I grew up in what I thought was a normal home; let’s face it we all do. Normal is simply what we and our neighbours grow up in. As I grewolder though I found myself becoming curious about God. Shhh — don’t tell anyone. I didn’t want to be religious or be weird. I certainly didnot want my friends to know what I was thinking. It came to a point when in my 20’s I found sex, drugs and rock and roll, as the old songgoes, lost it’s appeal. The party life was fun for a season but got old. I wanted to know who or what God was and I didn’t know where toturn.
I would drive my car to church parking lots but not have the courage to go in. After all, what would those weird religious people do? Wouldthey try to sign me up for something I did not want to do? Fear is funny that way, the unknown is usually more scary than reality.
In the “normal” home that I was raised in, I was taught that if your good outweighed your bad, God would accept you. There was kind of anunspoken thought of — you’re OK don’t worry about it. But I wanted to be sure.
I met a girl — no not like that — who invited me to a Christian student meeting at UVic. I went and strangely enough found a group ofpeople there who were kind of cool! That surprised me frankly. I kind of thought these Christian Jesus freaks would be weird but waswelcomed by a group of real people. I went to a party with them and they actually drank wine. I had all sorts of preconceived notions aboutreligious people that were completely unfounded.
My friend helped me understand one key concept that changed my life. She showed me from the Bible that all of us are the same, we allhave sin in our lives. I didn’t even really understand what sin was but she explained it to me. She said that all of us sin and that Jesus diedon the cross to pay for my sin and if I would simply believe that and trust Him I will become a Christian!
What?! I don’t have to go to church, be weird, quit smoking, drinking and all sorts of other crazy behaviour to know God? No! You may wantto, but it is not immediately required. I was amazed by this. So over 30 years later I am one of those “religious people” as we are known. ButI want “normal people” to realize that the preconceived notions you have may be unfounded as well, also there are a number of goodchurches in town full of cool people who will be patient with you and not ask you to do anything you don’t want to do. If you are like I wasand could use some honest answers to honest questions, give me a call, text, post or smoke signal. I promise to be discreet and offersimple clear answers — really! After all, don’t you want to be sure about something as potentially important as eternity?
