Are you on fire with the love of God? I asked myself this question all through my years as a Christian. I believed in God and that Jesus rose from the dead to save me from my sins, though I sure didn't focus my life on him as much as I was supposed to. I went to church and read my Bible, although not as often as I was expected to. I fought the daily battle in my life to be free of sin and sinful thoughts, but I was never as pure as my goal required. I even witnessed to non-believers, just not as fervently as I was told I should. I prayed every night and said all the right things... at least for awhile.
I couldn't help but notice that all the other Christians in my church were "filled with the Holy Spirit" and I was not. Why was I being denied this fire? I would watch as people lifted their hands in prayer, crying and overjoyed in the power of God that they were feeling in their hearts. The music moved them, the sermons inspired them, and the passion emanated from them like a torch in the darkness. Was I still in that darkness? Was I doing something wrong? Was I....a weak Christian?
I was raised in the Catholic Church with my mother by my side. I was baptized as a baby and I received confirmation in middle school. Religion meant nothing to me then. Church was a club, something you did because you were a member and attending church was a requirement of membership. So, when in my adolescence I turned to evangelical protestantism, religion found a new purpose in my life. No longer was God just some figure you talked about for an hour on Sunday mornings. He was Jesus and He wanted to mold me into the best person I could be: someone in his image.
This idea of self-improvement appealed greatly to me. Sure, He had saved me from my sins and all that, but here were real, tangible ideas that I could apply to my daily life. So when I feared that I had become a weak Christian, that I must have somehow held myself back, I became very disturbed. I committed myself to reading the Bible every night, yet I could never find the motivation. My prayers slowly dwindled as I ran out of new and meaningful things to say. I felt odd expressing my faith to others, especially children. The lively and exciting worship services that I attended slowly began to feel reminiscent of the old Catholic ritual masses. The guilt weighed over me day and night. This was all my fault. I was allowing this to happen. I was failing God.
I knew what I had to do. The Holy Spirit was being denied to me because I had never been baptized by choice. My Catholic infant baptism was invalid in the eyes of God as was my confirmation, a silly ritual created by man and not found in the Bible. I remember the night when I was baptized again. My mother was there, for support I guess, though I'm sure she wasn't as thrilled as everyone else. I told myself that after I was pulled out of the water that everything would change. The Holy Spirit would fill me and I would know God as I was meant to, filling me with fervor and joy like never before. But before we went out to perform the ceremony, I asked the minister to pray for me because I had a lingering fear that I needed reassurance from. We prayed a typical prayer and then waded out into the pool. He spoke some words about being born again, the holy spirit this and that, and then he asked me a question I could've answered yes to for years. "Do you accept Jesus as your personal savior, etc...." And then I was under water. And I rose up wet in front of all my family and friends...and my fear had come true. Days passed, weeks and months and eventually years, however the Holy Spirit did not come.
There was something in the back of my head that had bothered me for as long as I could remember, something that scared me, and I could no longer ignore it. All of the passionate Christians that I knew also seemed to be very emotional people, which I most certainly was not. Were they really feeling the presence of God, or were they just getting emotional about an idea that seemed very important to them? I suspected that it might be possible that I was not "feeling God's presence" because I was simply not an emotional person and that I would never feel Him as others do and thus I should trust in faith to make me stronger. That wasn't good enough for me.
Why should I have blind faith in something I can not know exists? You can't see God or touch his robes. You can't measure his actions or isolate the exact nature of his interventions. So why then must I believe in him if I can't at least "feel Him in my heart". Where was His still, small voice? There was another voice instead, a voice that would not be still and grew larger with each passing day. I feared what it could mean for my life, but I could not sweep it under the rug any longer.
I remember the day clearly. I was driving home from work and had been deliberating over the idea in my mind for the thirty or so minutes the trip usually takes. As I neared my exit I reached a conclusion that would prove to have a lasting affect on my faith. If God existed and he loved me, then he would do whatever it took to let me know he was there. So I prayed a very simple request of God, I kept it vague and easy to fulfill, as we so often do. I made a request that God, if he existed, would surely answer. "God I critically need you to let me know in some way, in any way, that you are real and that you love me." I would have accepted anything from a burning bush to a sudden hormonal shift in my body signifying an emotional response. And once again, none came. I waited patiently for months, asking the prayer multiple times. "God, I don't need much here, anything should suffice." God was silent. I continued through the rituals. I went to church, I sang the songs, I smiled when somebody said God loves you, but the truth that I had ignored for so long was finally unfolding before my eyes.
My last day as a Christian was ordinary enough. I was sitting in this very chair now as I write these words. I was confused. God was supposed to be there, and he wasn't. And I cried. The illusion had been ripped away and a new and startling world view lay before me. However, it was not an evil world view, but instead one of unadulterated honesty and simplicity. No more did I need "faith" to just believe in something that was so inherently impossible to begin with. My big, psychic, omnipotent, imaginary, magic genie of a friend in the sky who could bend the laws of physics just for me was gone, and everything was now free to make sense.
