Thanks, Pastor Eddie….Why I Believe

So this is the first “blog” that I am writing. I have had a great desire for a long time to start writing about certain things in my life. A lot of which is very personal-yet I feel the need to express in writing. This last year has been a great turning point in my life and I just feel the need to express my personal testimony of life as I see it now. I am certain that I will probably be writing a blog for a long time because it is therapeutic for me and I know the most important people in my life will find my perspective on all things (politics, sports, current events, religion, etc.) interesting. As many of you will come to find out, I can be sarcastic at times and I may have some viewpoints that may surprise you. However, I can guarantee that you will never read a more personal blog from me than this one because it I am going to write a lot about my faith, conviction about this life, my personal conversion, and my strongest feelings. I will paraphrase from people who have been great examples and teachers in my life.

     Before I get into personal experiences, I think it is really important to understand that profound experiences that happen earlier in life have a way of molding us as individuals. Here is a great story to help demonstrate my point, this is a story told by Gordon B. Hinckley who was writing about building his first house and how he related it to life in general:
“Not long after we were married, we built our first home. We had very little money. I did much of the work myself. It would be called “sweat equity” today. The landscaping was entirely my responsibility. The first of many trees that I planted was a thornless honey locust. Envisioning the day when its filtered shade would assist in cooling the house in the summertime, I put it in a place at the corner where the wind from the canyon to the east blew the hardest. I dug a hole, put in the bare root, put soil around it, poured on water, and largely forgot it. It was only a wisp of a tree, perhaps three-quarters of an inch in diameter. It was so supple that I could bend it with ease in any direction. I paid little attention to it as the years passed. Then one winter day, when the tree was barren of leaves, I chanced to look out the window at it. I noticed that it was leaning to the west, misshapen and out of balance. I could scarcely believe it. I went out and braced myself against it as if to push it upright. But the trunk was now nearly a foot in diameter. My strength was as nothing against it. I took from my tool shed a block and tackle. Attaching one end to the tree and another to a well-set post, I pulled the rope. The pulleys moved a little, and the trunk of the tree trembled slightly. But that was all. It seemed to say, “You can’t straighten me. It’s too late. I’ve grown this way because of your neglect, and I will not bend.”
     “Finally in desperation I took my saw and cut off the great heavy branch on the west side. The saw left an ugly scar, more than eight inches across. I stepped back and surveyed what I had done. I had cut off the major part of the tree, leaving only one branch growing skyward.”
     “More than half a century has passed since I planted that tree. My daughter and her family live there now. The other day I looked again at the tree. It is large. Its shape is better. It is a great asset to the home. But how serious was the trauma of its youth and how brutal the treatment I used to straighten it.”

     “When it was first planted, a piece of string would have held it in place against the forces of the wind. I could have and should have supplied that string with ever so little effort. But I did not, and it bent to the forces that came against it.”

 As many know, I am a Mormon. I was raised in the faith; however I would have never gained a testimony of the truthfulness of the LDS church if it wasn’t for Pastor Eddie. You see I have never had many Mormon friends. In fact, to this day my best friend is not of any particular religion-yet he is one of the greatest men I have ever known. Growing up in Lake Arrowhead, I had two great friends Matt and Ron. They were always great guys to hang out with. They would invite me to their Monday night youth group of the local Baptist church. That is where I met Pastor Eddie and my life was changed forever. Upon discovering I was a Mormon, Pastor Eddie immediately became very interested in discussing my faith. I have to admit, being sixteen years of age; I had no idea or conviction of any truth. I went to church because my Mom and Dad made me but I had no idea what I believed. I will never forget that Monday night when Pastor Eddie told me: “I have to tell you, if you continue as a Mormon, you will go to hell. The Book of Mormon is a book of the devil and if you are not careful it will ruin your life. Joe Smith was a devil worshipper and a cultist. There is probably no hope for your parents, but there might be time for you.” He was so hateful towards the Mormon people

