I had a problem when I first became a Christian. I read the Bible. 

I know how that sounds. I mean, aren’t new Christians supposed to read the Bible? Isn’t that support to help, not create problems?

Yes, I suppose, that is probably true.

But, not for me. Not in 1992.

You see, I wasn’t “raised in the church,” as some may say. I didn’t have the “baggage” of a learned theology or religious traditions. In fact, if I had, I often wonder if I ever really would have said YES to Jesus.

But, I did. And, I said it emphatically.

And I was also, very alone at the time. Oh, there were other Christians around, probably. And, lots of other people too, but I was alone.

You see, I was literally in the middle of Marine Corps boot camp. Not exactly the spot you might imagine coming to Jesus. 

(Well, except maybe if your next step was off to war. I mean, they say there are no atheists in a foxhole. Google the expression if you aren’t sure what I mean.)

Yes, all alone with my platoon of 60 or so of my closest friends. I wouldn’t say that either. They weren’t exactly my friends.

For one, most of my life, I’ve felt out of place no matter where I am. 

For two, while we were learning to rely on and trust our brothers with our very lives, I felt like I didn’t hardly know anyone around me. Not in a close, personal or meaningful way. It’s not like we had talk time in boot camp. Even the week I put my faith in Jesus, these guys were all mad at me for waking them up in the middle of the night. (You’ll have to read more about that in my book, NEVER SETTLED, for that to make sense.)

For three, I didn’t know one person directly available to me in boot camp who could guide me spiritually, and that included my best friend from high school who was our platoon lay leader, whatever that title meant.

So, I began my new journey with Jesus on my own, periodically hearing from a Navy Chaplain or the occasional church visit after boot camp. It was mostly just me and my Bible.

What I began to learn right away was that many of the church practices and ideas that I learned just prior to becoming a Christian or on those occasional weekend services, didn’t always line up with what I read in my Bible.

I mean, simple, obvious things like the idea of “dressing up” for church. I read somewhere that man looks at the exterior but God looks at the heart. So, why focus on what we wear, I thought.

But God expects our best, someone in the church told me, so we must dress up to give it to him.

Immediate clash, to me, between the Bible and man’s traditions/ideas. So, I chose the Bible and have always elected to dress as down as I felt like I could get away with.

Here’s one where I fell on the opposite side of organized religion, on their side. I had quite the foul mouth before coming to know Jesus. Almost immediately after trusting Christ and finding this new life, I became convinced that I needed to change the way I talked. I was convicted that “cussing” was a sin, so I made it my first and primary goal to quit sinning, er cussing. 🤬 

Ironically, there aren’t really any convincing scriptures I’ve read to this day that say I can’t say f&$k, s@$t, or d*+n. (See, I can’t even type them out straight in this example.)

But, there were some that alluded to the way I talked, having a pure mind, out of the mouth overflows the heart, etc. It was enough to convince me to clean up my language even though specific words weren’t banned. It was quite the challenge for me, it was a rather nasty habit. But, God had cleaned up my heart, changed the way I thought so that helped a lot. I mean, I also had a lot more peace within so I didn’t really feel the need to curse as much.

All that being said, I was constantly noticing how the Bible’s focus seemed to be in one place, but the Christian world seemed to be some place else. Personally, I decided to follow the Bible over these traditions and focuses, at least internally. Sometimes I kept my opinions to myself, sometimes I voiced them, usually as questions so as to illicit as little conflict as possible.

Another example was when I returned “home” from the Marine Corps. The church that had introduced me to Jesus before I went to boot camp and accepted him, was a denominational church. While I didn’t yet know much about denominations, I didn’t love that. The Bible’s focus seemed to be on Christian unity but denominations seemed to be the opposite. So, I mostly kept that opinion to myself while learning the traditions and theological ideas of this particular denomination and got closer and closer to marrying it.

But all this and these examples to say, just try actually reading the Bible. It’ll mess your world up. In a good way.

If you’re not a Christian, it might make you say, “what the… “ or “wow, I wish more Christians actually read this.” 

If you are a Christian, it will challenge you to reconsider your traditions and beliefs. If you really read it and consider the implications, it might wreck your world.

It wrecks mine all the time. BUT to me, there is no more real of a way to follow Jesus than to read what is actually written and then to consider the obvious implications. There is probably nothing this world needs more. 

(Except for perhaps, beginning to live in the ways of Jesus that he both taught and lived.) Lord, help us do both of those things.

I would love to hear back from you. How has the Bible wrecked your world? What have you read that seems so out of whack with the church today? How have you seen your life transformed by reading the Bible?

I would like to begin by reading something I wrote about Rosemary a few years ago from when I first met her and she helped me come to know Jesus.

Rosemary was so full of life! She was always interested in having fun and was warm, kind and welcoming. She made me feel like a million bucks, like I was the most important person on earth. She had a gift for loving teenagers and I was a teenager who needed love. She quickly became like a second mom to me.

