My purpose for telling this story is to instill hope into the hearts of the distressed. You see, the individual in this story was lost and seemingly without hope. He also had a desire to change, but had no hope that he was able to. The actions and the thought process that he lived were promoting hurt and death in him and his family. The motivation to self-destruct came from a profound sense of unworthiness. I know his story well. Because it is my story.
When one of my mentors would talk about God, he would always say “from my amateur point of view”. That resonates with me, because I think that we are all amateurs when it comes to God. A man can spend much of his life (as I have for the past 28 years) learning the scripture and realize that he really doesn’t know much at all. The Apostle Paul said that we see through a glass darkly, and I would have to say that is an understatement! The first words from the Sermon on the Mount “Blessed are the poor in Spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God” would indicate that the key to receiving from that kingdom in the present tense is a sense of humility that recognizes he does not know much at all.
Now I will state my views plainly here, as I tell my story. I am blatantly Christian, but I make some religious people real nervous. They just don’t understand my friendship with God, and that is OK. I don’t understand their religion, but we all share the same thing. We still see through the glass darkly. But I am comfortable not knowing it all.