I Believe, I Believe
“I believe, I believe, Oh Lord help my unbelief,
Help me trust in your plan, help me truly understand
I believe, I believe, doubt is such a subtle thief
Help me trust who you say that I am.”
“You are God, I am not, and my life is in your hands
You have chosen me, you have chosen me
I’m your child, I am secure
In your arms, I’m safe for sure.”
“Your love covers me, your love covers me
Your love covers me, I’m safe for sure”
Words and Music by Steve Herl
Chapter One
In about 1961, when I was 10 years old, I was bouncing a tennis ball off of the front steps of our house at 5212 Mt. Vernon Memorial Hwy in Alexandria, Va. Nearly every evening, from about 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM, I would pretend to either pitch or play shortstop for the Washington Senators, while waiting anxiously for my father to get off the bus that stopped in front of our house. The bus was scheduled to stop at 6:30, 7:30 and 8:30. Every time I would hear the bus coming my heart would race, wishing that my dad would get off the bus. Most of the time the bus would just drive right by and not stop because my dad was not on the bus. You see our stop was the last stop and he was the only remaining passenger on the nights that he was on the bus, so if he was not on the bus there was no need to stop. My heart would sink each time the bus just raced by. My dad had a problem with alcohol and would not come home for weeks at a time while on a binge.
On this particular night, after the 8:30 bus drove by, I sat down on the sidewalk with tears in my eyes. I laid back and stared up into a star filled night. I had never felt so alone. As I laid there staring into the vastness of the night sky (in those days living near Mt. Vernon was like living out in the country) I became terrified. I could see an infinite number of stars in the sky and I had just learned that the earth was a rock whirling around in something called the Milky Way. The Russians had orbited the earth with a satellite called Sputnik and our new President, my hero, John Kennedy had promised we would go to the moon very soon. The more I stared, the more I felt alone and the more afraid I became. I began to worry about flying off the rock on which I was lying and being launched out into infinity and forgotten. I began to think about the absurdity that I even existed because life apparently began by sheer chance when thousands of random events all occurred exactly at the right time. I thought about how before the first thing existed there had to have been nothing and therefore something had to have come out of nothing. And now I was more afraid.
Suddenly a peace settled over me. I knew the answer. As I laid there I knew I wasn’t alone. I knew how I came to be and I knew that there never was a time when there was nothing because if there had ever been a time when there was nothing there would still be nothing. “Some” thing cannot come out of “No” thing. I sat up. I knew there was a God. I didn’t understand anything else about God but I knew there was a God. And I knew in my heart that he was for me. I believe God is real and I believe He loves me.
Chapter Two
I grew up in the Catholic Church. I made my First Communion at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Old Town Alexandria. I was confirmed into the Catholic Church at St. Louis Catholic Church near Hybla Valley in Alexandria. The awe and reverence (incense, bells, candles, stained glass windows, chimes and organ music) of the Catholic Church helped me to understand the holiness of God, but it wasn’t until much later that I learned that holiness means “otherness”.
In fact the most important thing I learned about God from my Catholic Church days was learned on Sundays, but not at mass. My mother’s mother, my grandmother (“Mom Mom”) served as a housekeeper for a house full of priests in downtown Washington D.C. Many Sunday afternoons we would drive into Washington D.C. to have “dinner” (an early afternoon meal) with Mom Mom and some of the priests. When we had finished eating in the little kitchen we would go out into the living room and watch NFL football on the little black and white television. There would be several priest sitting on the couches and chairs, drinking beer and yelling at the television. Occasionally a cuss word would be spewed and even a racist comment or two. The very same men who said mass in a chapel off the front hall of the house were just like all the other men I had watched at our other family gatherings. I learned that the priests had no special relationship with God and that we didn’t need to use an intermediary to talk with and relate to God. I believe I can pray to and speak with God directly. I believe that God forgives us of our sins without any need for intercession from anyone other than his son.
When I was playing baseball for the Blue Bombers, Martin’s Hardware, Mt. Vernon High School, and basketball and football for Mt. Vernon High School I would talk with God constantly. I would thank him for every good thing that ever happened to me. I believe God is real and that he loves me.
