The Viable Alternative

My last blog post where I expressed some of my doubts about what we call the present day Bible and how Christians use the Bible has sparked some interesting discussions about God, the Bible and Christianity.

This had led me to write this week about my own unique walk with the Heavenly Father.

I’ve often been looked at as too “Christian” by New Age people and too “New Age” by Christian people.

Does that mean that I’m confused? Not necessarily. What it does mean is that when you seek to walk with God in your life, the way in which God leads you will not make sense to most people, not even to you, but you know what? It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you trust God and know that He knows where He wants to take you and what He wants to do with you.

Frantic Search for the “Truth”

I started seeking the “Truth” in the late 90s, and that led to me frantically reading about various different practices like the Rosicrucians, looking through various New Age books, going to different types of Churches, and getting into all different sorts of discussions with different sorts of people from various spiritual walks in the AOL chatrooms, but none of them fulfilled me and still left me searching.

Then one night, while surfing the net, I remember coming upon a site owned by a guy who called himself “Spiritman.” Before I even clicked on the site, something deep in my spirit told me that the “answers” to the questions were here.

Whatever it was that was speaking to me was right.

From what I read on the site, the guy came across to me as a “spiritual” Christian. He talked about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. He also talked about the spirit world and having spiritual gifts. Upon soaking up the info on the site, I emailed him detailing my utter confusion about which way to go, what to believe and what not to believe in, etc, etc.

His response to me was the start of an approximately two year correspondence with him over email where he helped to quell a lot of the confusion I had. Though I never wound up ever meeting the guy face to face or speaking to him on the phone, he helped set the tone for the very Path I walk on now. The gist of the very first email he sent to me was to simply follow God and trust Him to lead me where He wants me to go.

My Christian Walk

That simple advice helped put an end to all the franticness and haphazardness of my search and put my focus more to God.

To this day, I have to say that the guy, we’ll call him Spirtman, was unlike most of the Christians I’ve ever conversed with. He first of all had a lot of beef with the modern day Church because he says that they follow doctrine, not God and have no idea about the ways of God. He taught me that my first and foremost duty was to follow God, not any religion, and that though God sends people to different spiritual walks, it was God that mattered in it first and foremost, not the construct. He also taught me that the Bible was made for man, not the other way around, thus, a person on a Faith walk with God may be doing things that are deemed “sinful” by the Bible, but by way of his own personal walk with God, has been given “grace” for it by God.

He warned me that this doesn’t give license to run around and do whatever you want, it was more about seeking from God His will for your own walk and finding out what He allows for YOU. He further explained that if you weren’t given permission to do something and you did it anywhere, you are held accountable by that.

Taking to heart what he said is why my walk seems so “unorthodox” than the average “Christian.”

I studied Islam for a bit and though I felt it had some interesting points, I knew right from the beginning I could never walk that path because never “gelled” with my spirit. What’s interesting is that I have met people who have left Christianity to walk in Islam because they found it more fulfilling. This goes to show you, “Different strokes for different folks.” Kudos to those people. I believe it’s all about walking where God wants you to be because He has certain lessons for you there.

During that time, I joined a Pentecostal Church in Brooklyn and was there for about seven years. From the time I first stepped foot in there I knew I belonged. I liked it because it was much more different than the stale, dead Christian churches I had been to in the past where there was no anointing or fire. I learned about the concepts of unclean and demonic spirits and how they affect our behaviours and witnessed people being “delivered” from these spirits. I also learned about the Holy Spirit and how He helps us manifest our spiritual gifts. I also learned a lot about the Bible and also about the sowing spiritual seeds, tithing and fasting.

I wound up eventually leaving that Church because I personally had a lot of HEAVY spiritual issues that the Church wasn’t equipped to deal with and was led by God to African Pentecostal Churches that deal with a deeper, heavier form of spiritual warfare which is a direct response to the magnitude of “darkness” that comes from Africa. It was here that I received a huge amount of spiritual cleansing and healing and learned how to do spiritual battle.

Did You Say a “Psychic?”

In the meantime, for the past over 8 years, I’ve had a mentor/adviser who is a “psychic.”

OH MY GOD!!! A PSYCHIC!!!!!!!!!!

Christians would say that this is evil and would point to the book of Acts, Leviticus and Deuteronomy as to proof as to why associating with her is wrong or “sinful” because she deals with the spirit of divination and being a medium. However, I know for my own personal walk with God, He sent her into my life to teach me something To clear any possible “guilt” on my end, I’ve often gone to God and asked Him if He wanted me to remove her from my life since this is against the Bible, and His response time and time again was, “You’re not following her, you’re following me, so humble yourself, mind your own business to what she does and listen to what she has to tell you because there are things she has to teach you.”

Of course, I don’t agree with everything she says, in fact, I don’t even agree with her concept of God, but with God as my focus, I am shown what to discard and “digest.”

