Un-persuaded

I am a skeptic by nature, but I am not a cynic.

It is difficult to persuade me; but once I am persuaded, it is difficult to un-persuade me.

Once I am convinced of something–even if it ultimately proves to be wrong–I tend to hold onto that belief until it draws its last breath in my life.

This is why I say I am not a cynic. I am an optimist. I tend to keep believing in something long after it stops working. This is something that can be a virtue but can also work against me.

I had a belief system about God–one that took a long time to form. I called it “faith”. It was really religion.

There came a season in my life when God wanted to show me a bigger picture of Himself. In order to do that, He had to show me that my picture of Him was too small. He had to put my religious belief system to death. My religion had to fail me.

And it failed me, and failed me, and failed me. Nothing worked. For a long time. And still I held on. I held on until I finally had no more strength. My religion stayed on life support while my belief sustained it. And so my religion–and my belief in it–died a slow, horrible death.

But eventually it did die. Eventually I was un-persuaded. And then, instead of backsliding…I woke up. And God began to reveal the bigger picture of Himself. And that is now the season I am in.

I had a belief system about church–one that took a long time to form. I called it “the church.” It was really a religious institution.

There came a season when God wanted to show me a clearer picture of His church. For that to happen, He had to show me that my picture of the church was too small and cluttered. He had to put my religious belief system to death. The institution had to fail me.

And it failed me, and failed me, and failed me. For a long time. And still I believed in it. I saw the abuses and flaws and inconsistencies, but I simply held on and believed that somehow God would change it–because I did not realize that what I perceived to be “church” wasn’t really “church” at all. And so my image of church had to die a slow, horrible death.

Only this time, unlike my religion, I wouldn’t let it die. So God had to shoot it. A crisis had to happen, one that could finally convince me to take my image of church off life support and let it die.

This stubborn hanging-on is precisely why even after doing house church for seven years, I still needed a wake-up call.

Seven years living outside the system. And yet I needed a wake-up call to show me that I was no longer in the system, that I no longer belonged to it.

For a guy with a reasonable I.Q., stuff like this makes me feel pretty dumb.

Because of what I’ve gone through…I’m in a place where I hold things much more loosely. I’m not dogmatic about too many things anymore. I have beliefs, but I am more open to have those beliefs challenged and tested. I am in a re-forming period in my life; I am allowing myself to be more flexible in the Potter’s hands, so I do not have to go through the pain of breaking again.

I am a skeptic by nature, but I am not a cynic.

If I seem cynical regarding the institutional church, it is simply because I have paid such a high price to be un-persuaded. And once I am un-persuaded, it is difficult to re-persuade me.

I used to believe the religious system I called “faith” simply needed to be tested long enough to be proven true. After being un-persuaded, I now realize I needed a new understanding of faith. I needed to trade one paradigm for another.

I used to believe the religious system I called “church” simply needed to be tweaked and breathed upon by God in order to be fixed. After being un-persuaded, I now believe that man-made system needs to be abandoned–that we need a renewed understanding of what “church” really is. We need to trade this paradigm for another.

By the way–in case you were wondering–Jesus Christ is my Lord, my Savior, and the Lover of my soul. Of this I shall never be un-persuaded.