Rediscovery

2013 was a crazy year for me. I moved out on my own, broke my leg and tore my acl at the same time, moved back home and rediscovered Jesus and myself in a whole new light. It was very interesting yet amazing!

 I moved out on my own in March of 2013 to live with my friends who are married. We had been in a band together and hoped that by living together we could accomplish more. I also enjoyed their church, IHOP (International House of Prayer), which was focused on 24/7 worship and prayer. I was tired of the church I was attending at home because I wasn’t receiving anything new from my pastor. It felt as if he was restating the same sermons that I’ve heard the three years of being there. I was ready for something new. So I moved in with my friends and started a new chapter with Jesus at IHOP. It was so different from what I was used to. They had worship 24/7 and each set lasted an hour or two, which was normal for me, however they incorporated prophesy by individuals of the congregation or spontaneous prophecy sung by singers that were stationed at the side of the stage. This was unique to IHOP as they wanted to share Gods’ heart with the people in the building and prophecy to the city or town that they were located. Each worship set focused on different things that people felt passionate about or God told them to focus on. I auditioned and eventually was put on the same set as my friend and his wife. This was a blast for me. It was honestly my first real time of doing “professional” worship for any type of service. After a few weeks I started struggling with sin again. I felt as if I couldn’t get away from sin and was constantly messing up. Since IHOP was extremely focused on prayer I felt as if I was never doing enough for God. It seemed like I could always be doing more. Not to mention the people attending IHOP were always trying to get us to log in more hours. They ate, breathed, and lived IHop. It seemed to give purpose for doing something for Jesus. So what did I do? I did more. I tried to attend more often but not too much because I was working a factory job that sometime scheduled me ten to twelve hours a day.

 Around this time my band fell apart (I now believe this was due to a lack of seeing good in each other and the pressure of religion to do more). We tried to start numerous other bands and failed until one day we jammed and finally found a style. It was a mixture of hardcore and pure terrible noise. The point of the band was to suck, tell people about Jesus and claim violence. It was fun at first. But then I realized that I had way more potential than sucking and I didn’t support the violent attitude towards people. I wanted to do something different, unique and share love but they just wanted to be violent and suck. They convinced me to stay in the band and that this is what Jesus wanted for me. During the time that I wasn’t having band practice, going to IHOP, or working I enjoyed resting or going skate boarding at the local skate park. Skating was such a freeing feeling for me. I went skating to build friendships with the youth in the community, to use that friendship to minister to them about Jesus and for the sheer pleasure of skating.

 Around March, my long time best friend Martina and I had started romantically talking and a few months later we started dating. She posed a lot of good questions about Jesus, herself, and life once she went to college. I was puzzled by these questions. A year earlier I had been a part of the group she went to that met on Monday nights. After a while I stopped going and was convinced that it was a “false grace” message due to me being lazy to not read my bible anymore. Pretty much I felt like I wasn’t doing enough for Jesus. I felt like had to earn or do something for Jesus to have favor, to love me or to get into heaven. Me deciding that this was a “false grace” message didn’t stop my heart from longing for that intimate worship with Jesus were it talked about our goodness or union with Him, or wanting to hear a message of joy and goodness of our selves. So from what I heard between Martina and what I had learned about Jesus so far and hearing a wonderful message of grace, left my mind confused. How do I reconcile this all together? I wanted one thing but religion said another. I wanted to hear that I was good and had union with God but religion said that I was a sinner and needed to do more for God.

I eventually hurt my leg and had to live with my parents again. During that time I looked up a version of the bible called The Mirror Translation (Bible) that an old friend had mentioned to me. I read the introduction to the book and it blew my mind and heart. So much now made sense. Everything that he said connected with my heart. I realized how good I am. I found a deep connection with my heart that I didn’t realize I could have. I fell in love with Jesus all over again. The thing I was looking for by moving and going to IHOP was now found. My heart had been searching for me to know my goodness. I realized I didn’t have to do anything to please or satisfy Jesus. He was already pleased with me and loved me deeply. I learned that everyone was made by God, it wasn’t limited to belief in Jesus. Everyone was on good standing with God. He was never mad with anyone. This revelation just completely wrecked everything that I knew about Jesus. Everything I knew was now being retaught to me through the lenses of love and grace. I rediscovered Jesus and myself in a totally different light. Since then I have come to countless new revelations and have truly learned what it means to be human. I have seen the truth in other religions where Jesus is speaking to people and quite secluding myself from non-believers. I now desire to hear truth from non-Christians rather than Christians. I don’t want to go to standard church anymore because they will preach that old message where Payton sucks. I now want to have gatherings with anyone of any religion or belief and share truth from our daily lives and encourage one another of our awesomeness. I have rediscovered Jesus and myself and knowing that I am good is a wonderful feeling.