Steve's Journey

Lois and I are regular readers. I can't really say that we are avid readers, but we read more than a lot of people our age. Several years ago she suggested that I might like to read one or two of her books, which were novels by Scottish writer, George MacDonald. I had seen the books lying around, but I pretty much dismissed them as romantic novels. Not the cheap Harlequin love stories; these were historical romances.

She said that I might like them because they contained a lot of religious references. I was hitting a dry spell in my reading material, so I started reading Thomas Wingfold, Curate, written in 1876. It was an easy-to-read writing style, but went into great detail about hills and houses, tables and chairs, streams and foliage. Boring. However, as I began to read on, I started having a more-than-casual interest in the dialogue of the main characters. They weren't overly churchy (some rarely attended church), yet they spoke of God and Jesus with ease.

They were asked questions that any fundamentalist Christian could be asked today, but they answered graciously, in a manner that made a lot of sense. They also posed questions back; such that any fundamentalist Christian today would have difficulty answering with honesty. It was as if scales had fallen from my eyes. I was starting to see things more clearly, while at the same time seriously wondering about doctrines I had held onto for years.

There were two justifying factors that made this experience phenomenal. One is that I wasn't looking for a new belief system, nor was I questioning what I had previously held to be true. I was involved with church for as far back as I can remember. From teenager to middle-ager I was steeped in the Christian tradition, holding on tightly to the fundamental Christian faith. This centered on the atoning sacrifice of Christ, the eternal torment of Hell and the glorious promise of Heaven for those whose names were written in the Book of Life. I preached, taught and debated in favor of the Jewish traditions of the Old Testament being fulfilled, as prophesied, in the person of Jesus Christ of the New Testament.

I was licensed as a Baptist minister and held positions of deacon and elder in various churches through the years. How could reading a historical novel shake my world so easily?

The second amazing factor in this experience is that, when I began to share what I was learning with Lois, her eyes were immediately opened. If you knew her church background, you would never have believed that she could possibly embrace any of what I had been sharing. She admits to having read the "preachments," as C.S. Lewis called them, but they didn't seem odd, nor did they turn any light bulbs on.

Obviously, this didn't all come about from one little book. I wanted to read other writings of George MacDonald. One of my daughters gave us an article called Hope of the Gospel, that she had printed off of the internet and stuck in a 3-ring binder. This was a small portion of MacDonald's Unspoken Sermons series. I was even more impressed. From then on I tried to get my hands on everything he had written (some 45 works in all, including poetry).

Again, I must point out that I am not easily swayed on anything. And I'm not very open-minded. So what was it that drew me to this new way of thinking about God, Christ and the working of Holy Spirit? I'm thinking the Holy Spirit. Couldn't have been the Devil, because he would have wanted us to turn FROM God, not draw closer to Him.

Lois and I had many wonderful discussions about this new and freeing look at the things of God. What we didn't realize is how it would change our relationship with family and friends.