Jon’s Story

Still Struggling

My life has not been filled with dramatic encounters with God or radical changes in my behavior; rather it has been a long and drawn out process that is still going on today. I grew up as your average middle class, church attending, “do-all-the-right-things” boy. My earliest memory is probably sitting on a piano bench with my Grandma. She asked me if God was the Lord and Savior of my life. I didn’t really know what that meant at the time, but it sounded pretty cool so I decided to join the Christian club. I always liked going to church because we got to hear all these amazing stories about how God flooded the entire world and killed everybody except those who were on the Ark, how this guy named Jonah got eaten by a whale, and even how David and the Israelites killed the mighty Goliath. Actually, I can’t believe my parents actually let me hear these stories — they are pretty violent. Anyway, that’s all church really was to me: stories. Stories about how God got mad and a ton of people died. My view of God was that he was always angry at us humans and really wanted to punish us. My life was spent trying to please him. I would go to church every Sunday and Wednesday. I went to camp every summer. I even went to Chicago and Mexico on mission trips to prove to God that he didn’t have to be disappointed with me. But none of this seemed to work. I still felt like there was more I could do to help people. After failing to please God for 17 years, I decided that I was done.

I don’t remember what happened first. Did I give up on God first or did I start dating first? Regardless, at some point in time I switched from pleasing God to pleasing my girlfriend. She became the center or my universe and I was the center of hers. Dating her was great. I finally understood why everybody loved to date someone. When you date somebody for a long time you really get to know them. Their hopes, fears, dreams and whatever else you can think of. Only, this relationship I thought I was in control of all of a sudden found itself in areas that I wasn’t comfortable with. Things happened so fast. I looked back and didn’t know how I had fallen to where I was. I promptly exited that relationship but immediately entered another one. Once again, I found myself making my girlfriend the center of my universe and even though she was happy, I felt empty inside. One day she brought me to church. I hadn’t been in several months I think. That day, the pastor of the church gave a sermon on God’s love for us. At that exact moment I realized what had been missing from my view of God all those years. He loves us. No matter what we did or how we failed, God still loved us for who we are (or aren’t).

I would love to tell you that my life changed from that instant forward and that I walked off into the sunset to live a happy a fulfilling life. Even though it would make for a great story, that’s not how God works. Things have been really hard for me. Its been over three years since that day and I’m still fighting God. Even though I understand his love for me, I find it extremely hard to accept it free of charge. I don’t like handouts in life. There are days when this reluctance to accept love turns into doubting the very existence of God. Sometimes it all just seems so preposterous to me, that there is this almighty power that loves me even if I spit in his face and turn my back on him. But I can no longer deny the fact that I crave God with every fiber of my being. I crave him like a bird craves the early worm or like a young child craves attention. I want to be in a relationship with him that is perfect and in which there will be no disappointment—because he can’t fail. So even though I am having a hard time right now, brighter days are in store for me because I have the hope and the love of God, and who can beat that!?