Chapter Three
My four years at Va. Tech (1969-1973) were my wilderness experience. I went to Tech on a football scholarship without a plan or any level of maturity or emotional stability. I was the most ill prepared person that had ever shown up on campus anywhere in the world. My family was in shambles back home. My dad had moved away, my younger brother was left with no male in his life and my mother, God bless her, was broke but would still send me 10 dollars about every other month. My scholarship paid for everything (room, board and books) and the 15 dollars a month we got as football players for our laundry money was all the spending money I had until the money from mom would show up. From the moment I arrived on campus (Miles dorm, 3rd floor) I was afraid and lost. The other players seemed like men. They had lifted weights, they drank beer, they were confident with girls and they had experiences in football and life that I had never known. My first roommate was from Mt. View, California and he smoked pot and played a guitar on his bunk. I had no idea what marijuana was.
I hated every moment of football because it was the most dehumanizing thing I had ever been part of. I played football and all sports because I enjoyed playing. Football at Va. Tech was about proving how tough you were and how strong you were and how fast you were. I prided myself on having fun and outthinking my opponents in sports. I wasn’t prepared for mortal combat, neither physically nor emotionally. But I couldn’t quit because I couldn’t afford to go to college without a scholarship and I had no alternate plan. I was stuck in Blacksburg, Va., without a car, without any money and without any hope. My high school girlfriend starting seeing someone else shortly after I arrived at Tech and once I found out I was devastated and even more alone. I tried to read a Bible that I found and as I have said many times since, “it might as well have been written in the original Greek for as much as I could understand of it.”
I muddled through four long years of college, miraculously graduating with degrees in Mathematics and Political Science. My personal life was an absolute mess for the entire four years and I never matured emotionally enough to truly have a real relationship with anyone, particularly with a female. I was so insecure and lost that I had nothing to offer another person in the area of intimacy. I thought love was something that you earned by serving the needs of another and that if you shared your true thoughts and fears, rejection was the only possible outcome. I never understood that intimacy involves vulnerability and honesty. I had absolutely no understanding of love or relationship and I knew nothing about the female mind or body. I was an utter disaster. I still believed that God existed and would thank him when things went well, but I did not know God nor have any relationship with him. I felt like he loved me but I was sure he was disappointed in me.
Chapter Four
And yet, one year after graduating from Va. Tech I was engaged to be married. I had taught math and coached football, basketball and tennis at Gar-Field High School in Woodbridge for a year now and decided that getting married was the next logical step in life. I married someone I didn’t know, mostly because I had never really been vulnerable enough with them to allow them to know me. I was totally ignorant of what a relationship was and how intimacy worked. I thought love was to be earned so in my mind providing a house and a car and being told what a great teacher I was and what a great coach I was and what a great shortstop I was in slow pitch softball was enough to earn my wife’s love. Everyone else thought I was really special so, of course, she should have as well. I was still as immature and lost as the day I stepped onto the Va. Tech campus in the fall of 1969.
I love children so I thought that if we could have some children everything would be fine because we could raise our children together. We struggled to have children which only added to the stress of our non relationship but finally one day we had a daughter, Lindsay Maureen. In 1981, when I held Lindsay, I knew that love was something I had never known but I knew I had it for her. I knew that love was something more than an emotion, I knew that it was something bestowed upon someone as an act of the will. I didn’t understand it, but it wasn’t something earned and I had never never been the object of it as far as I knew. But I had it for Lindsay from the moment she laid in my arms.
Now that we had a daughter, my wife and I decided we needed to find a church. As I said earlier, I was raised Catholic. She had been raised Presbyterian, in fact we were married in the National Presbyterian Church in downtown Washington, D.C. by a Presbyterian minister and a Catholic priest. We had attended the Presbyterian Church in downtown Fredericksburg but one Sunday the minister that I had come to appreciate died of a heart attack in the pulpit. I played in softball tournaments nearly every weekend until Lindsay was born, so I never became very involved in the activities of the church. I figured that I had been as good as anyone and I thanked God whenever something good happened, so if anyone was going to heaven I was. My wife had begun spending several nights a week out and telling me she was going to “bible studies” or “prayer meetings” or “worship services.” I was sure she was doing something else.
