The crisp night air was fragrant with sweet flowers and musky oaks, with their massive scraggly branches forming a cozy clearing at the end of an isolated winding path. The faint glow of tiny lights illuminated hand-formed images of the “Stations of the Cross,” vividly depicting the passion of Christ arranged in a circle around the clearing.
Those Stations of the Cross touched something deep inside me — they called out to me personally and melted my heart with every encounter.
Strangely, I felt immediately at home here and reclined on a comfy bench made from split logs as I fell under the spell of this magical refuge.
For the moment, it was mine alone. The deafening silence rang in my ears, broken only by occasional hoots from a nearby owl, which seemed to be saying, “It’s OK, man. I’ve got your back.”
But the serenity of this little bit of heaven was no match for the wrenching inner turmoil that threatened to swallow me whole. I cried out in agony for release from my gnawing guilt and shame, not really expecting anyone to hear.
I had signed up for this religious retreat out of desperation. My marriage was going down the tubes, I was drinking heavily, and I was under increasing pressure as an engineering project manager.
The night before the retreat began, I went out and got drunk on a whim. Later that evening, I decided to report to the San Francisco Bay Area monastery anyway, rolling up about midnight.
The place was closed, so I rang the bell and a bleary-eyed monk answered the door, took one whiff of my alcohol-sotted breath, shook his head and without a word, led me down a long hall to the one remaining room where I collapsed on the single bed.
“Ave Maria!” “Ave Maria!” someone bellowed through my door, while banging and ringing a bell. It was 6 a.m. Wiped out and still in my clothes from the night before, I wandered down the hall to a breakfast room where all 50 sets of eyeballs fixated on my rumpled visage. I was now infamous, having awakened the whole place in the middle of the night loaded to the gills.
I don’t recall much of the rest of the day’s activities except that we could not speak or sleep, and that we had to do a lot of reading and “praying.” In my case, I was praying for an end to the torture of this retreat.
Somehow, I survived the day and, after dinner, we were free to explore the grounds and “reflect” before going to bed. I was miserable and wanted to return to chasing inner peace down the neck of a whisky bottle.
Instead, I decided to tough it out one more night, and took a stroll down that isolated winding path that this story opened with. Boy, am I glad I did.
A slight digression first. I’m a trained engineer, a man of science. But at the same time, I was raised Catholic, which placed me in the awkward position of externally acting out religion, while viewing God as a strictly theoretical notion.
It occurred to me while praying or praising that my utterances went no further than the ceiling, yet I wanted to cover my bases. The whole thing was intentionally delusional … that is, until that fateful night.
As I sat on that split-log bench, head down, buried in my guilt, shame and hopelessness, I was sure that if there was a God, he’d burn me to a cinder for all I’d done. And just then, in the blink of an eye, the whole place “lit up” with a Presence so vivid that it took my breath away.
I didn’t “see” anything with my physical eyes, but deep inside, in my spirit, everything came alive. I was not alone anymore. I fell to my knees, wept uncontrollably, and was overcome with inexpressible, childlike joy.
The Presence was more real than my own consciousness. Instantly, his name came to me … Friend. I knew exactly who He was — the One who, in fact, walked out those Stations of the Cross 2,000 years ago.
No words were exchanged; strangely, they weren’t necessary. I sensed no condemnation, no demands for reform — nothing like that. I was bathed in His unconditional love and nothing would be the same again.
The Psalmist once wrote, “O taste and see that the Lord is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!”1 I can relate! Big time.
Critics often describe the God of the Bible as powerful, angry and menacing. And yes, he can be those things, but only against his sworn enemies — and always in the process of protecting his friends. After all, don’t we celebrate such people on Memorial Day? Those who go off to war to protect their own are our heroes.
Likewise, God is the hero of the good and enemy of evil. I stand as an eyewitness to God’s sweetness, and He is my Friend forever.
Years later, I would read the words of the great A.W. Tozer in his book The Pursuit of God, as he addressed the goodness, openness and willingness of God to welcome us into His life.
“When we lift our inward eyes to gaze upon God, we are sure to meet friendly eyes gazing back at us, for it is written that the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout all the earth. The sweet language of experience is ‘You God see me.’ When the eyes of the soul looking out meet the eyes of God looking in, heaven has begun right here on this earth.”
How About You?
I have no idea what God saw in me, other than utter failure, but the message I take away is that God responds to surrender, which puts it in the range of possibility for the weakest and poorest of us. This calls for abandoning all “religious” endeavors and attempts to clean up our acts and be good — or any other human efforts.
It’s humbling to surrender to God as a helpless, red-handed sinner, but it’s the only way. Be certain of this: on the resurrection side of the cross we live under friendly skies, basking in the sunshine of God’s everlasting grace.
— D.C. Collier is a Bible teacher, discipleship mentor and writer focused on Christian apologetics. A mechanical engineer and Internet entrepreneur, he is the author of My Origin, My Destiny, a book focused on Christianity’s basic “value proposition.” Click here for more information. Click here for previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
1. Psalm 34:8 New American Standard Bible (NASB)