I love to scan the FM dial, and there are, I think, three Classic Rock stations in a row here in Baltimore. So I remember hearing an old Fleetwood Mac song and I had a “flashback.” There I suddenly was, kicking the dirt off my cleats and yet, simultaneously at Skate Land during Couples Skate with an old short-lived girlfriend who, thank God, dumped me, because the girl I eventually married is much hotter, in every way.
So this 1 Peter passage gave me a flashback, and I’ll never forget the first time I read it. The words, “…as if something strange were happening to you…” stuck with me. It was 17 years ago, on the ride of my life, age 26. I had a smile plastered on my face, probably because I was usually plastered. I was living my dreams…
Until those dreams began to change.
Something strange was happening to me.
Why was I thinking about God so much? It wasn’t like I wanted to think about God. In fact, there were many times when I wished the thoughts would just go away. It was inconvenient. And besides, it was weird. What were these rumors of another world?
Right around that time, a person gave me a Bible. I smiled and said, “Thaaanks…” Inside the front cover she wrote Mark 8:36: “What does it profit a person to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?”
It was like God was tearing me away from one life and showing me another. And I liked it and I hated it. On the one hand, it had the ring of truth to it; on the other hand, it sounded too good to be true. On the one hand, Christ looked so good; on the other hand, Christians looked so bad. On the one hand, this stuff sounded totally plausible; on the other hand, totally out there. On the one hand it sounded so silly; on the other hand it sounded so deep, spiritual, and transcendent.
And that passage of Scripture kept looping, creeping, stalking. Something strange was happening to me. My dreams were changing. My paradigm was changing. My desires were changing. My interests were changing. My life was changing.
Do you have a strange story like this? How does your story read?