(Long before I was even interested in her daughter), Rosemary’s way of bringing me into the family was to treat me like I was her son. She was affectionate with hugs, compliments, and lots of laughs.

Though Rosemary was religious, she listened to the stories of my life and was simply amazed that I ever survived. She treated me like I was a lost war hero and was worthy of honor and a meritorious award. It felt great to have someone know about my life and appreciate me and what I went through. 

While I shared stories about my life, she shared stories about Jesus, the church and her own life. 

Simply put, Rosemary was Jesus to me before I knew Jesus. She brought me to Him with her love and helped me to know Him in a personal way.

Amazingly, years later I started dating her daughter, and we got married. Yet, nothing changed from Rosemary, she loved me the same. She always considered me part of the family, from the very beginning. I want to say she loved me more, but she didn’t because she already loved me that way.

This church had a large part of me becoming to know Jesus as well and significantly impacted  my call to become a youth pastor. As a youth pastor of nearly ten years here, Rosemary was my biggest supporter. Even starting as a volunteer together when we lost our youth pastor, Rosemary had 30+ years of youth ministry experience and a lifetime of following Jesus, she never acted like she knew more than me or was better than me, she treated me as an equal. 

Then when I became a youth pastor, she followed my lead in every way, ready and willing to do whatever was asked or needed of her, even when teenagers threw smoke bombs in her cabin at Camp Cotubic or live mice at St. Mary’s Campground.

We have countless hilarious Rosemary stories from youth group days,(like leftover chicken in the bathtub) but suffice it to say that I would not have survived any of them without her. Even if she did almost get me fired for leaving a couple of students back at the hotel when the group left to return to Camp Cotubic for the closing service of our Fall Retreat weekend.

We may not have always agreed theologically with some of her old school thoughts, but in the end we did because she taught me the way to follow Jesus was to love people and there is no better theology than that.

I will dearly miss being loved by Rosemary in the flesh and I can’t wait to see her again.

Speaking of which, that really is what all of this is about today. She has entered paradise, returned to husband and her God and is dancing a jig, telling many great stories to those that went before her that have already heard them time and time again.

I’d like to close with my details of coming to know Jesus and ask you to consider joining us or rejoining us if you’ve gone your own way.

On Sunday, (in Marine Corps boot camp at Camp Pendleton) we had chapel services in the field. We sat in metal bleachers that were there for training exercises. Every week during boot camp, I attended chapel services for two primary reasons. First, it was our only time and way to get away from the drill instructors. We had about an hour and a half of freedom. Second, I still loved singing songs. Many of the songs were more traditional hymns rather than the popular choruses that I learned at High Street, but I enjoyed them just the same. My friend had actually become our platoon lay-leader and led prayers each night before bed. I hadn’t really paid this much attention yet, since it wasn’t real personal for me. 

That Sunday morning though, we sat in the bleachers and listened to a Navy Chaplain tell us about the lifestyle of many Marines after boot camp. He talked about how they go out to bars, get drunk and start carousing around. He talked about how they slept around. He talked about how sometimes Marines live such a party life that it will land them in big trouble with the Marine Corps itself. 

I began thinking about my life and how I was a pretty good kid. My dad lived that drinking life he talked about, but I rejected it not wanting to turn out like him. I never drank an ounce of alcohol in my life. My dad was violent, but I refused to be that way. I refused violence even when I had a chance to hurt my dad back. My dad was racist. I refused that attitude and embraced equality. I opened myself up to learning about different types of cultures and their ways of living. My dad thought men were better than women and thought it was okay to  dominate them. I refused that mindset and knew that men and women are equal, just with different qualities and characteristics. My dad had been so selfish in life and abusive to us in many ways that I had been determined to never be like that when I had kids. I never settled for the example that he gave me.

Despite all of the ways that I felt I was not a bad kid, I knew I wasn’t perfect and I needed a savior. I can’t fully explain why. It wasn’t a mental thing. It wasn’t an emotional thing. It was a deep down thing. I believed the message that Jesus gave his life for me, I put my faith in Him, repented of my sins, and asked Him into my life. That morning, I stepped down out of the bleachers and went forward to pray. I told the Navy Chaplain what I thought and felt God was doing in my life and he led me in a prayer where I accepted Jesus into my life.

When I opened my eyes, I was filled with peace and joy that I had never experienced before. There is much more I could tell about how Jesus changed my life after that morning from cleaning up my mouth to forgiving my dad to helping me become a better dad and husband, but none of it would have been possible without Jesus in the form of Rosemary loving me when I needed it the most.

Thank you Rosemary, I look forward to wild antics and tall tales, er… timeless tales when I see you again in Heaven. If you don’t have a current relationship with Jesus, I strongly encourage you to consider one today. Rosemary can’t wait to see you again!