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Text of the page (random words):
ys on religion i ve studied buddhism islam deism hinduism quantum physics gnosticism spiritualism wicca and more about as much as any layman can i was most drawn to wicca with its eclectic emphasis on all paths lead to the same center and reverence for nature it seemed like the ideal choice the fact that christians likely despised it above all others was another big plus but deep inside a part of me always considered all of the above to be a bit well goofy jesus gets my attention in may of 2006 a couple things happened at the same time 1 we moved to pa 2 christ made me reluctantly hungry to study christianity in a nutshell here s what happened from may 06 to may 07 1 i became a realtor here in the erie area in order to support my family 2 i began aggressively studying christianity at the time i justified it to myself ast know thy enemy however by june of 2007 i was very close to accepting the lord jesus christ as my savior but i fought an internal dilemma basic internal conflict i was becoming a believer but i was afraid i was afraid because i d read so much about so many systems of belief that i feared that i would say the magic prayer and the find myself constantly questioning my decision so in short i wanted to believe but my mind was being over analytical what if this and what about that i didn t want to believe and then constantly draw on intelligent reasons not to believe so late one night i signed on to a christian discussion board on the internet my question to the board in my heart i want to believe but i m afraid that my intellect won t allow me i don t want to spend my life second guessing myself please remember this exact wording i can only assure you that it was the exact wording of my question you ll see it again shortly i instantly received a response from a board member 1 cr 3 19 for the wisdom of this world is foolishness with god for it is written he taketh the wise in their own craftiness shudders ran down my spine the hair on my arm stood up in one instant i was confronted with the truth after a lifetime of rage tears came to my eyes i knew i d always known i just choose to ignore but in perfect fallen tradition for some reason i still wasn t quite ready i decided to sleep on it the next day i was excited inside i knew that god had brought me to this point all day i considered if i was really ready to accept the lord jesus christ as my savior that night we had chinese for dinner please understand that at this point my family did not know i was even considering christianity after dinner i stepped into the backyard standing there alone i was deep in thought over the message i had received on the christian discussion board the night before suddenly my 8 year old daughter appeared at my side she simply said here dad handed me a small slip of paper walked back inside it was the fortune from her fortune cookie i keep that fortune in my bible today that small slip of paper handed to me by my un knowing 8 year old daughter read the heart is wiser than the intellect i accepted the lord jesus christ as my savior since then my family and i are all now christians looking back i can honestly say that i had spent decades squandering my spiritual gifts towards the goal of promoting only myself i feel as if i have wasted a large portion of my life on self promotion and rage towards my fellow man and towards god so feeling that i really needed to learn to serve god as opposed to serving myself i took a break from real estate and spent a couple years serving in full time volunteer ministry with grace church in erie pa and then spent about 6 months serving as a pastor with the local salvation army after this journey it became apparent to my family that we had needed to come here in order to go back and obviously i needed to support my family so we made the decision to return to the town we loved beaufort sc and re enter the local real estate market but now it s in the right perspective it s still to support my family it s still to do the best i possibly can for my clients but i now know what to put first so now regardless of if i live one more day or 50 more years i now dedicate my life first and foremost to serving promoting the lord jesus christ will mccullough wednesday october 8 2008 copy of email response to questions hi name removed great to hear from you first know that i am not a pastor i have no formal bible school training but i am now a christian and i will answer your questions to the best of my ability i ve put my response under each of your initial questions 1 question do you truly believe the market as you say decimated simply because of your lack of faith answer wow that s a really great question name removed it never occurred to me that it might sound that way from my testimony but you re right it does kind of come across that way but the answer is no no absolutely not in no way do i feel that god might crash a global market as a way to straighten out my personal lack of faith but i do believe that god has a way of taking care of both big picture stuff on a universal scale while also still being able to love us each dearly and individually so while he most certainly did not crash the market for my personal growth he absolutely did use that crash as a convenient means to get my attention 2 question is your god punitive answer another great question i d be a liar if i said i haven t also wrestled with aspects of this one but my answer here is no no i do not believe that god is punitive i do however believe that god is just hear me out on this one smarter people than i have said that cold does not truly exist what we call cold is really not a condition at all because you can reach a point of it not getting any colder there is an absolute limit to cold that s because cold in all reality is simply the absence of warmth the one true god is everything right everything just everything good everything joyful everything love and everything the way it should be in a perfect world so for the sake of my answer i ll call god warmth and i ll call cold everything wrong unjust bad sad angry hateful and the way things are in a fallen world so the further we get away from the warmth of god the colder we get my best understanding of hell is best described as being 100 separated from god the total removal of even the slightest trace of anything right just good love and the way it should be i m pretty sure that it was c s lewis who said something along the lines of in the end god has let us choose it s either we say to him thy will be done i ll embrace you lord and allow you to embrace me or after he s tried and tried and tried to allow us to rest in his embrace and we ve ignored every attempt he finally gives us what we wanted and allows us to push him completely away and he says to us thy will be done leaving us to ourselves in the cold of his absence i don t call that punitive 3 question everyone has pain everyone has challenge everyone seeks comfort answer i agree i agree i agree we live in a world saturated with pain sorrow greed pride and emptiness mankind tries and tries again to solve these problems to no avail on both a global level and on an individual level we are so screwed up it s pitiful but i offer that every single human who has ever taken a breath feels that this is just not how it s supposed to be we have a gut feeling on our deepest level that things are wrong and