My (Second) Baptism

Yesterday, Sunday, July 29, 2018 I was baptized for the second time, this time as an adult knowing what I was in for. A little story here, I was baptized by sprinkling at age nine into the New Hope United Methodist Church. It was a little country church in a community known as Fort Henry about five miles west of Huntsville, MO. I went through confirmation classes, and for the next 15 years I was a Christian. I taught Sunday School, and at one point as a teen I thought about being a minister. But after high school I drifted away, but remained a Believer. But then amongst the worst things that can happen to a young man that is just starting out happened, my father died after a four year bought of cancer. I turned on God and the Church. In three years I was pagan, and years later I became a writer of pagan books. But God had a plan, slowly he showed me the flaws of what I believed, and guided me back to Christ. The turning point came while I was writing on ethics, and it occured to me that the Great Commandment and the Golden Rule were the answer to all my problems.

I started attending Church again. My own Church had closed years before so I attended Huntsville United Methodist Church. I knew most everyone there as I had grown up around them and was warmly welcomed. I never spoke a word of my pagan past. Then at my first Communion after returning to the Church, I accepted in my mind Jesus Christ as my Savior. I continued attending Church and slowly opened up about my life of idolatry. No one batted an eye, I was accepted with love and kindness. I was asked to be on the Admin Council. I hardly missed a Sunday. When Reverend Mike White became our pastor he preached often about the importance of baptism. One Sunday after Church I mentioned being baptized again. Rev. Mike is well awake of my pagan past, and was at the time, and said he thought given my past it would be a good idea.

And that brings us to yesterday. It started out as any Sunday, save I slept later than usual. I got up and prepared for Church. I came early as I had promised Matt, who usually runs the video screens I would do it to give him a break. That way he could for once sit and enjoy the service and not fret about getting the right hymn on the screens, It was Communion Sunday, my favorite service of the Ordinary Days ( a time when there are no major Church holidays). I went through the service doing my "job" and took Communion. After Church I ran to Dollar General after relaxing at home a bit, and then to Walmart to pick up some things, and finally to Taco Bell to grab something to eat. Once home, I composed a letter to a friend which I still have not decided whether to send as it is a touchy issue. And then fearing I would be late, I left for Rev, Mike and his wife Linda's beautiful home on Lake Nehai northwest of Salisbury, Mo. I made it there with time to spare, and slowly members of my Church family showed up.

Then the time arrived for the rites to begin. Another church member, Diane was also getting baptized, so it was quite an event for the church, Rev. Mike gave a short sermon on baptism, we sang hymns, and then Diane and I went out in the lake with Rev. Mike to be baptized. The water was at first cold, and I am no fan of water not being a good swimmer. Rev. Mike baptized me first. He had me cross my arms, inhale, and hold my noise. And then he plunged me underwater. Usually I close my eyes under water, but I left them open, and the feeling was exhilarating. I came up and had the most amazing feeling. It was not just the rush of the water, but the feeling I had been cleansed of my sins. It was am amazing feeling after a year of dealing with a whole host of problems ranging from rumors about my pagan past among other things, a prostate infection, a brief return to drinking, and trying to withdraw from an addictive prescription medication. All that along with issues among my circle of friends had brought bitterness, and some hatred or those that had wronged me. Now, though I was able to let that go. It was God that helped me make it through all of that, and now God had brought it full circle, and brought me back at last to Christ.

I feel like a new man. It has been a long process. I went from being a struggling writer to having a descent job since I returned to the Church. My family is healthy and doing better than they have. My circle of friends is smaller, but a much happier circle. All this I owe to God, and my choice to return to Christ. If you are a Believer, and have never been baptized, I strongly encourage you to do so. It is a life changer.

