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"I made each girlfriend the ‘god’ of my life- the thing around which my life revolved..."
"My time was spent thinking, writing and reading different philosophies and world religions...
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Why I rejected Christianity as a teenager
As a boy I made my first communion and confirmation at school, and listened to what I was taught in religion class. It seemed natural to believe in God. I was taught the Ten Commandments and told how ‘to be a good person’. But even though I heard all the stories about Jesus, I didn’t know why he came to earth or why we needed him- surely if we tried hard to be good people, life would be fine and we’d go to heaven in the end.
When I came to secondary school and started having an exciting new social life, I lost almost all interest in God. At mass I heard them talking about peace and joy and all these great things, but I was just bored and usually felt like I was at a funeral when I was there. My time spent going out with friends, going to discos, and meeting girls was way more exciting. It was also reality- why, I wondered, if God was real would he attempt to communicate through the outdated and thoroughly irrelevant institution of the church?
What’s the point?
Over the next few years, I tried out many things and lived the life of a teenager to the full. But by the age of 15, I began to get depressed. What was the point of my life? Why was I doing the things I did, hanging around with the friends I had? I felt like I was just going through the motions, doing what everybody else expected of me. My whole life seemed to be planned out ahead of me: finish secondary school with a good leaving cert., go to college and study commerce, get a good job, live a middle-class life with few surprises, few adventures, get married, have 3 kids… until one day I lay down and died. My life seemed utterly boring and mundane- I felt this incredible desire to really live deep down inside of me, to experience all that life had to offer and to be able to one day look back over my life and say ‘Yes it was good. It had its ups and its downs, but I’m glad I made the decisions I made and I have lived life to the full’. But I did not know where to go or what advice to get to live life in this way. So I began to experiment with different things:
I excelled in my studies, looking to attain meaning and satisfaction from them. But even though I was successful in my exams, I still felt empty deep down.
I tried to excel at sports. I did pretty well in some things, but again the gains I made did not satisfy me to the point that I could say ‘Yes, my life is worth living’.
I also excelled at playing music. But on its own it only helped to numb the pain I felt for a little while. Even music could not consistently provide the deep peace that I longed for in life.
What I was looking for was a meaning to life. What I was getting were different facets of the satisfaction that can be attained in life- but no pursuit in and of itself could satisfy my entire being. I strongly believed that if there was a meaning to life, it would be universal- and not just for all people who are alive today, but to all people who have ever lived. If we are all humans, created for the same purpose, then we must share the same meaning of life. What’s more, this meaning of life, I believed, had to satisfy all of the aspects of my humanity: it had to satisfy me mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
It seemed obvious to me that humans had a spirit- an eternal part to them that lived on after death- otherwise our lives would be meaningless and we would have no good reason to keep going through the tough times. But no matter how tough things got, or how depressed and unhappy I became, there seemed to be this uncontrollable self-preservation instinct that came up within me every time I thought of ending my life. ‘Don’t do it’, I would tell myself, ‘what if there is a meaning after all? Keep on searching!’
One area of life that seemed extremely promising was that of relationships. More than any task or achievement, my experiences of intimate relationships had been the most fulfilling (and heartbreaking) that I had known. Unlike the narrow, one-dimensional scope of music or sport, engaging with another person was a three-dimensional activity where all the different aspects of each other’s humanity could interact together.
I pursued several different relationships as a teenager, but always ended up being disappointed by them. More than anything else, the attention and affirmation of the girl made me feel alive- but only for a time. I was subconsciously always expecting her to meet my needs: certainly the emotional and physical ones, but even my spiritual needs as well. I made each girlfriend the ‘god’ of my life- the thing around which my life revolved. I therefore gave them the power to affirm me and make me feel like the luckiest guy in the world, but also the power to reject me and make me feel like the biggest failure around. Situations of unhealthy dependence, or independence, inevitably arose, and each relationship fizzled out over time. The problem was that my girlfriends were only human, so they couldn’t ever satisfy my deepest needs, nor could I satisfy theirs. Relationships, I concluded, although potentially very good, could not be the meaning of life- the reason for which we are made that satisfies every part of our beings.
My Search
Following this, my depression got worse. I retreated into myself, and stopped going to school as much. I stopped playing sport competitively, studying music or going out with my friends. My time was spent thinking, writing and reading different philosophies and world religions. I thought that I would give each of them a go before I ruled them out as being useless. Christianity was at the bottom of the list, seeing as I had already experienced it and knew it to be one big lie.
