When I First Met God: The Beginning of My Own Uncertain Faith

I grew up in a town where right and wrong were very, very clearly defined.

• Drinking was wrong.

• Smoking was wrong.

• Sex was wrong (unless used to procreate within the confines of marriage).

• Any Bible version other than the NKJV was wrong.

• Outsiders were wrong.

• Evolution was wrong.

• Obeying your parents and elders was right.

• Having a good reputation was right.

• Getting married, going to church, and having a wealth of babies was right.

You get the picture. There were rules. Lots of them - more of what was wrong than what was right. You just hoped and prayed that you didn’t do one of the wrong things because you would be forever thereafter known by the community as “that girl.” As a result, I was a very good little girl - top of my class, athlete of the year, and every teacher’s favourite.

There was one problem: I knew something was missing.

I knew, deep down in my gut, that being “good” wasn’t actually good enough. There would always be people finding fault in me; I always feared that I had unknowingly misstepped and the entire community was secretly laughing behind their hands at me. Even worse, I feared that I wasn’t good enough for God.

Then I had an experience.

One night at summer Bible camp, it hit me between the eyes. As the worship team began to play Lincoln Brewster’s “I Surrender,” I realized that God didn’t care about whether I did everything perfectly right. He cared about my surrender to him. I felt him, deep in my soul, calling to me and saying, “Surrender. Give it up. Stop trying so hard. All I want is you.”

God didn’t condemn me for all the little mistakes I made every day. He ever so gently invited me to lay myself down in his arms and to give up my fight to be the “good girl.”

My faith became real that night. I met God in a way I never had before. His presence was so real, so tangible. The veil between heaven and earth so thin.

That’s not the last encounter I have had with God, but it was one of the first.

Do you see yourself in my story?

What were the messages told to you by your community, church, or family? What has it been like for you to meet God since then?

To all you skeptics - yes, my first encounter with God (and most of them since) had nothing to do with reading or studying the Bible. Yes, it was based on emotion, not on reason or logic. That’s great news! God is not limited to speaking through the Bible and he is not confined to the walls of reason. God is God, which means he is above, beyond, and far more than we could ever imagine.

Also, this was the beginning of my journey, not the end. I can’t count the number of times I have fallen back into the trap of being the “good girl” or tried desperately to win God’s approval by doing all the “right” things (the things I think he wants, like Bible reading and going to church and Bible study).

You know what? God loves you. He loves you so much. He doesn’t care if you mess up; he just wants to have a relationship with you, in all the good and all the bad. I don’t know about you, but I can rest in that assurance, even in all my uncertain faith.

Do you want to talk more? I’d love to hear your story! Leave a comment below, follow the conversation on Instagram, or drop your email here to join the community.