     Needless to say I was mortified. Pastor Eddie was so adamant about the damnation of my family and how I had been raised in a cult. He invited me to lunch so that he could help me get away from such a satanic religion. I did not know what to do, I was confused. I asked myself so many times “how could my parents who truly loved me so much be part of a satanic cult?” I could not ask them, I could not ask anyone-but God. I decided to pray and to ask God what was I needed to do. I did not receive a huge, powerful response. I did not tremble exceedingly; I did not see a vision. What I did was remember hearing the words “stays the course.” I remember feeling that I needed to study the scriptures diligently and to continue to pray. I remember feeling like God would never lead me astray if I truly sought his direction and let him lead my life. My studies and continued search of the truth has produced my testimony which I will write to you today…

My convictions and testimony begin with the words of George Santayana, distinguished longtime professor at Harvard: (Not a Mormon)

O world, thou choosest not the better part!
It is not wisdom to be only wise,
And on the inward vision close the eyes;
But it is wisdom to believe the heart.

     
I thank my Father in Heaven for the testimony I have of the reality of the First Vision regarding Joseph Smith. I have know many people who stood among the trees where Joseph knelt as a boy, and as they have told me and as I have read it, I have heard the whisperings of the Spirit that it happened as he said it happened. I have read the words of critics, who from 1820 until now have tried to destroy the validity of that account. They have made much of the fact that there were several versions and that the account as we now have it was not written until 1838. So what? I find security for my faith in the simplicity of his narrative, in its lack of argument, in its straightforward reasonableness, and in the fact that he sealed his testimony with his life’s blood. Could there have been a stronger endorsement?
Is it strange that James, writing anciently, would invite all who lacked wisdom to ask of God in faith? (See James 1:5 in the Holy Bible). Is it strange that such prayer would receive an answer? I thank the Lord for the faith to believe that the answer to that prayer came with a glorious manifestation of the Eternal Father and His Beloved Son, to part the curtain after centuries of darkness and open a new and promised and final dispensation of the gospel. Did it happen? I have no doubt of it. Was it not time, as a great age of enlightenment began to dawn upon the world, that these, the Father and the Son, should reveal themselves to show their form and power and living reality, and thus declare, once and for all, the true nature of Deity?
     I thank my Heavenly Father for my testimony of the Book of Mormon, this wonderful companion to the Holy Bible. It is strange to me that unbelieving critics must still go back to the old allegations that Joseph Smith wrote the book out of ideas gained from Ethan Smith’s View of the Hebrews and Solomon Spaulding’s manuscript. To compare the Book of Mormon with these is like comparing a man to a horse. It is true they both walk, but beyond this there is little similarity. The test of the book is in its reading. I speak as one who has read it again and again and tasted of its beauty and depth and power. Could Joseph Smith, I ask you, the young man reared in rural New York largely without schooling, have dictated in so short a time a volume so complex in its nature and yet so harmonious in its whole, with so large a cast of characters and so extensive in its scope? Could he of his own abilities have created the language, the thought, the moving inspiration that has caused millions over the earth to read and say, “It is true”? God is truly a God of miracles.
     I thank the Lord for the testimony he has given me of the wholeness of the gospel, of its breadth and reach and depth. It is designed to bless the sons and daughters of all generations of time—both the living and the dead. I cannot be grateful enough for the Atonement wrought by my Savior and my Redeemer. Through His sacrifice at the culmination of a life of perfection—that sacrifice offered in pain unspeakable—the bonds of death were broken, and the resurrection of all became assured.
     To my Eternal Father I give thanks for that essence of divinity which is within each of us and for the gift of life which comes from Him. I thank my Redeemer for His supreme gift to all, the gift of eternal life. These are they whom I worship and reverence and love. These are they to whom and through whom I pray. They are my Father and my God, my Redeemer and my Lord.

      I never spoke to Pastor Eddie again. But I am in a strange way truly grateful that he caused me to really seek the truth out for myself. If he would not have spoke to me with such vigor, I may have just wound up like the tree that would be stubborn and not willing to move out of stiffness and selfishness. I may have been rooted in ignorance. I am grateful that I do not have any huge spiritual scars because of my lack of testimony. I know that he is probably not thrilled with the result. My understanding is that he has helped a lot of people he considers “Christians” in their lives.  I hope that after all these years he has maybe changed his perspective somewhat.  Maybe one day we will meet again, if not in this life, the next one.