The Conversion of Augustine

I read Augustine's conversion experience tonight (Confessions, chapter 8). I felt a strong connection as I read him. He agonized over his conversion. Being fully unsatisfied with his life and many achievements and having just talked with a lesser educated friend about his own Christian experience he became troubled, feverish even, in spirit so much so that his friend Alypius was alarmed and followed him out into the garden where Augustine grappled with his will but found himself unable to follow Christ.

He wrestled with his logic and his long history of lust and revelry pulling at him and he ran and hid under a fig tree weeping until he heard a child next door singing "take and read, take and read." He wondered at this because he was not aware of any game or song wherein these words would be sung or who could have sung them and took it as none other than a divine command, rushed over to the Book of the Apostle, and read the first thing he saw,

"Not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual excess and lust, not in quarreling and jealousy. Rather, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh." 

Romans 13:13-15

Upon reading this he felt as though his soul were filled with light and he turned from his sin. Alypius so amazed did likewise. They went to tell his mother and she leaped for joy praising God. She had spent years and years praying, weeping, and lamenting for her son and now her prayers were answered.

This story plays out like the scene of a movie but it is true.

I am struck by several points as they align with my own experience. Augustine agonized over his conversion. I have also agonized, not over my conversion because that happened when I was very young, but at specific points in time when I was called to trust Jesus with a specific part of my life that I was holding on to. The struggle of trying to be good enough while realizing that I could not be good on my own terms, that was rough. God was calling me to give up trying to be good enough which went against so much of how I was raised. I could never be good enough, and while it was nice that I wanted to not burden Christ with my sin and just try to take care of things on my own that wasn't how it was supposed to work and my holding on to 'trying to be good' was actually becoming a real hindrance to the work Christ was doing in me. I, like Augstine, ended up curled up in a ball crying. I didn't have a fig tree to hide under though, just the long dark emptiness of the Saskatchewan night sky out on the grid road just outside of Caronport.

I did not hear God speaking to me at that time, disguised as another voice or not but I am convinced I did hear God (or an angel from God) speak audibly in a similar manner to Augustine when I was working as a flagman for a summer. I had been trying to witness to my co-worker, another new guy like me, and we were often paired together. I was a rough man, but honest, and with integrity. We would sometimes speak about spiritual things. I explained my faith in Jesus, he his 'Happy Hunting Grounds'. He tried to introduce me to some stuff he thought I would like (super cheesy Christianese movies) and things he thought might expand my mind out of the box I was living in (rap music). I, in turn, suggested he read the Book of Proverbs as it was about wisdom and living well, something anyone of any faith could benefit from. I listened to and studied rap music. He never read Proverbs. I prayed for him, spoke with him, challenged him as our relationship allowed, he was polite but nothing would sink in. Then one day just before he left we were getting the work truck ready for the day when a song came on the radio and it was as if I had half entered a different reality. The lyrics of this song "Saving William" were a love letter from a father to his son about how he was sending him messengers and love and gifts but he would have none of it but his father still loved him and he would keep trying. I was stunned and wondered about the song all day long. I went him that day and looked it up online. The song doesn't exist but I heard it clear as day and knew it was a confirmation of God's love for this man and of God's working through me to show him his love.

As for Augustine's mother, I have not lived long enough to pray with unceasing tears and anguish of heart to experience the triumphant joy that erupted in her soul, but I can imagine what it must have been like.

Ways to the Father

It seems to me that there exists a paradox in that there are both many ways and only one way in how we come to know God. On the one hand, as a Christian, I believe as fundamental and completely truthful Jesus' words that He is the way, the truth, and the life, and that nobody comes to the Father but through Him. (John 14:6). On the other hand I am convinced that Jesus will come to each of us a little differently according to how we were created, our time in history, and our own experience. There is only one Jesus and He is the only way to know the father, but we all see and relate to him differently.

To be clear, I am not saying that other religions and unchristian ideas are also methods to come to the Father, only that everyone who does come to the Father comes through Christ and that this journey of going through Christ looks differently for each person because Christ relates to each of us according to who, where, and when we are. I don't think this is an especially novel or strange idea but it has been my observation that many who call themselves Christians interact with other Christians as though it were.

For many of us we came to know Christ in childhood through the example of our parents and the community of our local church. Others came to believe because of a sermon or a message spoken by a Christian preacher that struck them to the core. Others came to believe not because of their parents or a sermon but by being loved by the church community. Still others came to believe because of a powerful spiritual experience, others by witnessing a miracle, others by simply reading The Holy Bible, and some by other means. All of us start the journey of faith in Jesus at different spots and the journey itself also looks different according to who, where, and when we are. Some are called to be preachers, politicians, or philanthropists but not prostitutes. Others to be servants, song writers, or soldiers, but not sorcerers. Many are called to be mothers, martyrs or mostly ordinary but not murderers. Once again this shouldn't be a novel or strange idea, Paul's explanation of the spiritual gifts shows us that we are many members of one body, each of us given diverse and unique tasks suitable to the diverse and unique roles we all play. (1 Cor 12:12-27)

There are some who say that every Christian *must* possess a specific talent or gift or experience (such as being able to speak in tongues) but the wider body of the faith knows that they are mistaken and we try to love and work with them as best we can, and life goes on.

Where I see Christians acting is though this could be a lie (from the Devil no less) is when other Christians relate to God differently. Some of us naturally relate to God when we are reading the Bible. This is often held as the gold standard in Evangelical Christianity for how everyone should relate to God because the Bible is God's written word to us. It is God breathed, reliable, unchangeable, tangible, Spirit filled, living and active, sharper than a two edged sword dividing soul and spirit, joint and marrow, judging the thoughts and intentions of the heart (2 Timothy 3:16-17; Hebrews 4:12). The Bible is extremely important for the Christian faith but as important and grounding as it is, I am convinced that many Christians naturally relate to God better through other means. Music, for example, often makes Christians feel a close connection to God. Art or symbolism is another example as is simply being alone in God's creation perhaps beholding a mountain or the ocean or a sunset or a star-filled sky. Some of us naturally relate to and love to focus on Jesus (obviously) but the more charismatic among us naturally relate to and love to focus on the Holy Spirit while our Catholic and East Orthodox brothers and sisters have a greater elevation of The Father. I think this is only natural because all of us are created differently and have had centuries of the forces of culture and theological thought put the currents of today into movement.

Whatever activity, image, or frame of mind makes us feel a connection with God can, in the context of faith in Jesus, become an anchor in the life of the Christian, a spiritual discipline whereby the believer knows how to put him or her self into a position to better focus on communing with their God. As the Christian matures on their journey in Christ new (and I believe more traditional) ways of feeling a connection with God will take root and the things that have made them feel a connection in the past may fade or disappear as the Lord leads each of us forward.

Apart from Christ we all still have those things that raise our spirits as it were and make us feel some sort of connection with the divine but by themselves they do not lead us to really know God. We may be inspired, even elated by art, we may experience feelings of deep inner peace, being at one with the universe, or locate a special place or being that appears as holy or even as a god or goddess. God may even, by his grace, draw the spirit by these wild spiritualities into a rudimentary (and perhaps even saving) knowledge of Himself but these wild spiritualities are not inspired by God and should not be trusted.