This is probably the second or third time I visit this draft but this time I intend to actually hit post.
OKAY so– My freshmen year I was 15 years old. My dad had been bugging me to check out a book that he received from a church. This church is the Philadelphia church of God & their website is http://www.pcog.org in case anyone gets curious. So the book he kept insisting I read was one titled, “The Mystery of the Ages” by Herbert W. Armstrong. I attempted to make the read but somewhere among the first chapter I decided that I was one too many yawns into it. I put it down & a few months passed. Later at some other point in time I gave their site a little visit to see what this was all about. I found out that they had a few books & that they were all free. I ordered a few, I believe their limit was 5 books per order. When I got them in the mail my interest was once again lost & another few months passed by. When I finally decided to pick up the material & see what it was all about I chose a book titled, “The Incredible Human Potential” by the same author. That sounded like something that might be interesting & sure enough it was!
The book, from a Christian perspective, told the story or rather, further explained what the bible said about what God’s plan was for us. Now I’m not too sure how to write all of this down in a manner that might make some sense but I’ll attempt it anyway. But first I’ll explain how the book was meant to be read & what it was not intended to do. The book would say something really amazing like, ‘God created man in his image.’ for example & then it would reference a passage in the bible. The author also mention to use whatever bible you felt like using because everything he was writing wasn’t being taken out of context but rather being explained in detail. So that was that &– in my own opinion the author or the church he represented really did not try to shove any kind of personal opinion of theirs down my throat. They never asked for money or anything that any traditional churches practice (in that sense). If anything, the church kept reminding us to just think about what the bible said & about what God meant & exactly what God said & so on & so fourth.
Anywaaay I just took a small break to do like 5 chores so I’m not really feeling this post 😐 As always I fail to actually blog but uh in spirit of actually telling the story– I found God. For the next 5 years or so I tried to be a good Christian, I tried to keep the commandments, the sabbath, obey the tithe law that God gave us & all that. Maybe I’ll update this more at another time as of now I really don’t feel like continuing this 
Update: I have some free time & didn’t forget about this post so here’s the rest of the story.
So because of that book I decided that I would voluntarily, out of my own will, pursue God & follow the commandments to the best of my ability. I did this all through-out high school meeting some tough challenges. I was never the type of person to want to preach to anyone about who they should worship or what rituals they should or should not do that would cause their religion to be defined. Instead I kept my beliefs, my practices & all truths to myself. Towards the end of my high school adventure I introduced myself into the world of, “drugs” & what I really mean by that is that I began smoking pot & acting -being a pothead. I got pretty heavily into that & only stuck to that. Sometimes I’d skip school with a few buddies & just go smoke out all day. Other times I’d skip school & go hang out at barnes & nobles all by myself. But the weirdest thing that I used to do that to this day haven’t heard of anyone else do this, not even read about it online, is this. I’d sometimes smoke (get high) & study the bible, read & let it talk to me & everything would make sense, random information would connect to form a whole new idea opening my eyes to a whole new revelation. I know, it sounds crazy right? I was a normal kid in high school -a pot head towards the end but normal non-the-less. I had a few girlfriends, got involved into some school activities, went to football games, had lunch with normal people not weirdos & outcasts & definitely not any type of religious group. I was normal. After high school I continued this pothead behavior & would find myself at house parties a lot. I had my own car & a job at the time so money was flowing & so was the freedom & ability to do as much as a high school graduate could do. However, I would find myself in certain situations that put my faith to test. You see my, “friends” & I would do almost everything together, we were close & shared tons of similarities but one very distinct difference was that they were not Christians.
A quick story
I remember one occasion it was late at night, I was at the usual place, my friends house. We were all in chairs sitting in a circle partaking in our daily, ‘puff puff pass’ ritual when all of a sudden someone cracked a joke about Jesus. Now I being a Christian at the time obviously found this offensive –that & the joke was genuinely lame so I didn’t participate in laughing. After the joke someone said jokingly, “You shouldn’t take the lords name in vain.” to which another guy replied with, “Why? It’s not like I care about Jesus”. I don’t feel like reiterating but somehow the question was raised about who believes in Jesus. Everyone said they didn’t & when it was my turn I said that I did. I then continued to tell them that I wasn’t ashamed to call Jesus my lord. That was about as preachy as I ever got with anyone. I guess they all felt uncomfortable & things got quiet. No one ever disrespected me about it.. now that I think about it, none of those people ever disrespected me at anytime about anything. They always seemed to have some respect for me but I soon lost respect for them because I moved on from smoking weed & they didn’t. That’s another story for another time.
TLDR?
So my point was that I was introduced into the spiritual world by my dad. The world of order & religion I would say that the church had a huge part in translating that from the bible to me. Many years have passed since I first began this journey & since then I’ve had a lot of spiritual intervention by what I’d like to give credit to God but more directly Jesus. I have a lot of those stories but I’ll save those for another post maybe.
Note: I’ve noticed that I’ve picked up a few followers & that a few of those are Christian followers/bloggers. I just want to point out that I am not a Christian. I have respect for you guys as I do for anyone who believes in any other religion. I reserve zero hate or animosity for no one. Hate is not a part of who I am nor do loathe anyone of any other religion. I just wanted to make it clear that this is not a Christian blog & that though I’m currently touching on the subject it’ll only stay this was for a bit longer.
Diprotic 