Addiction and God

Some of my friends have been addicts, some still are. Personally, I was addicted to alcohol at one point in my life. Many people do not understand addictions, and say silly things like, "Why don't they just stop?" Well, it is not as simple as that. Addiction usually starts out as a way of self medicating to control depression or forget some trauma in one's life. With truly addictive drugs like meth, heroin, cocaine this is truly dangerous as they are physically as well as psychologically addictive. Essentially, the mind and body will not function properly without them once addicted. So long after one is past their depression or trauma that started them using to begin with the need for the drug continues. People that have never done drugs may never understand, and therefore really have no reason to comment. And addicts are great at denial, no they are not addicted to the drug they can quit at anytime, they just do the drug to get things done, or all my friends do drugs are some of the common

excuses. The sad thing is they will put drugs ahead of everything else, friends, children, jobs, homes, and even God. They will compromise their morals while still clinging to some image of being Christian. I have seen kind and caring individuals turn into monsters that mock the non-user and even turn on those that truly care for them in favor of druggie friends whose only drive is to do more drugs. They will turn to bad people in order to get more drugs that will simply use them for sex, money, or anything else they can get off them. Any attempt to try to convince the addict they are an addict in need of help is likely to be met with hostility. It doesn't need to be that way. God can do anything even help an addict during recovery. By praying for addicts, and once they see they have a problem getting them to pray for their own recovery we can help them get back to a life of clean living.  Once sweet, loving, and kind individuals can return to being that again. Many addicts that are truly kind wage a war within themselves trying to remain kind and caring while fighting the selfishness and cruelty that comes with drug addiction. They do cruel things which they regret, and then try to make up for them with acts of kindness. Somehow the two never balance out with the bad outweighing the good. What does the Bible have to say about addiction?

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. (1 Peter 5:10)

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you (James 4:7)

I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:13)

So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. (2 Timothy 2:22)

And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. (2 Corinthians 11:4)

For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. (Hebrews 2:18)

As you see, the Bible over and over and over tells us that God can help us overcome temptations of

the flesh. It also tells us giving into such temptations take us away from Christ. If we are to be Godly, caring individuals we must step away from such temptations as meth, cocaine, heroin, alcohol, and turn back to God. No one should place drugs above their sons and daughters, their jobs, their homes, their lives, their God. People are meant to love God, their friends, their family, and especially their children. Drugs take them away from all these people. I do not judge the addict. It is hard to stop, even harder to recognize one has a problem. Usually one has to hit rock bottom, and that is painful for anyone that truly loves them to see. Most addicts will see me as being self righteous with this post. That is the addiction talking for what I say is true, and I would hope that on some level they see a need to return to a life of sanity, to a life of caring for their children, their friends, their family, and turn back to God.  But until the time that my addict friends realize they have a problem and seek recovery, I will pray to God that they see their way to the other side of addiction, and that God lets them know I will be waiting for them on the other side.

The Importance of Fellowship

I try to make it a point to attend both Sunday Services at Huntsville United Methodist Church in Huntsville, Missouri as well as Wednesday night Bible Study. I feel worship and studying with others helps reinforce my faith. Many times I forget how Christians are to behave. I fail to forgive people or to love them as Jesus told us to do. I find it all too easy to hate those that have wronged the ones I love. Attending services reminds me of what I should be doing.  But in this day and age, many have made the church second to family outings, vacations, school activities, or sports. Guaranteed on the day after high school prom or a day when some sports tournament is going on church attendance will be lower. For many people Church is something they attend when nothing else is going on. This is not how it should be. Only once have I not attended Church in the past year because something else was happening, and that was to help a friend move. All other times I have missed I was too ill to attend.

So why has Church become secondary to other things? That is anyone's guess. Personally, I always try to make time for Church. I have turned down invitations to do other things so I could attend. It therefore mystifies me why someone would not attend church.  I have had late Saturday nights when I did not get in until the wee hours and still got up and attended Church. And I have turned down invitations to do other things as they were happening when I should be in Church. To me, the most important activity of the week is fellowship with my Church family. This is what the Bible has to say on fellowship:

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day

drawing near. (Hebrews 10:24–25)

For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them. (Matthew 18:20)

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. ( Colossians 3:16)

Whether one chooses to attend Church or not is his or her own choice, but the Bible is clear on the importance of fellowship. Being with our Church family makes us stronger in our faith in my opinion. It lifts us up when we are down. It inspires us. It gives us food for thought. And I think it makes us better Christians

