I’ve always been a church goer not even going through the usual teenage blip of rebelling. But it was more a sign of my dutiful spirit than any real living faith. Just as I ate my greens, did my homework and all the other things that I didn’t particularly like doing, I went to church. In this way, I felt, my chances of heaven in the hereafter would be improved, if not entirely assured.
But, my Christian faith was not at the heart of my life. My focus was on having a meaningful job, travelling, meeting interesting people and generally having fun and adventure. I fitted God in round the edges. But because I did go to church and generally was leading a moral life, I felt I really was doing all that was expected of me. It didn’t occur to me that there was anything more – that I had actually missed the whole point: that the Christian life is not about spiritual practices and duties but about a love relationship with Jesus Christ who, if you give him permission, floods your whole existence and gives you a totally new perspective on life.
Because Christ wasn’t my centre, however, all the good things I had made me feel slightly uneasy. I felt that although, I classed myself as a happy person, everything was very fragile, and some awful unhappiness was waiting for me round the next bend. In an attempt to do a deal with God, in my late 20s, I went to work as a volunteer for the Church in Central America. I reckoned two years working with the poor should earn me enough good karma for this life and the next. But God has a way of seeing through our little ploys and things didn’t turn out the way I expected. Instead of working with the poor I ended up teaching English in a middle class school in Panama City, which I didn’t particularly enjoy and didn’t meet my needs for significance and heroism. In hindsight, however, I can see that God was in it all. Leading me to a place where I had to face myself and my need of Him to make sense and meaning of my life.
The catalyst was actually going to a charismatic prayer group, where I heard Catholics talk about God in a way I had never heard before. I had thought a personal relationship with Jesus was reserved for Mother Teresa types, not ordinary mortals. Yet here were army captains, society matrons, and all kinds of people I didn’t approve of, seeming to have a close relationship with God. Their faith made me question my own. I realised I could justify and defend myself or I could admit the truth – that I was empty and hollow inside. That for all my outward practices I didn’t know God at all.
The answer I was told was to repent and give my life to Christ. Easier said than done. I didn’t know what to repent of. I was also worried that nothing might happen, which might destroy the little faith I had. I realised I was faced with a choice. Did I want to run my own life as I had been doing, or was I prepared to hand it over to God and allow his Holy Spirit to direct me instead. Because that ultimately is what being a Christian is – someone who tries to live their life, guided by God’s Holy Spirit, instead of by their human desires and fears and needs.
I did it and God did reveal himself to me and my life was changed for ever. Deep in the core of my being, whatever is going on the surface, I am now at peace because I know my life has meaning and purpose. This doesn’t come from anything I might do or achieve but because as it says in the penny catechism I know that “God made me to know him, love him and serve him in this world and to be happy with him forever in the next.” This truth is the bedrock and guiding principle of my life and is one I wish everyone else might know and experience too.