I was sitting on the airplane, about to land in Kelowna, British Columbia when it dawned on me. I was within minutes of returning home for Christmas after four months of classes at Southern Adventist University in Tennessee. I remember looking out the window, lost in thought as the airplane banked for final approach. There had been something welling up from the deepest parts of me for some time now. Even as I went through the motions of my public life, I was basically living another one in secrecy, in solitude. Allow me to start from the beginning.
I was born and raised a Seventh-day Adventist Christian. All my life, I had been taught to honor both my Lord, and those around me. However, something was missing. I lacked an ability to cultivate a deep, meaningful relationship with God, and tried to remedy this through other endeavors. Time went on. I was baptized twice, participated in various outreach and evangelism opportunities, and outwardly seemed to grow.
The problem was that while I appeared to be a sincere, vibrant Christian, I was basically dead inside. I grappled with issues beyond my years, went through periods of depression, and invariably kept up a good front. When I was a freshman in college, I started a Bible study in my dorm room. It became very popular and every week guys squeezed themselves into the small living space to meet and talk about God. However, while introducing others to this fulfilling experience, I remained aloof. All these years that I seemed to learn and grow, something else was growing inside of me. It was a mix of several problems relating to my spiritual and relational life: doubt, dissatisfaction, depression, loneliness, fear, anxiety, and despair.
Throughout all this, I maintained a cheery front, growing and changing in ways that were positive. It was as if, while all these good developments were happening in my life, a huge confused beast was growing inside me and taking over. I kept trying to convince myself and others that I was secure spiritually and emotionally, but at the same time I was wilting inside. I was an Agnostic in practice, yet I refused to let myself accept this possibility.
To make a long story short, it eventually all came to a head. I stopped resisting, and this thing inside me began to take over. I finally snapped. Flying commercially always makes me think about dying, and I guess this time it triggered inside me the realization that I didn't know what would happen to my soul if the plane were to crash and my body implode. I came to the incredibly frightening conclusion that I didn't really believe all the things I had been living my whole life.
This was an incredibly painful yet essentially helpful time in my life. The relative freedom from spiritual expectations allowed me to delve deep into my heart to explore the reasons for my belief. I was able to to examine my intentions, my fears, and my faith. I finally began to ever so slowly build a real, legitimate faith from the ground up.
Granted, I was a spiritual baby, but only because I had been born again. At long last, I think I'm finally beginning to understand what that means. For me, it was having to die to the fake, contrived life I had let myself follow. Only then could I really live, ready to soak up the blessings and truths my Lord had been trying to give me all along.
I eventually wrote a very short article called "Tyler Quiring's Five Steps to Understanding the Conceivability of a God." While the article had supposedly been written for those who needed to be introduced to God, I really wrote it for me. It wasn't very scientific or substantial, but it was another stepping stone in my journey across a vast, swift river of spiritual mayhem. I had arrived at some sort of feasible grounding to allow God to work with.
I am not trying to say that I have made it, or that I am unwaveringly secure in my faith and belief in my Lord. Quite the contrary. If this experience has taught me anything, it is that I never really am spiritually stable on my own, and without constantly investing in this holy relationship, its very basis will crumble and fall.
I guess God tested my faith, and my faith failed. However, this experienced opened my eyes to my deep need for God's constructive abilities. This story has been fairly cut-and-dried for purposes of written coherence. I assure you it is much more convoluted and intriguing than this, and if you are interested in finding out more, I sincerely invite you to merely ask. I am more than willing to explain God's working in my life, and I hope others can learn from my experience as well.
Some other day, I will post on the practical applications of these musings in relation to future generations. Until then, God be with you.
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