DARREL CARSON
“I go to church over there,” I said, pointing to the little white church nestled among the trees on the other side of the field.
“You worship the Beast over there,” he said. “You used to be a church elder; surely you know that the Sabbath is the seal of God.”
“That’s not what the Bible says,” I responded.
“Okay then, what does the Bible say?”
“It says that we are sealed by the Holy Spirit.”
“Where does it say that?” he asked. “Show me.”
“Ephesians, I can’t remember exactly where.” I replied.
This unfriendly banter which had started friendly enough just a few minutes before was now going absolutely nowhere. Finally, I put my arm around him and said, “Brother, we are wasting each other’s time; neither one of us is going to convince the other. Why don’t we just agree to part as friends.”
“Oh, I will convince you,” he retorted. “I never loose an argument; I have the Bible and Ellen White on my side.”
“The Bible won’t help you convince me because you use the false prophet, Ellen, to interpret it for you, and this blinds you to what the Bible really says.” I heard the words coming out of my mouth and was having a hard time believing that it was me that was saying them.
His face turned red; his fists clenched and released, and with his face less than a foot from mine, he shouted, “The Sunday law is coming, and when it does, it will be too late for you.”
“I don’t care if the Sunday law does come; bring it on! I know who my Savior is, and He has promised never to forsake me!” With that, I turned around and went inside and collapsed in a chair. I raised my Hand to Jesus my Savior and with tears in my eyes I whispered, “Thank You Jesus for rescuing me from all that!”
Test of my faith
The two weeks that followed that event would prove to be the greatest trial of my faith that I have experienced since leaving the Adventist organization nearly two years earlier. All of the fears and feelings of inadequacy that had been mine just because I was born into the “remnant church” began washing over me in waves that made me feel as though I was about to drown. All the old anxiety from sixty-six years of indoctrination and spiritual abuse had been triggered by that Adventist assault which had blindsided me.
I once again saw my imperfections, and I felt as though the Holy Spirit had left me. Oh, I knew that Jesus had promised that He would be with us until the end. I also knew that He had said that no one could pluck us out of His hands or the Father’s hands. I knew that the Apostle Paul had said in Romans 8 that nothing in all creation could separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, but my knowledge wasn’t helping. I could not quite understand why, since that harrowing exchange, I was feeling utter rejection.
I see now that as I remembered that startling conversation, subtle pride was growing in my heart. I was proud of the way I had told him that Ellen White was a false prophet and that I didn’t care if the Sunday law was passed.
Right there was the root of my problem: I didn’t care. I was thankful that I had been delivered from the darkness of Adventism, but at the same time, my pride was keeping me from caring about a brother that had not yet been delivered. He had unjustly assaulted me, but I was taking credit for the very words that the Spirit had placed in my mouth in response to his accusations.
It was this attitude that had blinded me to the fact that the Holy Spirit still was dwelling within and that I was powerless on my own to fix what was wrong. As long as I prided myself on my response to that Adventist, I was refusing to submit to the Holy Spirit’s conviction that I have no cleverness of my own but am dependent upon His wisdom and His faithfulness to keep me.
I felt as if I were being pulled between two realities. On the one hand, I had no peace. I felt as if I were rejected by God and unworthy of His grace. I felt hard and cold inside. The hostility of that man had ignited my old feelings of helpless anger, and I rationalized that I was justified in mentally writing him off. On the other hand, I knew that what I was feeling was not true. I knew that Jesus was my Savior; I knew that He had promised never to leave or to forsake me, and I clung to those words, knowing that they were true in spite of my feelings.
As I moved through my days in the fog of this internal split, I was exceedingly weary of being a former Adventist. I was tired of being a has-been, and I was tired of “being right” when Adventists encountered me. I was tired of my faith wedging opposition between me and my old acquaintances. The new weekly online Proclamation Magazine arrived in my inbox, and I had absolutely no desire to read it! In fact, I was sick and tired of the whole thing.
The Word breaks through
By God’s grace, I made it through another week. On Sunday, Pastor Ron was teaching through Philippians 3. When he got to verses 8 & 9, I felt the moving of the Holy Spirit.
“Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith” (Philippians 3:8-9 NKJV).
