The Properties of Light

"Directive!"  Eve in WALL-E



My parents meant well.  My church meant well.  My youth director meant well.  My youth director's friend meant well.  I meant well. But things went terribly wrong.

I was raised in a "Christian home."  My parents were "good church-going Christians."  .  They raised me to have moral character, to respect other people and be courteous to other people.  They "raised me right."

My church, a Southern Baptist church,  raised me to believe the Bible and brought me up in "the admonition of the Lord." At age ten during a hell-fire and brimstone revival, I asked Jesus in my heart.  The circumstances could have been better.  With R.G. Lee's sermon Pay Day Someday ringing in my head, as I was walking across the street with my brother and our friend Mark, my brother said, "If we all get hit by a car, we'll go Heaven and you'll burn in hell."  So I got saved.  I was deeply grateful for what I had been saved from, but had not yet considered what I had been saved to. Nobody ever talked about that.

When I was sixteen years old, a young husband and father came to our church as our music and youth director. On their trip from New Mexico to Alabama, his family was involved in an automobile accident.  This accident  had a profound impact on our new minister.  Although he had been a Christian for years, he felt that he had a personal encounter with the real, living Jesus.

As our youth group grew around our youth director's charisma and personal testimony, he invited a new friend to join our meetings.  This friend, a United Methodist layman,  was not only a dynamic Christian, but had experienced "the second blessing". This step in the Christian experience involved "the baptism of the Holy Spirit" and was then manifested in "the gifts of the Spirit", "the full gospel".  It involved speaking in  tongues, interpreting these ecstatic utterances, healing and other spiritual gifts.  To a bunch of teenagers, this was powerful stuff.  I bought it hook, line and sinker.  The excitement of what was going on with us caught fire in area churches. Besides our regular church activities. the youth of our city met regularly in rallies and Sunday night hymn sings.  Our enthusiasm spilled out into neighboring towns and the spiritual phenomenon grew. The book of Acts become as real and as current as our  church and school activities. While most in the group remained true to the teaching of their  respective churches, many of us became card-carrying Charismatic Christians. In our case we remained Southern  Baptists, but we were experiencing the "deeper life." Looking back there were aspects of all of that that were positive.  But not all of it was good for me.

But the excitement continued. Our Methodist friend invited me to go with him as a "witness" on a Lay Witness Mission sponsored by his church.  It was an incredible experience.  Not long after that a minister from a neighboring United Methodist Church invited me to go with him to Florida on another Lay Witness Mission.  At sixteen years old, I was becoming a Christian leader, a Christian witness, a bearer of the banner of Christ.  I was "leading people to Christ."

Through all of this, however, I felt like something was wrong with me. Good Christians are supposed to be happy and I wasn't happy.  I felt sad.  I decided that my "daily walk" was not as close to Jesus as it needed to be. I thought, "Once I get close to Jesus, I'll feel great".  I went to church. I went to Bible studies. I attended prayer sessions before and after the Bible studies. I went to Charismatic meetings at The House of Prayer and Praise.  I joined the Full Gospel Business Men's Association and attended their meetings. I read the Bible backwards and forwards.  I prayed  beside my bed so often that I got callouses on my knees. But I felt like something was wrong.  I didn't feel good most of the time. I felt bad most of the time.  I wanted to be closer to Jesus.   For over a year I had listened to our youth director urge us to "sell out to Christ.  Give him everything." And I wanted to do that with all my heart. "Take my life, use me Lord. Take my life, use me Lord. Make my life useful to Thee,"

About this time my youth director put a book in my hands and encouraged me to read it.  The book was In His Steps by Charles Sheldon.  This novel takes shape when Rev. Henry Maxwell, pastor of the First Church of Raymond, Illinois, issues a challenge to his congregation.  He urges them that for an entire year they are to do nothing without first asking themselves, What would Jesus do?  On the surface that sounds like a wonderful thing to do. For me those four words were to take me down a long, dark road of self-sabotage and defeat.

Things for me began to unravel rather quickly.  I was the lead singer in a garage band at the time called Revolver. I decided the first thing I needed to do was to quit that band.  Jesus would not sing in a rock band.  I drove out the Geneva Highway to the small barn where we rehearsed. As the band set up, I told them of my decision and why.  Dan, our leader, asked "So we aren't good Christians? You are now better than we are?"  Billy, the drummer said, "I told them you would do something like this."  But I left feeling like I had cleared the last hurdle in "selling out to Christ."  It was all over but the shouting. As I drove away I was thinking, "I'm now ready to live my life totally sold out to Jesus Christ".

But I immediately began to question other areas of my life that had been automatic to that point.  I had been a near straight-A student as a junior at the Enterprise High School.  I was in the Honor Society and was headed toward graduating the next year at the top of my class.  But as I studied American history and trigonometry, I decided that that was not something Jesus would do.  How do American history and mathematics have anything to do with Jesus Christ?  What would Jesus do?  Instead of studying this meaningless material, He would read the Bible and devotional books, things with eternal value.  So my grades began to fall.  My teachers were concerned. My parents were concerned, but I knew that I was doing the right thing.  After all, can you do any better than what Jesus would do?

Another breaking point was my high school's all-school play.  The WWJD commitment found me in the middle of rehearsals for Annie Get Your Gun.  I was Frank Butler, the male lead role.  What would Jesus do?  Would he be singing as a rough talking gun slinging cowboy in a Broadway musical?  Jesus?  Of course not.  We were only a few weeks from opening night and I felt terrible about quitting and leaving them without a lead singer, But I felt even worse about not being faithful to my Lord.   After an agonizing three weeks for me and an even more agonizing three weeks for the director, I sang the role for the three nights. But I had no joy in it.  I was concerned about my eternal soul. My mother said, "During the curtain calls you never even smiled." I had nothing to smile about.

