This is Part 3 in a series leading up to Easter.  It is my story of rejecting God, finding salvation, falling from grace, and then being redeemed.  If you find this blog but haven’t yet read part 1, you can find it here, REJECTION OF GOD, SALVATION, FALL, AND REDEMPTION – PART 1  or Part 2 here, REJECTION OF GOD, SALVATION, FALL, AND REDEMPTION – PART 2  Let’s dive in to Part 2,

Fall – Part 3

I had already gone through a rejection of God, only to have my heart changed while I slept that lead to my salvation.  Now was the time for me to experience new life, and I did.  I dove into reading the bible and learning who God is.  I moved away from “sin” in my life and I learned the power of forgiveness.  I did all I could to live a good christian life.  Although I was a generally good person at heart, there were things inside me that weren’t so easy to get rid of.  So instead of putting them to death, I just papered over them and hoped no one would notice.

Pride

For a number of years I played in a band called Waterproof Feat.  The band’s name was a play on words and comes from the story in the bible about Jesus walking on water.  It was a Christian-ish band and we played at a lot of churches and festivals.  I really enjoyed playing guitar, and I enjoyed hanging out with students, but most of all I really enjoyed the attention.  Remember, 99% of the girls that I knew would have nothing to do with me, but now with a spotlight, that was starting to change.

I was already cocky and sure of myself in a lot of ways, but being on stage inflated my ego.  People cheered for me, they asked for autographs, and we even had people that followed us from show to show.  God offered me intimacy, but once I had that, I now craved attention.

And I was getting attention.  I got it on stage, leading students at church, and even at work.  People were noticing me and I loved it.  I even had a girlfriend, which for 20+ years of my life I thought would never happen.

One day, I was called in for a band meeting.  I didn’t think much of it, but I would soon learn the attention I was about to receive was not the attention I would want.  The band came together to talk to me about my pride.  “You’re wrong, I’m prideful at all!” I thought to myself.  But I was, and now I was being called out on it.  After about half an hour of discussion, I was kicked out of the band, humiliated.

However, instead of being humbled, I papered over, hardened my heart, and pressed on.  Pride does not die so easily.

Lust

In the words of Buckwheat on SNL many years ago, I was “Wooking for wuv in all da wong pwaces”.  I struggled with lust from a very young age, always knowing its shame, but never knowing how to escape from it’s grasp.  Lust is a tricky bitch, because she disguises herself as love, and I seem to fall for it every time.  She would take my Godly desire for love and sexual intimacy and turn it against me. I was looking for love, but I only knew how to turn to lust to fulfill my God given desire.  And it left me empty every time.

Romans 7:13 “…it used what is good to bring about my death.”

I hated lust, but it seemed like I was destined to be ever charmed by her advances.  I was introduced to pornography at a very young age, and was addicted to it by the time I was 12.  I wrote about The Man I Hated Most but I may have been a little dishonest.  I left out the part where he introduced my brother and I to pornography.  While there are many reasons I hated that man, I was able to overcome the damage from nearly all of them, except lust.  Lust’s destruction of my soul left lasting damage.

This damage lingered on into marriage.  I should have been maturing in my sexuality through my teenage years, into my twenties, and into marriage.  The reality is that I hadn’t matured, my growth stunted by addiction.  Addiction stunts growth.  So here I was, a late twenty-something with a sexual maturity of maybe a middle school or high school boy.  Although unintentional, because I deeply loved my wife, I did unspeakable damage to her and our marriage.

Instead of seeking help, I papered over, and gave in to lust’s deception.  Lust lied and told me I would never overcome, so I gave up and submitted to her demands.

Idolatry

I had God as my Savior, but I also had other gods.  When I should have been looking to God, first, to meet my needs, I looked around for easier or more familiar solutions.  The closest one to me at that time to turn to was my wife.  When I said I got the attention I craved, I meant to say that I got attention from her.  When I looked for intimacy, instead of turning to my first love, God, I turned to my carnal desires, acted out towards her.  In a way, I made her my god.

She was a good wife, but she was no god.  And so through the years she lost herself to my demands that she be my god.  God is limitless, but she had her limits and could only give so much before being empty.  But my expectations demanded more than she was able to offer.  My demands were so great because my hunger to be filled and fulfilled was voracious.  Always empty myself because I drank from wells that were dry and never satisfying.  I should have been drinking from the spring of life, Jesus.

John 4:14 “…whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Blinded by my pride, consumed by my lust, and unfulfilled by a false idol, I fell.

The Fall

After 6 years of marriage, my wife left.  The world around me that I had built came crashing down.  The death of my marriage would last for over a year.  And through the year I found out that there were more bottoms than I thought possible.  I would hit rock bottom, and then that bottom would give way.  I was utterly devastated and torn apart.  I learned what weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth meant.

I wept, oh I wept.  For hours at a time, all the time, and every time.  I wept until slept, exhausted from weeping only to wake up to the nightmare which was now my life.  All of my life’s hopes and dreams now crumbling apart before my eyes.  I wailed and cried out to God.  My legs would writhe uncontrollably and I would clutch my heart, the pain unending.  I journaled every moment and began writing all that was within me.  It was dark, very dark.  I would gnash my teeth and burst out in anger, throwing things against the wall, hitting my fists into the floor.  If only the physical pain could take away my emotional pain.  Maybe I wasn’t hitting hard enough.

I was forced to my knees and even lower, confronted with my sin.  My pride, my lust, and my idolatry.  The executioner stood over me wielding his razor sharp ax drawn high.  It was now time for me to die.  God was my executioner, and killing me was the only way for me to live.

John 12:24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

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