Incidentally, there have been other New Age “spiritual” people that I met that I thought were going to be helpful to me spiritually but upon inquiry from God He would warn me through dreams and such to GET FAR AWAY FROM THEM.

Go figure.

Astrology Too?

I also am a firm believer in astrology. I struggled with this for years as well, because I learned growing up that astrology was of “the Devil.” However, back in ’07, I ran into a guy who I met back during my brief stint with Islam. He was always hardcore into astrology and when we ran into each other again, he practically begged me to let him do my chart. I expressed to him my reservations and told him I thought the whole thing was hogwash.

He went on to explain to me that NO ONE could’ve created such an awesome science but God, because after all WHO created the heavenly bodies that dictate astrology? He told me to get me the time and place I was born and he promised that it’d change my mind.

I was still skeptical, so it took me about another 6 months to get him the info he asked for and another month to eventually catch up with him to see my chart and be shown how to read it. When I eventually did, it totally blew my mind and I became a believer ever since.

What God showed me through me seeking His guidance about this is that He is in everything. He also showed me that astrology is not the problem, but the fact that people make astrology into their “god” and worship the created thing rather than the Creator. It’s no different than atheists saying that the sciences prove that God doesn’t exist, when actually God created the sciences as well.

I use astrology to help understand myself, my “potential,” and other people. I personally don’t use it to predict events or anything like that.

Funny, a few years after I my initial acceptance of astrology, I found myself doubting whether I was doing the right thing by studying astrology. Well, one day, a friend of mine, who had recently became a born again Christian gave me a call on the phone. He was on a faith walk with God to pursue his dreams to be a writer, and he shared with me a story how he met a woman on a dating site who, upon seeing her picture, he felt compelled to message her and somehow KNEW she was going to respond. She responds and gives him her number, and they both talked on the phone for hours. During the conversation, she asked for the time, day, and location he was born, and he gave her the info and she did his chart. Her message to him upon looking at it was, “Don’t worry, you’re going to be successful and succeed in your dreams.”

He told me that he knew that it was God speaking to the woman through astrology and God can use ANYTHING He chooses to speak to His children. He then ended the story by telling me, “I don’t know why, I didn’t tell anyone else but something told me to share this with you.”

I knew then and there that this was a confirmation from God not to worry, that He had His hand on me and was surely guiding me.

Where Do I Think I’m Going???!!

So yes, my path does look different than what is normally “sanctioned” for a Christian. I’ve had powerfully anointed ministers who can boast great testimonies from their congregation tell me to give up things (i.e. modeling) that God Himself, through many confirmations of our walk together, showed me that it was His will for me to do. When I shared with that God personally showed me on numerous occasions over the years that this is what He wanted me to do, they would cast further doubt by telling me, “Well, that may not have been God who told you.”

That, I admit, did throw me into confusion during an already difficult time, but through further surrendering to His will on this and through further confirmations He told me, “This minister showed has done great things and has a powerful anointing, but in the end of the day, are you going to trust him or are you going to trust Me? Remember, keep your eyes on Me, not him.”

As it stands now, I haven’t been inside a church for nearly 3 years. Not that I have anything against them, but rather, at this phase of my life, I believe God wants me to walk with Him without the influence of a Church. In fact, the therapy I’ve been going to for the past year and a half has been a “Church” of sorts, where God had brought me for the next phase of my healing process and to teach me more about Him.

Do I consider myself a Christian? Yes and no. “Yes” because the core foundation of my spirituality comes from the Christian walk with God which will always be a part of me. I love listening to sermons by Christian ministers because they can reach my spirit like nothing else can. “No” because God is bigger than the man made religion of Christianity. When people ask, I just say I walk with God the best way I can.

Like I said in my last blog, though I do believe God is much more than just the Bible, God has and does still speak to me through the Bible. He also speaks to me via dreams, other people, events, and directly through my own spirit. In fact, since this past year, He’s been trying to get it through my thick skull that I have spiritual gifts I need to acknowledge so they can be developed and used for His purpose in my life. I’ve finally come to terms with that.

So this is my walk. Some would deem it very unorthodox, though I’ve met a small handful of Christians who’ve had similar views and similar paths. I’ve often asked God why He’s allowed me to “see” or “explore” things that are otherwise taught to be “forbidden.” His response, from what I can gather, is that He put me in a different classroom, and different classrooms have different rules (this doesn’t make me any more or less special than anyone else, after all everyone’s walk is different). What I do know is that I wouldn’t have been fulfilled by the “normal” Christian walk. It would’ve gotten to feel too confining, monotonous and unfulfilling to me.

Maybe God put that restlessness in my spirit so I can learn the greater reality of Him and His creation.

Who knows. Whatever the case may be, my walk is between me and my God, and no one has the right to judge it.

This is The Viable Alternative.

Hope this helps,

Ike Love