Eastern philosophy and religion appealed to me the most. I was very interested in Taoist thought, and began to practise the exercises that accompany the philosophy of Tai Chi. At the same time I became interested in Buddhism, and was quite convinced by it. Having essentially decided to withdraw from society at the early age of sixteen, the ascetic, lifestyle of their monks appealed to me. But in taking Buddhist philosophy to its logical conclusion, I discovered that it could not ever satisfy all of the different aspects of my humanity: for example, (as far as I understood) if I was meditating and becoming enlightened about my true identity and place in the grand scheme of things, and my younger brother was being attacked, it would be seen as a negative thing for me to go to his aid as I would be losing touch with my more enlightened view of suffering and would backtrack in my journey towards heaven by submitting to the demands of my heart. This did not seem right to me. I firmly believe that compassion is an in-built facet of humanity that exists to be expressed. By not showing compassion to my brother in a situation such as this, I would be denying my humanity. I’m not saying that Buddhists are not compassionate people; rather, that a philosophy where the above situation can ever be regarded as ‘ok’ cannot be the true meaning of life that satisfies the human soul.
Despite some positive aspects of eastern religions and philosophies, I stopped reading and practising them. I was ruthlessly searching for the meaning of life, and if anything I came across was in any way flawed, I dropped it immediately.
The common strand between all the religions I had read about was that they each had a set of rules or laws to follow. They all had a moral code which promised happiness in this life, or eternal life, or both.
Essentially, they all seemed pretty similar and just looked like a culturally relevant version of the Christianity I had been brought up with. I had tried to follow many of the ‘rules’ of being a ‘good person’ which were common across the board, and ended up reading a whole load of self-improvement style books on New Age philosophy, healthy living, and even how to conquer your fears! But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t ever obey all the rules. It was impossible to be a ‘perfect person’… I was fast becoming disheartened by my attempts to find true meaning, and was despairing of life even more.
My mum had become a Christian a few years earlier, and during this whole time she used to listen to me as I talked about my view of the world and asked her questions for hours on end. When I finished she would often ask if she could pray for me. ‘Fine’ I would reply. ‘I don’t believe in God but you can pray for me if you want’. She didn’t have answers to many of my big philosophical questions, but I was always grateful for her listening to me and trying to understand why I was so unhappy.
Speak to me!
One night, when I was feeling particularly low, I cried out to God. I remember being in my room, contemplating suicide for the third time and audibly saying “God, I’m fed up with you being silent. If you are real, then speak to me now”. I felt an immediate urge to open the Bible and it landed on the first page of the book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament.
It began with “Meaningless! Meaningless! Everything is meaningless. A chasing after the wind’. These were my thoughts entirely, so I read the whole book. It went through each aspect of life: wisdom, pleasures, work, oppression, loneliness, marriage, undertaking great projects to be remembered by. All of these things will pass away and in the end, there is a common destiny for all- death. I was astounded that someone else had had the same thoughts as me but also that this person had written them down and that they were included in the Bible!
After that I began to realise why the Bible is so important to practising Christians- God claims to speak to people primarily through his words in the Bible. So for Christians, if they want to know about their God and understand his character and his view of them, it is only logical to know the Bible very well. God wanted us to have a rock solid record of his character, written in black and white, which would convey the many different aspects of his relationship with humans, and would be available for all to read down through the ages... But I didn’t know that then- I was just having a read; seeing if my preconceptions matched what the Bible really said.
I began to read more and more of the Bible, beginning with the last book- Revelation. I read it to try and frighten myself into becoming a ‘good person’, but it didn’t work. So then I went back to the Gospels- the accounts about Jesus’ life. I was struck by the things that Jesus said. Three verses stood out: “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul” (Mark 8:36), “I have come that they may have life and have it to the full” (John 10:10) and “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest…for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:26-28). The Jesus I was reading about was passionate and courageous- he would go right up to his enemies and confront them head on. He didn’t seem to care what others thought of him- he had a purpose and a relationship with God the Father which drove him to live a balanced life of at times tender compassion and at others honourable anger. He was dynamic and charismatic- a natural-born leader whose very words could inspire people to give up their cosy professions to follow him! This was not the ‘mild and meek’ Jesus I remembered from religion class. However, there was still one problem:
I liked his teaching and his words of wisdom, but found the incredible claims he made about himself puzzling. Like many other religions, I liked the teaching I read about, but unless I could accept all of what Jesus said as fact and could apply this in a way that gives complete meaning and satisfaction to my own life, I would have nothing to do with it. My choice was to accept all of what Jesus said, or to reject it and have nothing more to do with Christianity.