that things are just simply not the way they should be we re sinners fully aware of being screwed up fully aware of our wrongness on both a global and personal level yet incapable of making things right ourselves but if i sit down and read the bible let s say the sermon on the mount in the book of matthew chapters 5 7 i ll come away with a incredible feeling of this is how it s supposed to be if we could just all truly live by these words the world would be a perfect place how can i know that yet still be incapable of such perfection for me that s proof proof of our fallen stature 4 question one of my beliefs in regards to pastors ministers etc they are and have always been leaders they are charismatic charming and humorous they have an immense need for an audience they are performers do you not wonder that this new found stage for you is another one in which you wish to succeed beyond what others expect answer i beleive that the capacity for sin in the form of pride is always there and must be constantly guarded against i pray every day that god keeps me humble and that anything i say do or write is only for the purpose of glorifying him and never myself i ve lived that life and don t want it back all of the pastors i know are the most genuine kind and humble people i ve ever met if i m being honest i feel like your description of them is a bit of a caricature as opposed to a reality but either way i don t worship pastors i don t worship myself i don t want anyone worshiping a pastor i damn sure don t want anyone worshiping me and if when i ever deviate from that perspective knowing or unknowing i pray that god picks me up slams me on my head and bounces me three times across the floor however i would caution against being overly judgmental of always looking outward at the evil that surrounds you you ll always find it because we are all sinners incapable of perfection i think it s wise to focus inward on your own transgressions with a desire to fix spend time in god s word he uses it to speak to us and simply do your best to show love to everyone else because they are just as screwed up as we are 5 question your quest for knowledge and answers to what was obviously a trying time in your life ended with this new found religion answer no my quest for knowledge and answers will likely never be over until the day i die even more i m nowhere near perfect my past puts a capital s in sin and then makes it cringe i continue to fight my own demons on a daily basis i fail more than i succeed i think way too much about my own world and no where near enough time loving my neighbor so my quest for knowledge and answers will go on however my quest for peace has ended and in a happy way but not in any new found religion it s in finding a personal relationship with christ that grows stronger every day through prayer reading his word and appreciating the fact that he embraces and forgives me despite my many imperfections coming to christ does not mean i suddenly have all the answers it does mean that i finally know where to look for them question i am angry not at you or your experience but at the general belief answer it s ok to be angry at god it s ok to have doubts it s ok to have confusion that s called being a human especially when that human is in a period of anguish for what it s worth my advice would be to engage god pray tell god what s on your mind tell him that you re mad at him tell him why tell him that you doubt tell him why tell him that you re sad that you re confused don t hold back your punches let it all out over and over yell scream kick jacob wrestled with god so did job so do we god doesn t seem to mind being wrestled with because even that brings us closer to god and his warmth my opinion is that this sometimes seems like the catalyst for us being able to begin to grow even closer to god and to really be able to come out of the cold and begin feeling the true warmth of his embrace i m so sorry for the pain the anguish the anger the resentment and the confusion that you feel i know it sounds goofy i know it sounds canned but jesus really does love you and name removed so do i will posted by will mccullough at 10 58 pm 13 comments to clarify i have had a few individuals contact me w a question similar to this i wonder you write of a time of prosperity power and control why didn t you seek your god then i should have made this more clear in my testimony i did i was still at the top of my game when i first began to seek god it was about two months later that everything began to spiral down from a fiscal perspective for the record as of this date fiscal matters continue to spiral down but that s ok in hindsight i really think it also took that fiscal spiral for me to begin trying to get my ego in check and learning to trust in christ as opposed to only myself proverbs 3 5 6 trust in the lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths esv will posted by will mccullough at 5 21 pm 1 comment friday september 19 2008 a comment anonymous said this is just your typical i faced great hardship and eventually just accepted that god isn t really mean and cruel he has a plan for me nonsense you were right to begin with either god doesn t exist at all or if he does he is a spiteful evil a hole that doesn t deserve to be worshiped enjoy your new crutch blogger will mccullough said anonymous sounds like you have some pain of your own i m very sorry i just ask that you please hear me out for a minute having previously shared your perspective for decades i can relate to your rage in fact i d say that therein lies the proof think about it from the perspective of an unbiased observer on one side we have a grown man father of two etc expressing his inner heartfelt pain to the world at how his parents were ripped from him at an early age he s expressing to the world what affect that had on him he s doing it in a way that is only critical of himself he s voicing no judgment of others but because he mentions christ because he credits christ with finally giving him peace on this matter it creates a rage in a young man sitting half a world away at 1 00 am who s only instinctive reaction to hearing this story of pain followed by hope is to spew venom and ridicule so if i as a hypothetical unbiased observer read both the story and your comment i can then ask myself a question which story instinctively makes one feel better more complete as a human more hopeful more uplifted kind of like this is how it s supposed to be which story incites rage and anger regardless of which side of the coin you personally come down on it might be anger to defend my point or yours but it incites anger regardless proof proof of our fallen stature i m sorry but anger and rage are the language of satan and you are acting as his puppet whether you believe in him or not i d respectfully ask that you consider self analyzing why you would be so quick to respond w such venom to such a non adversarial story i know this will come off as condescending and it s really not meant that way but honestly i d ask you to consider trying to pray about it just you and god in private no one will ever know you might just get a surprise but i will pray for you either way i will pray that christ makes himself known to you in a tangible and dramatic way i also forgive you for making light of the situations surrounding the pain of the loss of my parents i really do one last question i respectfully ask you to monitor ho...