Chapter Five
But now that Lindsay was born and I had stopped playing softball nearly every weekend we decided to find a church. One of my wife’s friends suggested to her that we try an Episcopal church in Fairfax, Va. The thought was that an Episcopal church would be a compromise between the Catholic Church and the Presbyterian Church. It was a Protestant church but it had priests and liturgy. I, of course, asked why we needed to go all the way to Fairfax to find an Episcopal church since there were at least two Episcopal churches in Fredericksburg (we lived in Fredericksburg, Va.). I never got a sufficient answer but it came to pass that we visited Truro Episcopal Church in downtown Fairfax, Va. on a Sunday.
Truro is an old colonial church and the setting was and is beautiful. When we got inside, we found a beautiful sanctuary with pews and kneelers just like the Catholic Church in which I grew up. The Church had become so popular that they had built wings of pews out to each side to expand its capacity. We sat in the left wing towards the back of the church. I was very comfortable because of the kneelers, the hymnals, the cross, the stained glass windows and the priests. The priest presiding over the service came down the center aisle processing behind the acolytes carrying the cross and the Bible. I felt very much at home. We sang a hymn out of the hymnal and when he arrived at the altar we responded to the liturgy led by the priest. Then a small worship team made up of two guitars and a piano began to play music as the congregation continued the liturgy. That’s when it happened. People began raising their hands in what appeared to be real worship, adoration and surrender. I was confused but interested. The liturgy set to music was beautiful and the words seemed to truly have meaning. I enjoy singing so the service was very comfortable and actually inspiring.
When the time for the sermon came, the priest presiding over the service ascended the steps to a raised pulpit. When he began to teach it was as if the veil had been lifted bringing us into the very presence of God. John Howe, a Yale University graduate with a Master of Divinity, 1967, taught with an enthusiasm, perspective and intelligence that I had never heard before when it came to the Bible. It felt as though we were really there when he taught about the events and teachings of the Bible. I was amazed and my heart was drawn to his teaching. When he finished I was actually disappointed. I wanted more. The service closed with an uplifting song and as the acolytes led the priests back out the center door people were singing and worshiping God.
When the service ended, my wife and I walked to our car without speaking at all. I did not know that she had been to Truro before on one of her “worship services” nights out so I thought she was digesting what we had just experienced as well. Once we began driving south on Rt. 123 towards Fredericksburg she asked me, “What did you think?” I hesitated and then said, “I’m not exactly sure what we just saw, but I do know that for the first time in my I just saw people really worshipping God.” That’s when I found out that my wife had been there before on a Friday night.
Chapter Six
After attending Truro for a few more weeks and being enthralled by the teaching each Sunday, I was talked into attending a Friday night “worship service.” I went with much fear and trepidation, not sure exactly what I was getting into. The meeting took place immediately below the main sanctuary at Truro and involved John Howe playing his guitar and leading a group of about 150 people in several songs that for the most part we had sung during the Sunday services. As I said before I enjoy singing and I very much enjoy singing songs led by an acoustic guitar that sound like folk music or the Everly Brothers. As we were singing about the fourth or fifth song, and just before the teaching (which I was very much looking forward to), John Howe stopped playing mid song. Because people were raising there hands and because as is my habit I was standing in the back of the room, I could barely see John. But when he abruptly stopped playing I moved so I could see what had happened. He stood up straight and said, “God has a word for a man that is here tonight. God says to you, ‘I don’t need you! I love you !” When he said those words I knew I was that man. I began to tear up a little as I absorbed the depth of what I believed that God himself had just said to me. I had always connected love with earning. I thought love was the currency earned by meeting the needs of another. I had spent my entire life trying to satisfy others desires in order for them to accept me, maybe like me, and even maybe love me. God had just said to me “I DON’T NEED YOU.” “ I LOVE YOU!” How could it be?
I am not sure I heard another word or song the rest of the night. I drove home almost in silence. I’m sure my wife thought I had not enjoyed the service thus my silence. Our lack of relationship kept me from discussing my experience with her because I thought she would say I was too new in my faith to have been the person John Howe was talking about. I was afraid of rejection. And yet I knew that I knew that I knew that God had just said to me, “I don’t need you! I love you.”