As I listened to the Word being taught, I realized that God hadn’t forsaken me; I had struck out on my own. I had slipped back into trying to live the Christian life by my own efforts. I’d been trying to “fix” my relationship with Jesus that had been marred by my own pride and refusal to submit to the Spirt’s prompting. I realized I had been crediting my feelings of abandonment since encountering that angry assault to the PTSD of having grown up in a very dark and evil place. To be sure, it’s quite likely some of my feelings were echoes from the past because, the fact is, that argument had triggered a whole lot of memories and fears that were a big part of my earlier life. Yet the reality remained that I was trying on my own to restore my relationship with Jesus. Instead of trusting Him—instead of submitting my hurt and anger to Him—I was trying to believe harder and muster up more faith. I had forgotten that I had righteousness from God, and I needed to only to rest in Him, PTSD and all.
Trusting the body of Christ
I had more lessons to learn. For the last five years, my wife Vera and I have lived off grid on the east side of Oregon’s Cascades. We have enough solar power for lights and small appliances, but big jobs such as laundry and the use of my table saw require the use of generators. We have learned to be self-sufficient, fixing whatever breaks and building whatever we need.
As I was realizing that Jesus was my righteousness even when I felt like a fatherless child, our Jeep Liberty needed new universal joints in the rear drive line. I purchased new ones and, with the help of what I thought was the right YouTube video, I began to install them. I realized too late that I had the wrong video when I ruined one joint and bloodied a finger trying to follow its directions.
I called our nearest neighbor, Pastor Steve, and asked him if he’d pick up the needed replacement u-joint for me in the morning. When he dropped it off, however, he refused to accept payment or even to tell me what the cost was. Well, that hurt my pride. I felt resentful at being in his debt. “I’ll just put the money in the offering at church,” I said.
“Do what you want,” he replied cheerfully; “I just wanted to bless you.” And with that he got in his car and drove away.
Days later I was working on a project when a soldered connection in our generator failed. This was more than an annoyance; it was a crisis. In fact, this mechanical failure left us without enough power to pump water from our well, and we had family coming before a replacement part could arrive.
Desperate, I did what I should have done at least a couple of weeks earlier; I prayed. Immediately I had the thought, “Call Pastor Steve.”
No! Not Pastor Steve! I didn’t want to call him again; he’d come and save the day and refuse to accept payment—I didn’t like feeling helpless and beholden to someone for their kindness! As I tried to figure out a way to save the day myself, I prayed again, and I clearly had the thought, “Why are you asking me what to do when you haven’t done what I said yet?”
“OK, Lord; I’ll call Steve. What is it that you want me to learn?”
As I sat there on that little stool looking at the innards of my dysfunctional generator, I felt the Holy Spirit revealing to me my own dysfunction. In that moment of submission, I knew that everything was going to be alright. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called Pastor Steve.
I realized that if at any point during the past two weeks of nursing my hurt and resentment I had submitted to the Lord, asking Him to show me what was wrong, He would have. I know this to be true because as soon as I did ask Him to show me, He did exactly that. I saw that ever since the moment of that disorienting argument, the still small voice of the Spirit was there correcting me. In my heart I knew the Lord was reminding me, “Darrel, you know that I was with your mouth telling you what you should say. Give God the glory Darrel, that’s the only way you will ever lead people to the Savior.”
Yet I remembered ignoring my conviction and telling my friends what a good job I had done putting the Adventist in his place. I also remembered that same Adventist encountering me the other day. He looked at me like he wanted to say something, but I ignored him. When he finally asked me a question I answered as briefly as possible while avoiding eye contact, and he moved on. Instead of loving as Jesus loved me, I protected myself and kept him at bay.
As it turned out, Pastor Steve showed up in a few minutes with an old diesel-powered generator with the same wattage as my dysfunctional machine. In spite of the fact that it smoked like a steam locomotive when it fired up, I had my water tank filled in just a few minutes, and when Steve left, I had a better understanding of what grace is all about.
You see, when I had told Pastor Steve that I was going to put the money in the offering for the u-joint that he had gifted to me, it was really like a slap in the face. He had treated me with the kindness that is normal in the body of Christ, and I had kept my heart from being vulnerable to the love the Lord was showing me through this brother.
I apologized to Steve for my ungratefulness. He accepted my apology and then kindly likened my ungratefulness to trying to earn God’s free gift of salvation by law-keeping. Trying to earn God’s free gift is like spitting in the face of Jesus and telling Him that I don’t need Him or His Gospel.
I could not fix the relationship with Jesus that my pride and refusal to submit to the Spirit’s promptings had marred; no amount of trying to have more faith would ever do. All that I needed was to believe God’s promises that He has given me Himself and His righteousness, and I needed to humbly submit to His prompting to act in faith and trust.
You see, trying to generate more faith and believing in humble submission are two quite different things. I have received Jesus as my Savior by simply believing, and that is exactly the way I must continue.
As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, 7 rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. Colossians 2:6,7
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