{"id":958,"date":"2017-12-20T16:00:31","date_gmt":"2017-12-20T22:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/melissakaysimonds.com\/?p=958"},"modified":"2017-12-20T13:37:10","modified_gmt":"2017-12-20T19:37:10","slug":"own-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/melissakaysimonds.com\/?p=958","title":{"rendered":"Own It"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cFor the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.\u201d 1 Corinthians 1:18<\/em><\/p>\n

I used to think it sounded \u201cbetter\u201d when someone said they were an agnostic instead of an atheist. Agnosticism seemed less resolute. \u201cI don\u2019t know about the whole God thing,\u201d sounded mild, even malleable, compared to the hard-core, in-your-face, \u201cI hate God and the horse he rode in on!\u201d pugnacity of atheism. (You have to admit; atheists aren\u2019t typically easygoing.) But I misinterpreted agnosticism, which actually holds the position that God is not only unknown, but unknowable.<\/p>\n

Even so, most people these days who say they\u2019re agnostic probably mean they\u2019ve just sort of opted out of thinking about God and everything that goes along with him. After all, there are so many gods. How could you possibly know which one to choose? And there are so may variants of the religions that trail after them like wake turbulence. You might get tumbled around and bruised in one of them if you aren\u2019t careful. Best to keep your distance. In fact, that\u2019s the very advice a work buddy gave me once. He was a middle-aged PK, still smarting from wounds inflicted by his father\u2019s religion. \u201cDon\u2019t get too close to God, Lisa,\u201d he counseled, \u201cbecause he always takes more than he gives.\u201d Wow.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve known about God for as long as I can remember. My family were Baptists, the backslidden kind. For the most part, we went to church once a year on Easter Sunday. You can imagine how much fun that was. We went a few other times, too, when one or the other of my parents found themselves in the throes of conviction for a week or three. But it always wore off, eventually. Still, you don\u2019t spend even one Sunday in a Southern Baptist church without hearing the \u201cplan of salvation\u201d and figuring out that the journey to God entails a trip down the aisle to the altar to make a \u201cprofession of faith,\u201d not only in front of God, but in front of everybody else, too.<\/p>\n

I stewed in my own conviction through those years of intermittent and dreaded church services, and somewhere in the back of my adolescent mind I formulated a plan to make a deathbed confession and thereby dodge damnation. I know that sounds pretty silly, but it was the best I could come up with for the conundrum of believing I should be \u201cliving for God\u201d and not wanting to hang out at church, or with church people.<\/p>\n

Then one day, on the way to the Texas State Fair, a friend rocked my world. This friend had a sister, a Jesus Freak, who\u2019d told her about the Rapture, a.k.a., the Second Coming of Christ. My friend thoughtfully passed this little newsflash on to me.<\/p>\n

Wait! What? He\u2019s coming back?!?<\/p>\n

She told me everything she knew about it, and she was far less worried about it than I was. I\u2019m pretty sure the news wrecked my day at the Fair (at least, until I self-medicated), and it very definitely put a wrinkle in my deathbed confession plan. But, with time, I was able to iron that out. At least, until I went to lunch one day with my own sister, who\u2019d also become inflamed with love for Jesus. She told me, with enthusiasm, about a Bible passage, a parable, that had become especially vibrant to her recently. Rather than paraphrase, here it is:<\/p>\n

\u201cThen the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, \u2018Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.\u2019 Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, \u2018Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.\u2019 But the wise answered, saying, \u2018Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.\u2019 And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, \u2018Lord, lord, open to us.\u2019 But he answered, \u2018Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.\u2019 Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.\u201d Matthew 25:1-13 ESV<\/em><\/p>\n

Holy crap!<\/p>\n

This news was more than a wrinkle. It demanded a complete overhaul of my plan for dealing with the God problem.<\/p>\n

So, pragmatist that I am, I bit the bullet and decided I\u2019d go to church and walk the aisle if that\u2019s what it took to avoid the Big Lock Out. The very next Sunday found me at the altar of my parents\u2019 new church, which they\u2019d been attending since \u2013 you guessed it \u2013 they\u2019d become enamored with Jesus. It was the seventies, and people were falling for Jesus all over the place.<\/p>\n

But a funny thing happened on my way to salvation. At the altar, eyes closed tight, I met Jesus, and I realized that I\u2019d always known him, or that he\u2019d always known me. Whichever way I try to describe it, what happened was that he, Jesus, was instantly familiar to me, as if I were returning to the place \u2013 to the very One \u2013 I\u2019d come from. Before I came from anywhere else. It was that primal.<\/p>\n

So, later, when I discovered in the Bible phrases like, \u201cHe chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,\u201d they really resonated with me. That identity, that being \u201cfound in Christ,\u201d described how I felt. How I still feel.<\/p>\n

That was more than forty years ago, and in all that time, which really isn’t very much time at all, I can honestly say that I\u2019ve never believed more or less than I did at the altar that January morning in 1975. I\u2019ve always believed with the same degree of confidence: Absolute confidence. I\u2019m absolutely sure that God exists, and I\u2019m absolutely sure that Jesus is everything he said he is. I\u2019m absolutely sure that he knows me. I\u2019m absolutely sure that I know him, though imperfectly. But I\u2019m also absolutely sure that the time will come when I’ll know him just as well as he knows me. “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12 ESV) When I take time to stop and think about it, I look forward to that day.<\/p>\n

So, there it is. After years of study, years of prayer, years of worship, years of conversation with people about God and the meaning of existence, and even years of disappointment in myself and others, I still believe. I believe that God is knowable, and that I personally know him and am known by him.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve thought the matter through, and for the record, I identify as Christ\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.\u201d Galatians 2:20<\/em><\/p>\n

Merry Christmas!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cFor the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.\u201d 1 Corinthians 1:18 I used to think it sounded \u201cbetter\u201d when someone said they … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8Mo02-fs","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":46,"url":"https:\/\/melissakaysimonds.com\/?p=46","url_meta":{"origin":958,"position":0},"title":"A New Year’s State of Mind","author":"lsimonds","date":"January 1, 2002","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201cCan two walk together unless they are agreed?\u201d Amos 3:3 The will of God is a state of mind. 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