Real Life, Real Christianity - Facing taboos in the church
If you want to throw a wet blanket on any Christian function, start talking about how commonplace drinking in the church has become. But you must wait until everyone one has at least sipped their wine or beer or whisky!
MARK’S STORY
Mark was born in 1954 and born again in 1974. Like Jonah, Mark thought jumping on a ship would help him run away from God. He was on his way to go whaling in the Antarctic when he stepped into a telephone booth to phone home and say goodbye. Fifteen minutes later he stepped out a ‘supernatural’ man. In the process of looking up the dialing code in the telephone booth he pulled a Christian tract out of the directory. The words “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden” jumped out at him and Mark knew he could no longer run away from God. Right there and then he signed his name on the tract and prayed a prayer asking Jesus Christ into his heart.
I FOUND JESUS
I, in the meantime, was still in high school and teaching Sunday school at the local Methodist Church. I was trying very hard to earn my way into heaven and thought that if I was very good and kind to poor people and children, I may just be able to make it.
Then my rebellious older sister came home proclaiming she was ‘saved’ and that all you needed for this was the free gift of God’s Grace. Fascinated, I went to church with my sister where I came face-to-face with a gracious God and a few months later surrendered all my hard work (which I found were as filthy rags) to God and became born again.
Mark met me at the Assemblies of God Church in Northcliff and we have been happily married for 30 years.
Three daughters and three grand-children later, everything has gone according to plan and our children were all angels and everything we touched turned to gold … NOT!
LIFE IN THE REAL WORLD
It was during the years of raising children that I found my periods of sadness deepen to severe depression with suicidal thoughts and then mood swings that included incredible highs. I was diagnosed with “Manic Depression” and told I had a chemical imbalance of the brain and would have to live on medication for the rest of my life. Confused as to why, as a Christian, I had this problem, I felt God guiding me to look at my diet.
Being someone who was raised to ask what the cause was and not just take a pill, I set out to find the cause. As much as my ‘chemical imbalance’ improved dramatically with some dietary changes, Mark, the children and I continued to suffer from irritating health problems like indigestion, tiredness, ear infections, tonsillitis, excess weight and allergic dermatitis and rhinitis. In desperation, I cried out to God and over the next few months through a series of divinely appointed meetings and books, I devised our Natural Way lifestyle and have not had a single doctor’s bill due to illness since 1986.
Mark and I have found that when you improve your diet and lifestyle, you take the focus off yourself and start focusing on other’s needs. Instead of spending time and money on doctors and medical expenses, one can now spend time and money on God’s purposes. You have more to give and the energy and mental clarity to fulfil God’s calling on your life.
Our message is essential to the church today as ill health is a huge cause of inefficiency in Christians lives. Mark and I have found that our relationship with God improved dramatically, as depression and mood swings became a thing of the past. Our marriage was saved as we both found our minds and emotions functioning the way God intended them to.
You will find that as health improves relationships improve, finances improve and the productivity of the local church is dramatically improved as people in the community become healthier.
SURRENDERING TO GOD
Does that mean our lives were now perfect? No! We had three extremely strong willed children and as much as we had “raised them up in the way they should go,” we were being kept on our knees in prayer so that they would, “when they were old, return to it” (Proverbs 22:6)
We went through the whole ‘Faith’ teaching, the ‘naming and claiming’ and the more we did that, the wilder our children became and the worse our business situation and finances became. It was only when we surrendered our wills completely to God that things began to change and we started to realise that God is sovereign and we cannot control Him with our confessions or anything else. David, we know, fasted and prayed and begged God for his child to live but his baby died. He then got up, washed, praised God and got on with his life knowing that whether someone lives or dies God is still in control – and He still knows what is going on even if we don’t. It was a huge lesson for us.
A LESSON IN LOVE
So were our lives perfect yet? NO! Just a few months after that, our middle daughter had her heart broken by a young man who professed to be a Christian and, in her heart-broken angry state, left home and disappeared. She arrived home pregnant three months later.
Jesus Himself tells the story of the prodigal son and, reading the Old Testament, we see how time and again the Israelites and their kings would turn to idols (some even sacrificed their children to idols). God lavished us with His love and His amazing Grace so many times. Who were we to turn our backs on our daughter? So we did what we had to, we prayed with her, loved her and helped her and God blessed us with the most delightful grandson. Since then we have watched our daughters grow in grace little by little and been blessed by the work that God continues to do in their lives. Are they perfect? NO, they are just as we are – a work in progress. In time we believe they will be living fully in His will and we trust Him daily to “complete the work He has started” in their lives.
ASK GOD TO SHOW YOU
One of the issues they had to deal with during this time was the issue of alcohol.
We both come from families with at least one alcoholic parent and found that alcohol played a major role in depression. So Mark would, on occasion, have a light beer or a glass of wine. When the children started saying they could drink alcohol because their dad had an occasional drink, we started to ask God what we should do about it.
Clearly, the destructive effects of alcoholism on our families was obvious as we both had to deal with issues that arose from being ‘adult children of alcoholics’, but what about moderate drinking?
It was after a beer one weekend that Mark realised that as little as one beer or glass of wine does not seem to affect his ability to drive, hold a conversation or make some decision, the one thing he could not do at all was pray. He found it impossible to talk to God and that scared him. Based on that, Mark has since avoided consuming alcohol, as he just feels he must always be able to communicate with God and that that is far more important than the ‘taste’ or ‘feeling’ he has when he sips a glass of wine.
This is a personal thing between us and God and we in no way want to impose our personal conviction on anyone else. These are the two scriptures that have ministered to us on this issue. We wanted to know what the truth was for us on this and we wanted to never be under the power of anything except the power of the Holy Spirit.
You need to exercise your personal convictions on such matters [as food] as if in God’s presence, keeping them to yourself, striving only to know the truth and obey His will. (Romans 14:13-23 [:22])
“Everything is permissible, allowable and lawful for me but not all things are good for me. Everything is lawful for me, but I will not become the slave of anything or be brought under its power” (1 Corinthians 6:12-20).
As a result, our health and energy levels have soared and our walk with God has become closer that ever before.
Are our lives perfect? Absolutely not, we know we don’t live in heaven yet, but we do know that we have everything we need and we know that we want to be in God’s perfect will no matter the price. And, we have learned, like Paul, to be content whether we have plenty or very little. The secret to having a perfect life is firstly, knowing that God does make all things work together for our good if we love Him, secondly, finding out what you can learn when things appear to go wrong and, thirdly, how you can grow and become more surrendered to Him through the crises. Working on growing the fruit of the Spirit is what makes you happy, not having everything go your way.
By Mary-Ann Shearer
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