Bought with a price

“You were bought with a price.” – 1st Corinthians 6:20

I remember the day I first truly read this verse. Mr. Miller was droning about something in Christian Faith and I was just sitting there letting my mind wander where it will. My mobile phone was in my lap, under my leg so he wouldn’t see it, and I got a text. That was odd in itself, no one ever really texted me. Especially during school. I looked to see who it was from and it was from Tim Williams, an old friend and mentor who I haven’t spoken too for around a year. I was pleasantly surprised to see my old buddy’s name. His text read, “Hey buddy, I was reading these verses and God told me to tell you about them. Check them out.” Things changed after I read those verses, and for you to know the true impact of them in my heart you must know my story. It all started when I was just two years old.

You remember the blizzard brought on my El Nino’ in 1992 (or was it 1993?). I was two then, and my family and I were snowed in our big brick house with the expansive backyard. The snow was halfway up the door and windows though my parents did manage to shovel a path to a wood pile and another path for Scooby to go to the john. The refrigerator was out along with the lights, and we put our food in the frigid snow to keep it frozen. Some phone line somewhere was down, so the phones just made that annoying *bum bum bum* noise. Blankets were hung over doorways to keep in the life giving warmth brought on by the struggling fire. I was dying of pneumonia. My brothers were ok, they probably slept a lot. I kept mommy awake and sick with worry. But too everyone’s relief I pulled through, but I didn’t come out completely unscathed. I was left with a Question that would follow me later in life, a Question that drove me down into my deepest darkness trying to answer. Why didn’t I die God, why didn’t I die?

I am seven. The Question has yet to form in my mind. I was at church, vacation bible school actually. I was your normal hyper nerdy seven year old that liked video games and TV and as the people who taught me during my VBS years told me later; I was “trouble.” They would jokingly refer to how no one wanted me in their class. I was that kid. Anyway, I was too naïve and simple to understand what sin was or why I needed Jesus, but at that VBS I first prayed that God will enter my heart. Do I believe I was “saved” then? Absolutely not. But I don’t believe that my salvation happened at one exact point. I believe it happened over many years. A process, if you will. So at seven my process began. I was on my way to righteousness, and just when the seeds of salvation were being sown in my heart the enemy came in the night and sowed weeds. At seven, my curse began. I have a sinful habit, a terrible eleven year addiction that has haunted me and driven me deeply into despair. I started masturbating at seven. I started slowly wrapping my young light heart in heavy barbed chains. This sin will almost destroy me. But you forget, I was seven. How would I have known?

I am thirteen. I have just started at a new school, I was alive to God then; I was intimately praying to the Father. Does this mean I was a Christian? Not yet, give the process two more years. But I do remember this soft loving time fondly. The warmth I had, killed, by my addiction and peer pressure. It wasn’t cool to be alive in Christ. I wanted so badly to fit in. The fire went out then. And it would stay out until I was a freshman.

I am in seventh grade, fourteen years old.. Unable to really fit in I started becoming depressed. To medicate my depression I would turn to my childhood addiction. All through seventh and eighth grade this spiral of depression would continue. I would go through “seasons”. For a season I would be depressed and then I would be happy for a season. By now I was completely addicted. Because of my addiction and sin the seasons of depression would last much longer and the times of happiness would be vastly shorter. I would be depressed for months in between. The fire of God was dead, and the wick of my heart was frozen.

I’m a freshman. This is the big year. The terrible year. The worst year. Life was all about lust and my addiction. Girls were as objects to me. I dated one girl that summer for a month. We never saw each other; we just talked on the phone every night and emailed a lot. She broke up with me over email and I was devastated. One week later I was at youth camp where I lost my first kiss to a girl I just met. I will always deeply regret how foolishly I gave away my first kiss. That fling lasted two weeks. I broke it off, because I wasn’t able to see her or kiss her. And I cowardly did this over email. By thanksgiving I had another girlfriend. I kissed her after two weeks. She broke up with me over instant messaging, just a few days after we kissed. I was getting desperate for love. My addiction reached new heights. My depression was almost rock bottom. Some time through my dating fiasco I picked up a book.I remember:

The clerk at this particular Lifeway in Gatlinburg was rambling about this book I was looking at. He was clearly a sketchy character, with unsightly long greasy hair and a big bushy beard and he was very large and oily, but I didn’t mind. I was too enthralled about the material I held in my hands. By a “Christian” author it said. This book was on spiritual warfare. The odd thing was that I wasn’t interested in spiritual warfare in the least because I wasn’t yet a Christian. What I was interested in was the satanic and occult material this book covered. It was about fighting spiritually by knowing everything about the enemy, about the satanic. I was morbidly intrigued by the idea. So I bought the book.
I remember:

The night I bought that book I read as much of it as I could. Eventually I had to go to sleep, but I couldn’t. I was too scared. The terror I felt that night, it was horrible, surreal. I kept the book far from me while I slept, because I somehow knew that the evil and dread I felt was because of that book. I eventually slept. By morning I was reading again. It was too late now; I found my newest love: I was obsessed with the occult.

I finished the book quickly. Because the author was “Christian” my mom bought me the remaining books by the same author, all on the occult and the satanic and “revealing” them. Soon I got more books, by more “Christian” authors. Soon I spent nights on the computer when everyone was asleep on satanic websites. I deleted my history. I had two addictions now. My life couldn’t be darker.
I remember:

I’m still a freshman. I’m still addicted to both my sins. I was sitting in my room; there is a space between my bed and the wall about the width of a nightstand. What I was doing wasn’t all that unfamiliar to me. I had a knife to my wrist again. But this time was different. This time I might actually go through with it. I was going to do it. The cold knife was going to warm itself in my blood. I could see it in my mind. Spurred on by my childhood addiction and my occultism I was about to kill myself. I felt no remorse.

Moments later I was a sobbing wreck on the floor. God had rescued me, by breaking my heart completely to Him. Looking back it was as if he was saying, “This is my beloved son. In him I am well pleased. He called on me at age seven, and now he finally realizes he needs Me. I am here to rescue you, my Ryan.”

I became a Christian that night. I had so many changes I needed to make! I was forgiven; I had a new life ahead of me. I thought that now I was a Christian my past would just go away and that my addictions would take wing and go somewhere I can’t get too. I stopped dabbling in the occult right then, but there are permanent curses on me because of that sin. It would be three more years until those curses became a blessing to me and others. That night I, led by God, gave up my chase of girls. I knew that I was not ready; I would not be able to treat a girl like a man in a righteous and holy way for a very long time. Girls were still objects to me. But so far, I felt good about the changes I made. I even went a couple of weeks (or maybe it was days?) without reverting back to my childhood addiction. But I fell. And it would be three more years until I learned why I gave in. But again, I messed up, I sinned. Because of my sin, a new one appeared to fill the void left by the occult. I began beating myself up, despising myself for my perceived weakness, even hating myself. To my detriment, because of my self loathing, I continued practicing my addiction. I still haven’t dealt with my occult past at this point and its curse remained stronger than ever. The next there years were lived in darkness still, yet Jesus still danced in my heart. The flame was alive again after three years, and it was yet small. I had no passion yet, no life. God wanted to be alive in me again.
I remember:

Mr. Moore talked to us about a book called Wild at Heart, by John Elridge. We read a chapter of it, and it deeply resonated with me. I bought the book, read it, and I started my journey into my own passion and manhood. I began devouring good Christian books, books like Captivating by John and Stasi Eldridge, which helped me to love the heart of a woman. Women were no longer objects, but irreplaceable treasures. I read “The Way of the Wild Heart” and learned what it was to became a man, a warrior poet. I was in my Church’s praise band now, growing in my heart a passion for worship. I began to love the idea and paradigm of chivalry. I read all the material on knights I could find and I began to become a romantic. Movies like “Braveheart”, “Gladiator”, “The Last of the Mohicans”, “Legends of the Fall”, and even obscure movies like “Howl’s Moving Castle” influenced me. They taught me how to be a man at heart, they taught my heart to be a man of integrity, honor, passion, and chivalry. Movies like, “The Last Samurai”, and “Kingdom of Heaven”, greatly inspired my soul. And more recently movies like “10,000 BC,” and ‘Stardust” brought me further down the path of the romantic. I was learning that God can teach your truths through people, books, and movies, not just the Bible.

