I know that the bible is in contradiction to my experience now. It says if you seek you will find. That was not true for me so I know that those verses are untrue.
It's pretty funny.
I had to confront this too. There were lots of things in the Bible that seem contradictory to experience, science, you name it. One thing I could say for sure - I existed, and I existed in a world where there was a Bible. And some people believed it was the infallible Word of God and some people did not. Some believed that God put it here deliberately and it was inexorably perfect guidance. Inside were some things that I genuinely believed and loved and made sense "you will be forgiven as you forgive, judged as you judge".
There are also, I would note, some followers who weren't even seekers (or they didn't know they were). They still arrived with Christ and in his favor:
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
But, I wasn't particularly one of those either lol.
So I know you questioned "How do you know the events at Calvary actually happened."
Well, I'm pretty sure SOMETHING happened.
There's an annoying slogan in AA:
"Everything happens for a reason"
Most interpret this as "it will make sense later even if things are horrible now, a greater good will come of it". Which is fine. "All things work for the good for them that love the Lord" basically.
And I do interpret and believe in it that way; but there is another way also - looking backwards instead of forwards. "Everything happens for a reason" can also mean, "what is happening now makes sense based on what has happened before"
I was sitting in an AA meeting listening to the stories and thinking.
"Where did this meeting come from? Drunks don't do this sort of thing."
And they don't.
You know what drunks do?
They drink, resent, lose their sanity and die cursing God and everyone else. Jails, institutions and death.
They don't start multi-million member global spiritual recovery organizations like AA based on selfless altruism
"God never gave me a miracle"
Well, yeah, he kinda did.
As soon as I was at a point that I sought an AA meeting, I found one.
AA was started in 1938.
It was already there.
It was prepared in advance.
In fact, on my street, there was a little church 10 doors down.
Had been there for years. There was an AA meeting in it every week for like a decade
waiting for me.
And drunks don't do that sort of thing.
Not unless they meet God and God gives them an awful lot of help.
Later I looked into the roots of AA.
Oxford Group.
Christian.
A few years later, I stood in a Christian Church.
In North America, circa 2015 AD.
Dedicated to a Jew.
"Where did this Church come from?"
Jewish fisherman don't do this sort of thing.
You know what Jewish fishermen do?
They stay in Israel and they fish.
Unless...
...unless they meet God and God gives them an awful lot of help.
Whenever I said "Everything happens for a reason"
I kept looking back
And when I really looked back
And could see from my life
To AA
To the founding of AA
To the Oxford Group
To the founding of the Oxford Group
To the Church I was standing in
What was the reason?
It
all went back to the Cross on Calvary;
ALL of it.
I don't necessarily think of the Bible as infallible or exact the way that most Christians do
But I can tell you this:
It's what I was given to work with. I can say that for a certainty. It was carried forward 2000 years to me, and it exists with me here. Some it leads to Christ, some give it lip service, some take one look at it and head the other direction. Remember, the early Christians didn't have it. But what it's really doing is describing a person. And when you realize that that is a person that you want to meet and follow, and that you need to meet and follow, and that has been trying to meet YOU this whole time -
your whole life will become the evidence that you are seeking.
At least, that's my hope for you.
God Bless
Apparently, I am my Father's son. Of my own self, I tended to 'exceed expectations' of me whether those were good or bad, justified or not. I don't think this was a good thing, it was simply how I lived. But in that sense, people found what they sought, often 3 or 4 times what they sought for better or for worse. I made sure of it. These days, I prefer they find Christ and that seems to work better for everyone.
