The People’s Revival

Recently, I have attempted to take a step back from my life and to rearrange it in a way that maybe could make me feel better. So, I decided to start with a very simple question. “What do I have to live for?” That was four days ago…

The only answer that I’ve come up with so far has been some vague idea of another person’s emotional well-being. I can’t think of a single reason, honestly. 

My oldest kids have moved on, raising their own families. The rest of my kids don’t speak to me, the combination of Evangelical Pastor’s kid trauma with not knowing me after all these years, and the consequences of alcoholism, has led to there being no relationship. They are the unfortunate victims of alcoholism, and parental alienation from the other side. 

I don’t cast blame, because it can only fall on me. But after the events that happened that destroyed me, I spent eight solid years solidly detached from reality. Five of them were drunk, and the remaining were just the fallout from a psychological breakdown. 

I’ve been California sober for four years, and I presumed there would be improvements. Sadly, that has not been the case. 

I was formally diagnosed last year with auDHD, agoraphobia, CPTSD, and some other fun bits. This came as quite a shock, seeing that I was 52 years old and had been in active ministry for over thirty years. But mental health is fun like that, it’s sort of like using a car jack – you can use it and lift the weight a thousand times with no hassle, then when it slips or breaks, you find out the full weight that it carried. And you never know what tiny event will prove to break the proverbial camel’s back. 

A word that I felt came from God to me long ago has been replaying itself in my mind recently: 

“Whatever you start and finish by faith will stand. Whatever you start by faith and end in the flesh, will fail. Whatever you start and end in the flesh will fail. And you cannot hold onto anything that you gain in the flesh, only what you gain by faith.”

And that’s proven to be true. I have left myself with nothing. And honestly, even without the alcohol addiction, my neurodivergence was enough to ensure this end.

Now I’m in a weird position because I don’t really want anything. And I never really have. My ex wife had expensive tastes and I tried to take care of her, poorly, but I’ve never been after money, homes, or luxury. When I have needed or wanted money in the past, it was due to being behind on rent, or electricity, or some other necessity. The pressure is horrendous.

I have honestly just believed the Gospel literally since I was converted at 19. I wanted the truth, and the genuine experience of God. 

But instead, I found a fake universe filled with fake people. I found “Pastors” that had no idea what faith was, or how to pray by faith alone to get results, without leaning on the flesh. I saw churches and ministries obsessed with money, and those that had it. 

I understood the Gospel literally and it has proved to be fatal. Because telling people the raw truth with authority generates enemies. And I have lots of those. 

I guess my point is that I have tried to actually do the stuff. I have depended on God alone for years, not relying on my own flesh to supply. Now, in this endeavor I’ve failed many times. But I can honestly say that every failure was my own, because supply happened in extraordinary ways. I have seen shocking results from my efforts as well.

I prayed for the sick publicly, and from that I have seen countless miracles, including people coming out of wheelchairs. But that power was accompanied by an Autistic lack of recognizing hierarchy, and an unfortunate habit of telling the truth, bluntly. So, I have paid for it. 

This isn’t on anyone else, but neither will I apologize, because by the grace of God, I am what I am. 

My issue is that I can’t find anything to desire. The things that I had wanted above everything else, due to my own family dysfunction, was to be a good dad and husband, and to raise a tight family that stayed together. And because of my own trauma, I don’t want anything for myself, besides the basics (food, sex, love). I failed at being a good dad and a good husband, but I tried my very best.

So now I dissociate mostly. I breathe in and out. I’m in no danger of harming myself, that’s not the issue. It’s that I can’t see a point now. 

I’ve always needed a cause greater than myself, always. Only just now I find myself sitting outside the gates of a besieged city that has rejected me utterly as a leper.

And I’m faced with this question: Do I finally say, “Why sit we here until we die?” 

Because that’s what will happen for all of us who are believers but are Divergent. That’s what will happen to all of us who are Exvangelical. We will sit in it until we fade from this planet, accepting that our Divergence disqualifies us, rather than actually bolstering our qualifications. Or that your mistakes and failures have disqualified you, which is only true if you don’t publicly own them.

We can sit in our failures and addictions, and keep getting therapy that accomplishes nothing, until we all die right there.

Because the Church, the besieged city that kicked us out and locked the gates? They are going to eat one another completely, that’s what happens in sieges. 

So we can sit around on the Island of Misfit Toys and bitch about how unfair our lives are, or we can go full crazy and make the world and the fake church deal with it. We can take our crazy selves right down to the enemy’s camp and see what’s shaking. 

Those are your options. And those are mine.