Over the next several weeks I spent nearly every waking moment pondering those words. When I held Lindsay in my arms I understood more and more. Lindsay didn’t need to do anything to earn my love. I loved Lindsay just because she was mine. Lindsay was and always has been perfect in my eyes and heart. My love for Lindsay was and is unconditional because of who she is in me. It never wavers based on her actions or inactions. She is fully accepted by me because of who she is in me. When I let that resonate in my heart in regard to me and God, I was set free. I believe God loves me not because of anything I have done but fully and intentionally because of what he has done and who I am in him. I believe that God exists and that he loves me unconditionally because he has chosen me in himself. I believe God said to me in the basement of Truro Church, “I don’t need you! I love you!”
Chapter Seven
Truro had a wonderful bookstore in its complex of buildings. I discovered that nearly every teaching series that John Howe had done since he had become rector at Truro was available on audio tapes (I know, I am old). He had done a teaching series on nearly every book or group of books in the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. I bought every series that they had in stock and ordered the ones they didn’t. I couldn’t get enough of Rev. Howe’s teachings. I would listen to them in the evening and in the car whenever I drove anywhere. His teachings were not doctrinal instead they were more expository in nature which means a verse by verse exposition of the Bible. As I said earlier, when John Howe’s teaches the Bible you feel like you are part of the story. When he teaches about the Gospels you feel as though you are walking with Jesus and his disciples. When he teaches Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians you feel like you either live in Corinth or you were with Paul on his missionary journeys. When he teaches the Book of Revelation you come away hopeful and reminded that God is in control.
By now I was a real estate developer and much of my day was spent in my car driving to meetings or looking at properties. I reached a point where I actually hoped for more red lights because it gave me the chance to listen to more of the tape I had in my car’s tape player. It didn’t take me very long to make it through the entire Bible by way of John Howe’s teachings. I felt like I now had a general understanding of the flow and message of the entire Bible. But I knew something was still missing.
That all changed one day on a drive to just outside of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Our company had been promised by a customer whose offices were near Gettysburg that we would receive a rather large check for work we had done for them. After many failed promises of a check I decided to call their owner directly and inform him that I would drive up and pick up a check. When he agreed I was thrilled for two reasons. One, it would be good for our company to finally get the check and two, I could spend 3 1/2 hours each way listening to John Howe.
I left Fredericksburg early one morning and was heading up Rt. 15 just north of Haymarket, Va. enjoying my time listening to Rev. Howe. As I was listening to the tape I believe I heard a voice saying to me, “Sit quietly before my feet and I will teach you of all things.” I thought, “Wow, I better listen very carefully to what comes next on the tape.” But nothing special was said. Just below Leesburg, Va. the voice repeated but in a more deliberate tone, “I said sit Quietly before my feet and I will teach you of all things.” In my heart I said, “Oh, I see.” I turned off the tape player, completed my drive to Gettysburg and back to Fredericksburg with nothing playing on the radio or from the tape player. I didn’t hear any more voices and nothing profound was revealed to me at all in the approximately 6 hours of driving. I dropped off the check at my office and drove home. I didn’t tell anyone about what happened because quite frankly I thought maybe I was going crazy.
Chapter Eight
Two Sundays later, while my wife was on a ladies retreat as I remember, I was sitting at church just below the raised pulpit at Truro. At some point in the service, in a time when people would share prophecies or words of encouragement, a woman stood up in the center of the sanctuary and said she had a vision to share. She said she saw a man in the presence of God and the Lord was saying to him, “Sit quietly before my feet and I will teach you of all things.” I slid forward onto the kneeler in front of me and became flush. How did she know that had happened to me? I was flabbergasted! Another woman stood up to share something else and John Howe stopped her by saying, “the Lord is speaking to someone right now in this place and we should wait.” For what seemed like an hour (it was probably a minute) I knelt with my head in my hands, sweating and confused. How could this be?
Not many Sundays later, I was laying on my bed in the early afternoon. I had gone to church in the morning and had plans to attend a Washington Bullets game at the Capital Center with one of my best friends, Barry Sale. Barry was my banker, my golfing buddy and had played second base when I played shortstop for many years in slow pitch softball. Barry was a diabetic, drank too much, ate too much, gambled too much, and several other vices we didn’t share. But we would laugh and laugh when we spent time together and we both loved to compete and appreciated cerebral athleticism.
