Discovering my Heresy as Orthodoxy

A young man bored and dissatisfied by the place he grew up in set out on an adventure to find something new. Leaving the port of New Orleans he sailed for days southward in the direction of Cape Horn, Chile. His quest was to find something new, joyful, and meaningful other than the drafty old town which he left. After weeks at sea a large hurricane came along and bashed him about tearing his small craft to pieces. Lost and confused the young man clung to a piece of wood and waited for the tide to bring him ashore. By the time the man drifted in he was dehydrated and disoriented. The locals found him, cared for him, and restored his health. The man loved Cape Horn. The people were wonderful, the cuisine exquisite, and the culture like none other he had ever experienced. He strangely left at home in this foreign land. One afternoon after being there for months he decided to walk down to the local pub but was stopped by the traffic of a large and wild parade. So he asked one of the locals, "What is the meaning of this?" The local replied, "Haven't you ever been to Mardi Gras before?"
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There is this idea out there that we can somehow convince people that Christianity is the truth. If this were true why does every generation have to rediscover faith for themselves?

I speak from personal experience. But often times it is when we have abandoned these ideas we were taught about God that find ourselves in the very place where we can experience him. A lot of times we go to church with these profound doubts we are afraid to tell anyone about. We allow the pastors and church staff believe with certainty that which we cannot. Our minds are convinced but our souls are not.

Perhaps when we escape that certainty and enter a place of complete doubt and unknowing we will find the truth of what we heard in church. It is in abandoning our learned notions of God that we find ourselves open to a place where we can experience God in our lives.

It was not in my intellectual understanding of the message of Jesus first that I believed. But in my experience with Jesus that his message made sense intellectually.


I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy. - G.K. Chesterton