But Jesus’ words were touching a part of my soul which no other teaching had ever gotten close to. I was weary and depressed, I understood that no matter what I gained in this life, unless my soul was satisfied I would never be fully happy- I wanted to have life to the full.
Give it a go
So I began to dabble in prayer: in normal, everyday language I began to talk out loud to ‘God’ when I was alone in my room. I remember saying ‘Well I might be praying to the wall here, but I might as well give it a go’. At the same time I began to put into practice some of the things that Jesus talked about in his teaching- the radical way of behaving towards people. Some amazing things happened.
I began to have some prayers answered- those which were in alignment with Jesus’ teaching. My self-image began to change, as did my attitude towards other people. Some remarkable ‘coincidences’ or meetings with people took place- they weren’t even Christians, but I began to meet up with people who could understand where I was coming from, and who unbeknown to themselves, were pointing me down the road of becoming a Christian! Every night after finishing my homework I looked forward to reading some more of the Bible, and with the aid of study notes my mum gave me, I tried to understand the significance of what was actually going on, and apply to my life in a very practical way. As I made my way through the New Testament I was never disappointed by the new things I learned. All of the teaching was based on that of Jesus and it was not only satisfying my mind- but when put in to practice, my emotions and spirit as well.
Over the next two years two major things happened:
Firstly, my depression began to be healed. As I came to understand life from God’s point of view, the underlying reasons for my intense negativity, my worries and even my fear of death, were shown to be unfounded. The more I saw my simple daily prayers being answered, the more confident I became to pray for the bigger worries in my life. And over time, those prayers too were answered.
Why Jesus came
The second thing that happened was that I understood why Jesus came to the earth, died and rose again: I was what the Bible called a ‘sinner’. Basically I had tried living life my own way, with me at the helm, believing that I knew what was best for me and ignoring God. But all humans are made by God to live in relationship with him- we can get by to varying degrees without him, but we can only function at our best and live full and satisfying lives when we hand over control and consciously decide to follow him. However, our attitude of disobedience or ‘rebellion’ has denied us the intimate access to God which we desire. He is a perfect, holy God, who cannot have anything to do with imperfection or sin. Our trying to work out life the way we think is best has backfired against us and barred us from access to the only thing which can give us true life. We need to find a way to access God.
We have turned our backs on the one who made us, essentially saying ‘Leave me alone, I don’t need you interfering in my life. I don’t want to submit control of my life to you, I know what’s best for me- you don’t!’ But God is a just God and our rebellion against him deserves to be punished. It would be foolish for him to just to take the rebellion of people and not punish them for it- imagine if this was the attitude of any government or ruler. A precedent would be set allowing people to get away with whatever they wanted to do- it would not produce a harmonious state of love, but exploitation of the laws and ultimately chaos in the state. Therefore, sin (rebellion against God) is a serious issue: more serious in God’s eyes than we can ever understand. It always leads to death (i.e. a ‘sin=death’ equation exists); that’s because it’s the thing that separates us from God. God is the life-giving creator, and without him there is death.
Every time sin appears in the Bible, something must die. This is so as to re-establish the intimate relationship that God has with his people. God loves his people, but hates their sin, and can’t tolerate it destroying his relationship with them.
As people who want to do things our own, and not God’s, we are sinners. We deserve to die. Jesus did not, but willingly accepted to die on our behalf. He symbolically took our sin upon himself and brought it to the grave with him, satisfying the ‘sin=death’ equation for ever. When he came back to life again he proved that he was in fact the God-ordained person to break the cycle of sin for ever. If he hadn’t risen from the dead, we could only speculate as to whether or not his death had counted on our behalf-he might just have been like all animals of the Old Testament, whose sacrifice satisfied God for a while, but only until the next time the people sinned: but the fact that Jesus did rise shows that
a) He is who he said he was (therefore validating all his teaching about himself and showing his character to be trustworthy), and
b) That he is still alive (since death did not affect him). If he is still alive then he still counts today as the sacrifice that is needed to symbolically take away people’s sins and restore their relationship with God.
Jesus said “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die (John 11:25-26).
I believe that he died in my place. He is therefore the person that saved my life from the punishment that is due to me- he is my saviour. Not only is my eternal destiny sealed because of what he did on the cross, but the life in all its fullness which he promised is available to me everyday as well. This is because the Holy Spirit of God is tangibly living in me.
Even though Jesus paid for ‘the sins of the world’ on the cross, not everybody accepts this. To have a personal relationship with God, you must individually choose to repent and accept that what Jesus did on the cross was done for you personally.