The house phone rang and my wife said Barry’s brother in law was on the phone. That was very odd. When I answered the phone he said, “Are you supposed to be going to the Bullets game with Barry this afternoon?” I said, “Yes!” He said, “Barry won’t be going. He just died!” He went on to explain that Barry had been down by the river (Rappahannock) with his kids and began to feel bad. His father and mother lived just up the hill from the river so he walked up to their house to rest. Apparently when he got there he sat down on their couch and had a massive heart attack and died immediately. I was stunned, speechless and tearful. I dropped the phone.
As I laid back in my bed, with tears rolling down my face, I stared at the ceiling. Barry’s parent’s house wasn’t very far from where we lived. I thought how close he had been when he died. I wished I could have been there for him. But then God interjected something even more challenging to my heart. He reminded me that I had been with Barry numerous times since the night that God had revealed his unconditional love to me and I had never found it convenient to share my new found faith with Barry. I felt like he said to me, “I am revealing myself to you so that you that you can be a light into the darkness.” I was profoundly challenged and exhorted. At Barry’s funeral I felt like the Lord said to me, “I want you to share me with all of your golfing buddies.” “I want you to start a Bible Study.” “I have given you insight into my word for a purpose.”
I believe that if God is God he can certainly enter into his creation at his pleasure just like an author of a book can choose to write himself into the story or the narrative of his book. I believe that if we have ears to hear and eyes to see we can hear from the Lord and see the Lord at work even in this earthly realm.
Chapter Nine
Within a couple of weeks of Barry’s funeral, I told my wife that I felt like God wanted me to start a Bible study in our house. Her answer was, “You haven’t been a Christian long enough to think that you can lead a Bible study. She was right, I hadn’t been a believer for very long and she had every right to question my motives since I often jumped the gun on things because of my I can get it done attitude. When you grow up trying to earn everyone’s approval you learn to operate with just such an attitude. Our relationship had deteriorated to such a point that instead of approving of anything I tried to do, her default position was to believe I was being prideful and arrogant. The truth was in this case I was actually terrified. I had no idea how I was going to lead a Bible Study.
The Lord wouldn’t let me forget his exhortation to share the Gospel. Finally one night, after several more rejections, I said to my wife, “If I invite Wayne Moore (one of my best friends and golfing buddies) and Weldon Higgs (the golf pro at Fredericksburg Country Club) to a Bible Study at our house will you believe that God has called me to do this. You see as far as we knew Wayne spent every weekend drinking and playing golf and Weldon worked from sun up to sun down every day so neither of them was actively involved in any church. When I presented my wife with these two hurdles she said, “Yes, if you can get Wayne Moore and Weldon Higgs to agree to come to a Bible Study at our house I will agree that God is involved.” I assume she thought it was impossible.
Now I had to well up the nerve to ask them. On the day I decided to take the leap and ask them both I invited Paul Bottorf, a friend who worked with me, to go with me to the Country Club. Paul and I arrived about an hour before Wayne could get to the club. We decided to play a few holes while we waited and when we got to the 13th tee (near the clubhouse) I decided to practice my approach to inviting someone to our Bible Study. As we drove in our cart towards our tee shots I said to Paul, “Would you and Beth be interested in being part of a Bible Study at our house on one evening each week?” To my shock Paul responded, “I think that’s a great idea. Let us know what night.” No arm twisting. No uncomfortable or awkward discussion. Just a simple yes. Amazing.
Paul and I played two holes and then rode back to the pro shop to pick up Wayne and Weldon to begin our round in earnest on the 1st hole. When we got to the 3rd hole, I jumped into the cart that Wayne was riding in (Weldon had to attend to a need of another club member) and decided now was the time. I asked, “Would you and Joyce have any interest in attending a Bible Study at our house on one night each week.” Once again, to my great surprise, Wayne said, “That’s sounds like something we would enjoy.” Just then Weldon returned from his discussion with the other club member and I thought while I’m hot I’ll ask him as well. His answer was just as quick. “That sounds great. What night?” I told them I would get back to everyone after I spoke with my wife.
Upon arriving home I informed my wife of the answers I had received. She was shocked. We decided to begin the following week on Wednesday night. I called the guys. Everyone agreed. Now I was terrified! I had to lead a Bible Study and had no idea what to do.
