My Story: Jeff
My Story is a series of testimonials from a variety of people that have been impacted by DSBC. They have been asked to share their unfiltered perspective on faith, Jesus, church etc. These stories are shared with the goal of hearing from others and equipping our church family to work towards a Jesus-centered unity as diverse group of misfits.
Jeff’s Story
For most of my life I never gave much thought to if God existed.
Once I started thinking about bigger questions I would have fallen into the category of: I believe in a higher power… spiritual but not religious.
Religion has often proven itself to be a source of great evil within the world as religious leaders quested for power.
Rather than being tarnished by religion, my thinking was: “I will live a moral life, take care of those within my circle, and as is convenient, care for others.”
I avoided thinking about God as I thought it would lead me down a path of unanswerable questions and I thrived in environments of clear black and white. The answer to God would ultimately hinge on my faith, and I preferred to live in the modern world of science.
I created a mutually exclusive conflict (science vs. God) and was comfortable in my life there was no reason to rock the boat. I never had a crisis, but out of intellectual curiosity I began exploring what it meant that there is a higher power.
Specifically, I focused on answering the ‘God question’ and then based on my answer, make an informed decision on the morality checklist that would guide my actions in the future
Through much reading, listening, talking, debating, and praying I realized that my entire mental model of God vs. science was useless.
God is a being that desires a personal and unique relationship with you. Lacking sufficient nuance, one’s relationship with God focuses heavily on the ‘why’ whereas science is a tool to examine the ‘how’.
It is not intellectually honest to disprove a ‘why’ using a ‘how’ tool.
Everything changed once I shifted from academic proof to building a healthy relationship.
Building a relationship is hard work. One of the best tools we have in building our relationship with God is the community we surround ourselves with. For that I am very grateful that I began this journey at DSBC.
As much as I wanted a morality checklist they pushed back as they knew the real goal is a personal relationship with God. That relationship has proven to be simultaneously simple and complicated, joyful and awe inspiring, challenging and encouraging.
Others more well versed than me put it best, “God loves you more than you could ever know”, and I am so grateful I am now an active part of that relationship.