I rejected it. I let bad experiences with some who claim to be Christian prejudice me against Christ and his word. I let con-artists with big microphones represent Christ to me. I held a lot of judgmental stereotypes about Christians: that they were hateful, dumb, uneducated, judgmental, close-minded, bigoted, hypocritical, holier than thou.
During the process of slowly leaving Social Justice, I soon started wondering about issues of meaning and purpose. I became obsessed with finding out what others thought about the existence of a soul. I had always described myself as agnostic, and the more I thought about it I realized I couldn’t believe we are just computer brains in physical bodies. That kind of certainty is too closed-minded for me. And on a gut level I know it’s wrong. I know there is a love, an intelligence, a truth bigger than us. (I don’t care to or have to prove that to anyone, and can’t anyway. 🤷♀️ Its just what I know).
When God started pulling me to him, it was first through a non-denominational spiritual center called Agape, out in Los Angeles. That’s the only door I would have gone through at that time. In the first service I attended, I felt God. He spoke to me through the words of the Reverend - “God wants to see the face he gave you before your parents were born.” A great mix of joy and relief and grief washed over me and out of me in tears. I understood so much so suddenly. That my identity was not all of the things I had made it, all of the bad or good things that had happened to me, all of my wounds and all of my pride. My identity wasn’t my race or sex or any of the other trivial bars that made up my prison of self. My identity was a free, eternal and beloved child of God. Formed by him before my parents were even alive, formed by him at the beginning and end of time.
There is a verse repeated several times in the Bible that I found, after I moved to Texas, that called out to me from the page: “But I know your sitting down, your going out and your coming in, and your raging against Me. Because your raging against Me and your arrogance has reached My ears, I will put My hook in your nose and My bit in your mouth; I will make you go back the way you came.” Isaiah 37:28-29
Some of us only find God after everything else has been stripped away. Some of us are so stubborn, so arrogant and full of rage at God that we cannot see his light until everything else becomes dark. Some of us require the bit and the hook, and a firm but loving turning around by God. This is what happened to me. I found God the hard way, and I am grateful every day for it.
That’s the short version. One day I’ll tell the long version. Christ is Lord. He set me free. And hallelujah for that.
Oooh, thank you for reminding me of that verse!
Not too long ago, I was at a conference, and during a social time, I was having a very engaging conversation with a gentlemen about matters of faith. Details of that matter not, but a young man sitting near us overheard us, and interjected that he agreed with our conclusions, but from an atheistic point of view.
Intrigued, we encouraged him to continue, and the gentleman, we'll call Alex, asked him why he was atheist. The young man, call him Garry, said that he had been raised in a deeply faithful Christian household, but pulled away when his father died of cancer when Garry was 12 years old. "How could a loving God take a boy's daddy from him?" It was deeply painful to hear, and we did our best to refute all of his arguments which clearly came from atheist Tumblr talking points. His biggest stumbling block was putting God into a human-size box, failing to understand the enormity of Who God is, and what He has done. I cited Job quite a lot. We all parted ways with Garry promising to look into some of the verses Alex and I cited for him, and to ponder more some of the things we shared.
Little did I know that during all of this, Garry's mama, Alice, was sitting nearby, praying her little heart out that Alex's and my words would get through to Garry. She came up to me to thank me for talking to him like that. We prayed together, hugged and promised to keep in touch.
I will now share this verse with Alice, with the prayer that it gives hope and comfort. God once held Garry's heart, He will never let go of it.
I look forward to reading the long version one day. It's interesting to read about how people become religious. Christianity is so wonderful to learn about, too!