But they still have a god

As a “hands on” public messenger of the Christian gospel in my local community I learned some powerful truths about human nature.  I learned that everybody holds firmly to a belief system (god) regardless of whether they say they believe in God or not.  It was a fascinating experience to listen to someone tell me something like, “I have no need of any God or religion, that’s for the weak and the superstitious.” How proud they were to express this with a sophisticated, “I feel very sorry for you”-type tone in their voice and look in their eyes.

I found such responses to be rather amusing too, because as I listened to myself being labelled, I would observe them with a good-luck charm on their person and in the car/home, perhaps a horse shoe over the door entrance, an occultic sign or symbol, star signs of the Zodiac, a Buddha statue, beads, artifacts from Africa and the Orient etc.  Many of these same people deeply believed themselves to be free and independent thinkers, free from all chains of superstition, under the influences of nobody and nothing.

I learned that there’s really no such thing as an atheist either.  He or she may hold deeply to such a belief, but they still have a god.  He’s called ‘no-god’.  And ‘no-god’ props them up, ministers to them, comforts them, brings assurance, builds up their faith in systems, people and things just like True-God.  The one difference being that ‘no-god’ fails to turn up when his faithful one is but a few moments away from death.  He can be cruel in his absence.  For other people, their gods were ‘money’ and ‘materialism’.  They too gave the same ministry to their faithful, just like ‘no-god’.  But in severe personal economic times they became most cruel to some, leaving them destitute, or dead.

The above three paragraphs are written based on the first powerful truth I learned about human nature – a truth I learned by way of self-analysis.  I looked into my being one day and I found one who was empty, lonely, guilty and fearful – especially of death.  And although I didn’t serve the gods described here, most assuredly I served my gods – plural.  I served the god called ‘me’.  He was a great god.  He would daily comfort me with lies, telling me anything that I wanted to hear.  He told me I was more important than anyone else alive.  He gave me opinions about anything and everything and assured me they were never wrong.

Although in real life I was a high-school drop-out, my god ‘me’ arranged for me to attend the College of Self-righteousness.  I was a top-class student there, putting my knowledge immediately into practice by way of  judging, assessing and analyzing people, looking down on all who didn’t measure up – just like the “old-school-tie” brigade among the so-called movers and shakers in each generation’s society.  My god ‘me’ also opened the doors for my attendance to a well-known acting school.  Like those Greek actors of old, I was never short of a word once I selected the right mask to cover the real me with.  I thought I was great, but I was later to find out that I did not fool everybody in my audience.

I served another god called ‘music’.  He was a great god too because for twenty-three years he kept me so absorbed in him that I did not have the time or the desire for too much else.  If my god ‘music’ were an ordinary human being he would have made an excellent cult leader.  I believed him when he told me that I would find my identity in nobody but him and that I would be nobody without him.  Not long after my first encounter with him at nearly seventeen years of age, my god ‘music’ revealed to me, that in him, “This is who you are; this is not just what you do.”

My god ‘music’ made sure I was kept in regular work, paying me well and ensuring me that I was too busy or too tired to spend quality time with my wife and (then) growing children.  Sometimes he worked hard to conceal the distinctions between perfection and perfectionism.  Often my god ‘music’ acted like many human religious and secular leaders, by giving the impression that these words were one and the same.  He ignored to reveal the all-important difference between one who has drive and one who is driven. But nevertheless, I loved him, I thought he was cool.

I served another god called ‘alcohol’.  He was a beauty.  Talk about a god of comfort, assurance and faith – that’s all he ever gave me while I served him – apart from a crook guts and headache in the latter years.  He was most faithful in keeping me from reality.  Every time I glimpsed reality coming towards me, my god ‘alcohol’ gave me the power to overcome his every tactic.  Reality would often visit me in the middle of the night however.  He loved to disturb my sleep, giving much discomfort with his enticements and nagging.  He was indeed a formidable opponent.  But, the next day, with the faithfulness of my god ‘alcohol’ I always got the victory.

My god ‘alcohol’ gave me a small circle of believers to affiliate myself with as well and although we did not always hold the same “doctrinal” viewpoints we never allowed  any differences to come between us.  The unity was awesome.  We had a great love for one another, and were quick to come to each other’s aid in times of trouble.  And when it was not possible for us to be together I saw no problems with worshiping in isolation and neither did my fellow believers.

Then one day as a result of changing circumstances, I began to doubt the ministry from my god ‘me’.  My doubts became increasingly confirmed as I studied the lives and works of some philosophers and inventors.  Thomas Edison was one of those people.  Mr Edison made a statement which showed me in a profound way that my god ‘me’ was in every way a false god.  He said something like, “My inventions did not come from within me.  They already existed in space.  I simply brought them into being.”  In my life of thirty -eight years at that time I had never heard of anything like that.

I had a church upbringing which I’d left long years before, because of meaningless relevance to anything in my life.  But they did speak about God, so I was prepared to be open to His existence rather than inventions simply existing in “space” as Mr Edison put it.  But my next question was, “Who’s God?”  The god I had learned about in my childhood church days was most definitely not part of my search.  I had rejected him because of what I had perceived him to be like when I observed his so-called leaders and followers – intimidating, dominating, controllers with regards the former, and superstitious, compliant and driven with regards the latter.

Little did I know that as I gave all of my heart to this search for the true God, He also was giving all of His heart in making sure I would be found by Him.  In fact better than that – He was out looking for me!  This truth was confirmed one day when I read the gospel of Luke 15:1-32.  I read there of Jesus, using parabolic language, speaking of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son.  I had also experienced two dramatic encounters with the Lord Jesus prior to that discovery (see my About page), which greatly helped me in accepting those parables as the truth about Jesus Christ.  He was talking about Himself.

I discovered in the New Testament that Jesus came to seek and to save the lost.  I was one of them.  No wonder I was empty, lonely, guilty and fearful, I was lost big-time.  When I got found, those three tyrants within began to get restless indeed.  I also discovered that Jesus Christ came to reveal the true God (Himself in human form) and that if I embraced Him as such, then I would be given His supernatural power to sever all relationships with ‘me’ god, ‘music’ god and ‘alcohol’ god.  So I did that.   Then I made a new discovery.  I discovered that I could enjoy me, music and alcohol.  They are still part of my life, but they are not my gods and they no longer control me.

Discovering these powerful truths about human nature as a result of my own self-analysis, plus their remedies, was/is the reason and the motivation for me to go and tell others.  Maybe they’ve got some gods they’d like to be free from.  I do not do so under the burdens of rules, commands or laws, but rather, under the authority, anointing and enabling power of Jesus Christ through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  I’m also fully aware that most people will reject what I have written here, but that will not apply to everybody.  Does it apply to you?  Feel free to leave a reply or comment.  “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him (Jesus) the iniquity of us all.”  Isaiah 53:6.  “For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.”  Matthew 18:11.