Doing it God’s way sucks.
I don’t know why I assumed being Christian would be easy. Maybe it's cause I was a screwup for so long. Thinking I alone could handle the problems of the universe.
But now I have God I thought! A partner! The ultimate partner! I could be Danny Glover saying, “I’m too old for this shit” and God will come diving out of the bushes mowing down all my enemies in a hailstorm of gun fire.
It goes like this…
-Accept Jesus
-Become more like Jesus
-Get dunked in the pool thingy
-LIFE GETS GREAT!
The end.
Alas, not for me.
The week after I got baptized (dunked in the pool thingy) I got the worst injury I have ever had.
“Did you get hurt one of the times you were sparing a jiujitsu world champion or a UFC Hall of Famer?”
Nope! I tore my hip off playing duck duck goose at fucking church.
(I won, but at a heavy cost.)
Mere minutes after I heard multiple snaps in my right leg I hobbled to my seat to watch the worship band with a tear in my eye. The volunteers around me must have been thinking, “Look at the Holy Spirit move in our new brother.”
I was thinking, “I don’t have health insurance.”
I spiraled on the way home as I lifted my leg off and on the brake with my hands. How can you feel wanted at church when the first time after declaring your life to Jesus you can’t even walk out of his house properly?
I spent the drive imagining a wrathful God saying, “Who’s in my house? The kid who had all those weird Rogan appearances? TAKE OUT HIS LEGS!!
Then I remembered all those sermons I heard about God being loving. Always. That’s the God I wanted but had a hard time believing in.
Sure, he does that for famous pastors and people with good lives! But how could he love me and my shitty life I am painfully limping back to?
This couldn’t have been God! So I told myself it was the Devil, and I was a threat! Christians like telling that to themselves when their life is falling apart.
Certainly the devil saw all those fire Tweets I made about Jesus and had to stop me before I started a revival!
So he tried to stop me the way he has stopped many fierce warriors.
Through A children’s game and old man hips!
I got over it. I still prayed. Loved Jesus. Tried to read the Bible. Told people I read the bible. Nodded when someone quoted scripture like I knew what they were talking about. Etc.
I fed homeless people in between shows, taught kids jiujitsu, went to church every Sunday, called my Pastors when I wanted to act out (those poor guys.)
Then my life got awesome. Money, gigs, even a house! It was the first time I wasn’t walking up stairs just to get to my very far-from-the-ground apartment. I was walking up stairs cause my house had stairs!
I had made it.
In March I got married. We ain’t living in sin! We did it, Gods, way!
We went to church the morning of our wedding to show ourselves what good Christians we were.
World-famous pastor and singing sensation Tauren Wells PRAYED OVER US AND OUR MARRIAGE! It was beautiful. He told us that God has a plan and we are going to change millions of peoples lives.
Two days later, I lost everything.
No more money, no more house, and a wife who was still great, but whom I felt I tricked into marrying me with some kinda carnie hustle.
Sometimes you have to trade in a Honeymoon for a lease break fee.
Sometimes it seems like your dreams have come true and then it all falls apart in a way that is so insane, it seems like it must have been orchestrated by God, cause who else is smart enough to screw you over SO BAD.
Sometimes shit just sucks.
It cut deep.
If Tauren Wells prayers can’t help me than God must hate me. Have you heard that man sing?! No way could his angelic voice curse us.
It was me.
So now I am a Christian who thinks God hates him. I was resentful. Angry. Sad.
Like, so sad.
I prayed and felt like I was reading from a script.
“To whom it may concern, help I guess, Amen.”
I found God at 41 and became the emo teenager who hates him by 42.
I went to church less.
Everytime someone said they would pray for me I would mutter, “please don’t.”
Every sermon I saw was through eyes of suspicion.
Sure, tell me how God has a plan “millionaire who profits off of gullible people then locks them out of their church when they need help.”
I went to a very famous pastor friend of mine for advice.
He said to fast.
THANKS MAN!
I was like bro, I need a gig, I’ll be fasting plenty soon when I can’t afford food. Can someone stop feeding me spiritual bullshit and just help me?
It’s not that I was mad at God for not giving me millions of dollars, I just felt like he was another one of many who got sick of me and bailed.
Believing in God is great when things are going well. It’s supposed to be even better when things are bad, but for me it made it so much worse. If God is a father this played into my Dad issues.
This is why my wife and I started the podcast. It’s two people who still struggle. Who are going through it with you not just telling you what to do from their mansion.
We don’t have a network. We don’t have sponsors. We just have each other, jokes, and an army of Sad Pandas.
I wanted to end this piece with an amazing story about overcoming and finding God in bravery or something but I’m not there yet.
I’m talking to pastors, I’m going to church, but I’m also meditating again, reading books from other faiths. Joking with my atheist friends. It feels really good.
I think one of the problems Christians have is feeling like they can’t talk about when things get fucked, or when they get mad at God, or anything like that. That’s the fear based Christianity I do not want to subscribe to. I want to talk about this stuff cause I want other people to feel less alone.
Thanks for reading, listening, and loving.
Listen to the first episode of Trauma Bonding with Jamie and Alex on YOUTUBE or SPOTIFY