The Beginings of a Roadmap

To be methodical is usually not my style but if I'm going to really, really try this time to work some things out in my mind concerning this whole spiritual journey in Adventism thing it might be helpful. So, somewhere in this house is the packet I went through way back in the day that had weekly lessons on the 28 fundamental beliefs in the Seventh-Day Adventist church. I will try to rustle that up.

I was thirteen when I went through that packet the first time. It was a preparation course for baptism. Pastor Marion Kidder came to our house once every other week for fourteen weeks to go over the lessons with us. I remember it as a very pleasant time. Pastor Kidder sat a the dining room table with my mom, sister, and I and we would go over the lessons we had studied over the previous two weeks. He was patient, very kind, and humble. To my mind he was the perfect pastor. He often brought a theology student with him from the local Adventist university and it was always an interesting time. At the end of it all my sister and I were baptized. My mom gave each of an NIV Bible with our names engraved in the leather cover. I still have mine and enjoy it and can usually find what I'm looking for among it's heavily highlighted pages but I'm careful with it now because its cover is being held on by bandage tape.

There was really only one downside to those lessons. Me. I was thirteen, as I said, and a very good student. I was a good student who liked to get the right answers. Looking back on it now, almost thirty years later, my thinking was so immature. I regurgitated the "right answers." I believed in God, Jesus, and the Bible but my questioning of the deeper answers to the theological lessons I read just didn't exist. Mom and Pastor said,"it is so" so it must be so was as far as my thinking went.

So, I will try to find those little lessons and revisit them. Take a deeper look. If I can't find them I will ask the local Adventist pastor for whatever they are using now.

Hey! Don't Follow Me!

I don't know where I'm going!  Spiritually I'm a wanderer. My course has been like the elliptical orbit of a comet. In the center is God; the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. At one end is the religion of my youth, and perhaps my old age too. That is Seventh-Day Adventism. In my course I've gone past many other religious systems and the other end has swung out into empty space. But the force of God's gravity pulls me back and as I orbit back round to Him I again find myself pulled back toward the Advent movement too.

Like the pesky comet I've become, cyclically I swing away from it again. I get focused on the idiosyncrasies I perceive, anything that seems to be false or hypocritical in my own eyes. The internet is full of arguments that can keep you spinning in circles forever. But as I've looked around I haven't yet found anything more true. A religion more true to me from a Biblical standpoint hasn't come up and I've investigated quite a few. I've been a visitor to really lovely and seemingly loving congregations. I've felt really convicted by some that do so much for others socially. I've envied what appeared to be the pure and simple piety of some religious folk who have never felt the need to question their childhood faith.

At this moment I am being pulled back in toward Adventism. I like the sense it makes if you take the Bible at it's word. If you are really going to go all sola scriptura and throw out traditions not written down there I really believe you get something that looks a lot like Adventism. I'm not saying it's perfect. Adventism doesn't even claim to be perfect. It doesn't claim to be the whole Church or the only ones who will be saved. It claims to be a movement of imperfect people saved by faith in Jesus Christ seeking to follow Him and obey His commands. Maybe that is enough.

I want to use this little blog to work out some of my scattered thoughts and chronicle some of my wanderings. Perhaps I can settle down. But I know myself enough to know that is not a high likelihood. That is why I say don't follow. I wouldn't call myself lost as long as my merciful Savior is by my side but neither have I found my spiritual home.

 I mean, you can follow this blog if you want but it may wander too.