Have You Had A Taste

         The following blog is from October 12th of 2009 and it's about my first taste of the Gospel:
 

Have You Had A Taste Yet?


         I'm an incurable pack rat. My wife came up to me yesterday with a gray disk, about the size of a silver dollar and wanted to know if I knew what it was. It was slightly bevelled and had little holes throughout. I had no idea what it was and she was about to throw it away. What! Wait a second. If we throw this out there will be a day when I need a disk about the size of a silver dollar, slightly bevelled with little holes throughout. She'll never learn. Just throw the thing out and don't ask me about it.
         I have in my hands, well actually I'm typing but I have here in front of me a book that I bought from the National Record Mart on the Pitt campus in the winter of 1973. Its title is Reach Out, The Living New Testament (illustrated.) It was published by Tyndale and I paid $2.95 for it. It has just a little bit of commentary in it and was aimed at young adults. I showed up at church services in Vietnam when in a solemn and introspective mood but the thought of church never entered my mind during my last 7 months at Fort Bragg.
         I started at Pitt in January of 1973. It was a heady time. I read constantly, occasionally even textbooks from classes that I was supposed to be reading. I would take my latest book into the college bar and my friends and I would discuss philosophy or some other subject that we were interested in until we could no longer pronounce our words. That's when my genius really came out. I remember one night particularly well. We were discussing The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda. Here was a UCLA anthropology grad student taking lessons from a Yaqui Indian shaman on how peyote was instrumental to understanding the mysteries of life. We were absorbed in this while unaware that a couple of quarts of Budweiser did the same thing.
         In between this nonsense I would occasionally show up at St. Paul's Cathedral. It would be almost a decade before God opened my eyes and I could see the marvel of the gospel and the majesty of His Son, but I had a taste in 1973! Sometimes I open this book up and press the pages to my face, smelling them and remembering how that word Jesus would thrill me before I even understood. I'll read a few verses from this paraphrased translation, for it not a true translation, and be transported back for only a moment. And only a moment is what I would want for I was then lost. I was in love with me and only the grace of God kept me from facing Him until a time when He would use the words of the Bible as a mirror where I would see only corruption.
         There are so many mysteries that will be explained to us when this life is done but none to me as impenetrable now as why God opened my eyes! If you are firm in your decision to reject God, and you want a good excuse to bolster your case, just think of me. If God would redeem me, then there is no fairness in the world. And don't listen to the voice on the other shoulder that says If God would forgive someone like me, then there is hope for you also. And whatever you do, don't open His book!