Anger is not Righteous

I can, at times be an angry man. When I was younger, I was prone to angry outbursts, sometimes outright temper tantrums. Since I have grown older I have learned self control but that does not mean I am not still angry at times. I have merely learned to control it. If you notice I am being stoic it means I am brooding, and you best steer clear. It is a demon I have to learn to fight because being angry is very Unchristian. The Bible is very clear on anger:

19 My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. (James 1:19-20)

Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools. (Ecclesiastes 7:9)

 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. (Matthew 5:22)

Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the bosom of fools. (Ecclesiastes 7:9)

Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil. (Psalm 37:8)

The key to controlling anger is to be quick to forgive. Most of time when we are angry it is because

someone has done something we feel it is wrong. Whether the wrong was done ourselves, or done to someone else it is best to forgive. It does not matter if someone has hurt us or someone we care about,  or the sheer magnitude of the sin we must forgive. The Bible tells us to forgive others, and how often we should.

21 Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?

22 Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven. (Matthew 18:21-22)

Sometimes it is hard to forgive. But it is something we must learn to do if we are to control anger.

By the Grace of God

I was raised in the United Methodist Church. It was where I spent the first 24 years of my life. I was baptized at age nine, taught Sunday School as a teenager, and at one point thought about becoming a minister. Then the worst thing that could happen to a young man that deeply admired his father happened. My Dad came down with lung cancer when I was 19. And he passed away when I was 24. I had been slowly drifting away from the church. Oh, I still believed, but it no longer played the role it once did. With my Dad's death though, I very wrongly blamed God. Here are all these people living the good life that prey on others, and then there was my father, a good man, made to suffer four years of slowly dying. He did not deserve that. How could a loving God do that to an honest, hard working man? What's more, what difference did being a good person make if it just ended in sorrow and suffering? Being one of those people that needed a higher power, I went looking elsewhere. I went looking for gods that would not make me be a good person just to suffer.

Two years later I found it in the form of the religion Asatru which believes in the old Norse gods

Odin, Thor, Frigga, Frey, among others. I devoted many years of my life to it, wrote seven books under the pen name Swain Wodening. It was not however, a very loving religion. People were prone to petty rivalries. I got accused of many things I did not do as were others. And as a result of that and my father's death I drifted in and out of depression, and turned to alcohol and drugs. Life after my father died was hard. Most of the time I was barely getting by. At one point I was homeless and living on bagels (long story). It was a far cry from the fairly privileged life I had known as a child.

Slowly, I made something of myself, got a job at a law office, got engaged, then got married to someone else. I moved to Texas. I was not happy though.  Asatru lacks compassion. There are no commandments telling people not to judge others, or commandments telling people to be kind. It very much encouraged sociopaths looking out for themselves. Don't like someone? Make up convincing lies about them and spread them everywhere you can. Don't want to take the blame for something you did? Blame someone else. Jealous of someone else's achievements? Do everything you can to bring them down. Many if not most Asatruar that are well known are falsely accused of something once in their life. Tricks included forged confessions to bad deeds supposedly written by the target of a smear campaign, false accusations, rumor mongering,  harassment, among other things. And having written seven books, been the leader of one of the several organizations, I was forever the target. In my time as a Heathen I was accused of beating my ex-wife, being schizophrenic, being a sex addict, abusing my position, among many other things. Now I must point out most Asatruar are good people. They are not mean to others, and like to lend a helping hand, but there are those few that use the lack of commandments for compassion to their advantage. Being prone to depression I made an easy target. They knew if they poked me enough they could get a reaction. As a result, I did things in anger, said things I am not very proud of.  In essence, I fought back. That combined with the alcohol led very much to a life of sin.

Around 2012, I had had enough, and decided to try to change Asatru. I had always written about

honor and the consequences of one's actions, that was enough to get people mad at me, but then I started throwing in bits about compassion. It was not received well. People said I had gone soft, that I had sold out, or was carrying Christian baggage. Disgusted at Asatru by 2014 I went looking elsewhere. Then one night while working on a blog post, it struck me, the Golden Rule was the answer. And everything changed. And thus began the journey back to Christ. I toyed with Christian Deism for a while, but then once I began attending church again, I began to realize Christ was my Savior. And with my first Communion since returning to the church it came to me Christ was indeed my Savior. And this is where God's Grace came in.