Becoming a Christian
Over the two years after I began to read the Bible, I realised that I was a sinner and was convinced by Jesus’ teaching that I needed to be saved from my sins. His message was to repent and believe that personal access to God was available to all people, regardless of their past or social status. [‘To repent’ means to a) be truly sorry for denying God his rightful rule in your life and b) deciding to do a u-turn, getting off the road you’re travelling on and getting on the one where God is in control i.e. obeying God.]
I repented and accepted that Jesus had taken my sin to the grave when he died on the cross. This sacrifice still applies because Jesus is still alive. Once my sin was taken care of, I was free to get on with a real, fulfilling relationship with God. As promised by God to anyone who acknowledges Jesus as the only access route between us and him, I received the Holy Spirit. This is God’s presence living in me, helping me to make the everyday choices that are in both my and God’s best interests, and encouraging my spirit to ‘do things’ that please God out of gratitude for having my life restored by him. The fact that my family and friends noticed a visible change in my attitudes and even my appearance (as I became more relaxed and happy) is just one proof of the Holy Spirit’s work in my life. Finally, the Holy Spirit is a deposit guaranteeing my eternal destiny. It’s a sign that I’m going to heaven- not because I deserve to- but because I chose to repent and believed that my sins were paid for on the cross. What’s more, it’s the Holy Spirit that enables me to daily live out the life that Jesus promised.
God has appointed Jesus as the King of heaven. (This is his reward for taking the sins of the world upon himself.) Therefore God wants us to listen to Jesus and obey him as we would the highest authority on earth. God calls him ‘Lord’. Part of becoming a Christian is to acknowledge Jesus as the Lord, or Ruler, of your life. This means that God wants us to obey him and follow his teaching. As mentioned above, he is also our “Saviour” from the death due to us. Hence the phrase, ‘Lord and Saviour’.
As well as embodying God in human form and revealing the full character of God to people, Jesus claimed to be the only link between God the Father and humanity. He said “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” ().
What ‘things’ do I need to do to be sure that I’m a Christian?
“What must we do to do the works God requires?” Jesus answered, “The work of God is to believe in the one he has sent.” (John 6:28-29).
Jesus’ teaching is very clear that no person can ‘earn’ a relationship with God. He openly criticized the Jewish priests of his day who were trying to do this. This is how Christianity is different from other religions- there’s no set of rules to follow to ‘make the grade’- the work you do is simply to believe that Jesus is the God-ordained answer to your problems and act on this belief by obeying Jesus’ teaching and doing the works which please God out of thanks for his goodness to you. The ‘works’ are an essential part of the Christina life, but on their own they don’t get you into heaven or restore an intimate relationship with God.
Jesus said, “I am the bread of life (i.e. the most fundamental nourishment you need on a daily basis to survive). He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty…. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6: 35 & 40). If these and all the other things Jesus says about himself are false, then there is no need to waste any more time looking into them. But if you think his claims about himself may be true, the direction of your life and your eternal destiny depend on how you respond to him. It’s worth your while investigating these issues further.
Summary
The most important thought I want to leave you with is this: all world religions operate on the basis of following a set of rules and trying to be good enough to earn something you couldn’t attain before. Christianity is the opposite: God acknowledges that no matter how hard you try, you will never be perfect. But the fulfilment you crave, the life you were made for, is available to you by coming to God and acknowledging your disobedience to him, asking for his forgiveness and promising to do a u-turn and give control of your life to him. You don’t deserve to be forgiven, but since Jesus took the punishment that is due to you by dying in your place, forgiveness and new life is available to you. God hates your sin, but he loves you and wants you to fulfil your potential in this life by living in intimate dependence upon him.
We don’t deserve to be treated this way, but God is gracious to us- he makes the free gift of forgiveness available to us, and then gives us his Holy Spirit which empowers us to live life his way each day after we decide to follow Jesus.
I’m not saying that it’s an easy life that I and other Christians lead; it’s reality, with all its highs and lows. But now I have a foundation, a deep peace and purpose to my life. I’m free to be the person God had in mind when he made me, and I’m living each day in close relationship with him and with others.
Conclusion
I realise that I have not given a completely systematic explanation to show that a relationship with God through Jesus is the meaning of life. Instead I have written this article as a chronicle of my own journey to becoming a Christian.
There are many books I could point you to that could help in your research-casual or otherwise- of the Christian faith. Alternately, you could write to me at patrick_boland@hotmail.com and I will try to answer any questions you may have, or simply read what you have to say.
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