My mother went to my youth director and said, "You've ruined my son. I want my old David back."  He told her, "Don't worry about David. He's doing fine. It's your walk with the Lord you need to be concerned about."

As I continued to drill down into the depths of my commitment, my discouragement increased. "I must not have given Jesus everything. What else can I give up?" I was not a schizophrenic then and I'm not one now, but the voices in my head were getting louder. One night as I started home after church, the-voice-of-"Jesus" in my head asked me, "Why do you assume I want you to go home.  Maybe there's something else you can do for me tonight."  I turned left on the next street and entered a subdivision of which I was not familiar.   I turned right. I turned left and I parked in front of a house.  I got out of my car, walked to the door and rang the bell,  A young lady opened the door that I recognized from school.  She asked me, "David, what do you need?"  And I said, "Jesus wants me to tell  you something."  She invited me in and to my astonishment there were several other students sitting on pillows on the floor smoking dope.  I don't remember exactly what I said, but it was a message about the love of Jesus.  And I left and drove home.  The next day at school she found me and said, "It's a good thing I was there.  They would have really messed you up."  That would have been okay.  They beat up Jesus too.

I remember praying with a man in front of a transmission shop.  We were on our knees while people came and went to and from the shop.  One place innocent bystanders were particularly vulnerable was at the gas station.   I dreaded pumping gas, like I dreaded most things,  because I was going to have to "witness" to somebody. I was going to have to feel embarrassed and uncomfortable and make other people uncomfortable. But Jesus  would all day long be about His Father's business.  He would never waste an opportunity to help someone find the right road. "Don't ever rest. Don't ever relax.  Do what Jesus would do. Don't ever do something that Jesus wouldn't do".

Instead of becoming more loving and more kind (you know, like Jesus), I was becoming progressively more narrow and judgmental.  My family members were shaking their heads, my  teachers were disappointed in me and my friends were forsaking me.  But I didn't care.  I was doing what Jesus wanted me to do. That was all that had eternal value.

How deep and dark can a black hole get?  Once something crosses its event horizon, it's doomed. Nothing can escape its gravity that is strong enough to hold light itself. "If the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness."  Matthew 6:23

This story of descent into agony continued for quite some time.  My thinking and my behavior just got worse.  The collateral damage increased. The-voice-of-"Jesus" in my head  got more strict and more demanding.

Very few people who cross the event horizon of religious fundamentalism ever see the light of day.  Most people, like me, continue to reinforce their own beliefs and behavior. They are not open to enlightenment from any source. "And Jesus said to them, 'Watch out and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees' "  Matthew 16:6.   I was very fortunate. A strange and wonderful series of events happened for me to see that I was headed down the wrong road.  And to understand that life was not nearly as hard as I was making it, both for myself and those around me..

The story of my deliverance, my redemption is a really good story.  The story involved a lot of people and events over a long period of time.  It involved college and seminary Bible professors who held the Bible up in the light of reason and common sense. But two things happened close together, before all that that had a profound impact on me.The first event involved a bowl of turnip greens at my family table.  The other involved  a  puppy and a football helmet.  My salvation also involved a high school girl friend who cared about me through all of it.  And then in college a girl-friend who became my girlfriend who became my wife.  And it involves Jesus.  Not the "Jesus" in my head, but the actual Jesus.. You know the one who healed the sick and loved little children. Somehow He found me in the dungeon of despair. He became a "light unto my path" and showed me the way out. The voice-of-"Jesus" in my head  was now the love of Jesus in my heart.  And He said,  "There's just one Jesus and that's me. There's just one David. And that's you. You just be David and leave being Jesus up to me." If the journey of a thousand miles begin with a single step, I was on my way.

The eighth step of the Twelve Steps of AA is to "Make a list of all persons we have harmed, and be willing to make amends with them all." I don't know about alcoholics, but there is no way I can do that.  Those people are scattered  to the four winds.  But if I could talk to each of them I would say "I'm very sorry for how I treated you. At the time I thought I was doing the right thing. I realize now that in trying to be such a such a good Christian, I wasn't even a good friend. I can't go back and do it any better, but going forward I want you to know that I'm here for you if you need me.  Let's stay in touch. Let me be your friend."

For the record I still want to do what Jesus would do in each and every circumstance in each and every day. But when I read the account in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John I don't find a man going around telling people how to live.  I find a man being the way we should live,I don't find a man all upset and uptight about serving His Father and doing the right thing. I find a man at complete peace with Himself, His disciples and His friends.  He's not trying to be Jesus; He is  Jesus. Satan's first temptation in the wilderness was "If thou be.the Son of God..."  It was the temptation I succumbed to all those years, "David, if thou be a good Christian..." I cast myself down from the temple over and over and all I got was dirty and broken. But like the woman at the well, Jesus found me and offered living water. This Jesus-in-my-heart   told me, "You don't have to draw it. You don't have to do anything.  Just drink it. It's already there."

Mama, I'm so glad you cooked those turnip greens that summer night.  And I'm so grateful that my brother, home from college, didn't want any and said why.   And I'm so glad that puppy found a way to get that helmet on its head. It was the first time I had laughed in a very long time.

Before I went to that high school reunion I mentioned, I talked to a good friend of mine about my misgivings. I said, "I feel like I should get drunk or something to just show them I've changed."  He said, "Just go and be yourself, you may be surprised how they remember you". So I went. I was myself.  And I was pleasantly surprised.

When we talk about light we are usually talking about visible light, the light we can see.  But the electromagnetic spectrum includes a multitude of wavelengths that are not visible to the human eye. But it's still light. All those years I was stumbling in the dark, I was never in the dark at all.  I couldn't see the Light, but the Light  could see me.  I was never out of His care.