One of the things I was dealing with was the shame of having ever become Heathen, not to mention things I had done to hurt others. But with the Blood of Christ all that was washed away. All my sins were gone, and I was born again with a clean slate. It gave me the strength to begin to rebuild my life. I joined a community organization and organized the local fall festival. I began to be active in church. I began to interact with my friends more. I wrote my first books about something other than Heathenry. And I continue to build on that. I got a new job, and am preparing to move to a new place. It was the Grace of God, the gift of Salvation that has allowed me to do this. And Salvation is there for everyone. All you have to do is believe in Jesus the Son, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit. It took me decades to realize that. I had to follow false gods to do so. But now I am so glad I am saved.

A Guide for Treating Others

The Holy Bible has the perfect guide for how to treat others, and in a world where everyone is trying to get ahead it can give the guidance we need. It's message is simple.

Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22:35-40)

This is not the only place that the Bible gives guidance on how to treat others:

Do to others what you want them to do to you. This is the meaning of the law of Moses and the teaching of the prophets. (Luke 6:31)

Further, Christ also had this to say:

For with whatever judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with whatever measure you measure, it will be measured to you. (Matthew 7:2)

What more do we need to know? We are to love others as we love ourselves. We are to treat others as

we want to be treated. And you are not to judge others. This is more difficult to do than it seems. Are you to love the person that threatened your child? Are you to treat the person that stole your car as you want to be treated? Should you not pass judgement on those who wrong you? Jesus was clear on these things. I do not think he meant love others, but only when they do not wrong you. He did not mean only treat others that treat you well as you would yourself. He meant to do these things with everyone.

These are things I have struggled with since returning to the Lord. Am I to love my ex-wife even when she withholds contact with my son? Am I to treat the person that hit my car and drove off without so much as leaving a note as I want to be treated? Am I to not to judge the guy that threatened a female friend of mine with physical violence? I know what the Bible tells me to do, but emotions get in my way, and I find myself hating, treating others badly, and judging people. I have found that the best I can do is keep trying to do what the Bible tells me to do. And if I keep trying to do those things, maybe eventually I will.

The Importance of Forgiveness

From a previous post, you know that I spent years as a pagan. The form of paganism I was a part of was known as Germanic Heathenry, also sometimes called Asatru. I have talked in other places in the past about it's lack of compassion, and I have been quick to blame a lot of my issues on that. The honest truth is that I was partly to blame. Following my father's death, I blamed God for what had happened. I went through years of being critical of Christianity. I saw God as unloving and uncaring. No one, but myself had turned on the religion of my childhood.

Before I even became Heathen, I had become a person that was not very nice. I was selfish, caring only about myself. I turned to alcohol, and to a lesser degree drugs. By the time, I converted to Heathenry, I had already turned my back on my Savior. And part of the reason I turned to Heathenry was the very reason I am now critical of it. Heathenry allowed me to be the person I had become. Instead of finding a religion that would cure me of my woes, I had found one that would encourage them. I lacked compassion, and so I turned to a religion that also lacked it. And one of the things I turned away from was forgiveness.

Forgiveness is an important part of Christianity. We are to to forgive others. To me, at the heart of forgiveness is giving others the chance to change. Everyone has issues in their past that they would rather forget. Issues that they have long since atoned for. Forgiveness is allowing them to show that they have indeed changed. That is the same chance God has given us. The chance that by being born again, one has truly changed. I know for myself I have tried hard to change. I still have problems. I still blame others for what in all honesty I should accept full responsibility for. I still engage in behaviors I should not. But I am trying to change, and I want others to see I have changed. Forgiveness allows us to allow others to show they have changed just as it allows them too to change. Forgiveness allows us to let go of a past of sin, and look to a future of living with Christ.