Yet through all of this, I was still addicted to masturbation and I still hated everything about myself. I felt like Paul did when he said he was doing the very thing he hated. I was doing the very thing I absolutely hated with all my passion. With my view of Chivalry, any crime such as what I committed, was the very worst of sins. I was a hypocrite, I am a hypocrite, and I hated myself all the more.

Senior year started, and this is the year in which I have begun to fully accept myself, to ever accept love. The verses in Tim’s message were from 1st Corinthians 6: 18-20.
18) Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.19) Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,20) for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (Italics added)
I was bought with a price. I read that, over and over, and God spoke to me. I have worth, I was worth a price, and I was worth the highest price! Jesus let himself be mauled and devoured for me. Because I was worth it, not just the Sunday school answer of because he loves me, but because I was WORTH it! I wrote “you were bought with a price” on my forearm with a sharpie. I meditated on it constantly, I repeated it over and over when I started beating myself up. And it kept me from that sin. Now I was back in God’s Word, and I was tearing through the book of Mathew. That’s when I saw the second greatest commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Those verses stuck in my mind, but I didn’t really get what they wanted to tell me until I read Blue Like Jazz again for the second time. Donald says the words, “I would never talk to my neighbor as I talk to myself.” I learned that I had to love myself too; I had to learn how to actually accept love. That was very hard for me, and it still is, but I knew that I was refusing love. From God and from people, and as I type this now I realize that I still have such a problem with accepting love. But I am learning. And what I have learned is that Jesus is inside of me. That, when I am temped to run to my addiction, I can just pray “Jesus, I am not strong enough to defeat this temptation, but you are.” That’s why I was failing when I first became a Christian to stop practicing my addiction! I was trying to fight it in my own power. And that’s also what I was doing with my occult curse. I was trying to fight it in my own power.

It was a little while before this that I fully dealt with my occult past. Our church had a new building made, a very large nice multi purpose building with basketball courts, an elaborate youth room, and a game room. We were going to have a retreat when it opened, called Fall Fusion. We would spend time in the new building, then we would go off to sponsor houses for bible study and this lasted for a weekend. It was the last night, during worship, that I pulled aside the “den mother” of our youth group, Angie Blevins. I confessed my occult past to her along with my addiction, and she in so many words told me to let God clean out my heart. I was still being held down by that sin, by the occult, and even though I cannot remember exactly what she said (she said so much!) I took the words to heart.
I remember:

It was last Wednesday, the 14th of January. This time the band I led wasn’t playing during the youth service. One of my friends Seth and his band were playing, and per usual I went to the back to sing. That was always my habit, and back there I belted out song at the top of my lungs. Afterwards Angie, our den mother, came back there and said these words. “It’s so good to hear you sing with your clean heart.” I said, “Thank you,” accepting her love with a smile.

One out of a thousand

The book of ecclesiastes says that there is one rightous man out of every thousand. What I want to ask is, where are they? Where are these righteous? Our world is full of rapist and child molestors. Girls trance around the beach wearing less than their underwear, showing their body off to everyone but their future husband. I will always have to live with the fact that some random stranger saw more of my future wife than I will see until we are wed. Is that not disgusting? There are no real men. Men are slaves now, to sex, to greed, to lust, to power, to every demonic falsehood in the world. And those who aren't have no backbone.

Where are the men with a spine? Those dangerous rangers who defend the borders and wild parts of christiandom? Man was made to be wild! Where are these wild men? The battlefields are empty! Swords rust! Darkness rules the world now! Where are those christian knights? Those who take up the sword and fight as spirituel barabarians, running ahead of the front lines screaming "JESUS!!!!!" and setting captives free from darkness!

Oh God! That I may be one of these men! I want to be a barabarian! I want to truly embrace this wild way of yours, this warrior path that few take! I take up the sword, and I ask for the prayers of your saints! The victory is ours for the taking men! TAKE UP YOUR SWORDS!!