Chapter Ten
I had one week to prepare to sit in my living room in front of three of my best friends and their wives as well as my wife who was sure I was being foolish and arrogant and “teach” a Bible Study. I didn’t know the Bible like John Howe did so I wasn’t going to be able to copy his teaching style. I didn’t even know where to begin. Every night I asked God, “Where do I start?” Finally one night I heard him say, “Start in the beginning.” I had no idea exactly what that meant but at least I had an answer.
On Saturday as I was listening to one of John Howe’s tapes, I felt like I knew what I was supposed to do. The word Genesis means beginnings. I would start in Genesis.
Genesis Chapter 1:1-3
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
In the first three verses of the Bible all three persons of the Trinity are introduced. In the beginning God (the Father). And the Spirit of God was hovering (the Holy Spirit). And God said (the Word of God, the Son) let there be light. We were going to cover just three verses of the Bible and discuss the concept of the Trinity. I was ready.
On Monday I was asked if I knew whether Wayne or Weldon were members of any church and if so what denomination. I had no idea. I was warned that different denominations had different beliefs and understandings of the concept of the Trinity. All I knew was what God had revealed to me about the Trinity through my Catholic upbringing and the teachings of John Howe. I didn’t yet fully understand that when God had said to me, “Sit quietly before my feet and I will teach you of all things” that he was going to give my insight and understanding beyond what I knew in this realm. But I was ready.
On Wednesday morning I was informed that Wayne and Joyce couldn’t come to our first study. They said they were sorry and promised to come next week but they just couldn’t be there. Shortly after lunch I heard from Weldon that he and Susan couldn’t make it either. But Paul had assured me that he and Beth would be there. I was a little disappointed but still I was nervous and excited. The Lord gave me a quiet confidence about my first teaching. I spent the afternoon anxiously awaiting the study.
Beth and Paul showed up around 6:50 and after getting some water in the kitchen we all went into our living room. My wife and Beth were old friends so they spoke freely enjoying one another’s company. Paul and I chatted about work and golf and whatever else came to mind. Then it was time. I asked my wife to open us in prayer and my first Bible study was off and running. This was over 35 years ago and I have taught a weekly Bible study in my house for more than 30 of those 35 years.
After the opening prayer I introduced the topic of our study. I said that we were going to start in the beginning and for us that meant Genesis Chapter 1 Verse 1. Beth and Paul laughed. It seemed like a unique place to start a Bible study. We read the first three verses out loud.
As I began to discuss the Trinity Paul interrupted me and said, “This is amazing. As you probably know, Beth and I are Catholic and the Trinity has always confused me. I just don’t understand the reason for Trinity.” To be honest, I had no idea or at least didn’t remember that Beth and Paul were Catholic. As it turned out, Wayne and Joyce were Baptist and Weldon and Susan were Methodist so the fact that they had not shown up this night was orchestrated by God. If they had been there Paul would have never had the nerve to admit that he had a problem with such a basic concept and we certainly couldn’t have discussed it from the Catholic Church perspective because of the doctrinal differences between the Baptist and the Catholics. As it was we had an hour long discussion and in the end Paul and Beth had a new and more complete understanding of the Trinity. I said things and explained things that were not from my head. As has become common place over the past 35 years, God spoke to Beth and Paul through me (he works through donkeys (Balaam’s, Numbers 22:21-39)) and if I had been asked to repeat what I said I couldn’t because it had bypassed my brain. I believe God speaks to and through people who acknowledge that he exists and that he is God and we are not. God is merely looking for people who will humble themselves, who will glorify him as God and will give him thanks. (Romans Chapter 1:21).
Wayne and Joyce and Weldon and Susan (along with Paul and Beth) showed up the following Wednesday and for many Wednesdays for about a year. Every Wednesday afternoon I would sit in my office at Chatham Square and prepare for the night’s teaching. Every Wednesday God would give me something to share and other people began to come. At some point my wife and I decided to attend Church of the Messiah (an Episcopal Church plant near Five Mile Fork) in Fredericksburg and the Bible Study began to be affiliated with the church. So it evolved. But God was faithful throughout, speaking through a donkey, a sinner saved by grace.
Chapter Eleven
After our Church of the Messiah days we attended Grace Church of Fredericksburg and our Bible Study grew to about 20 to 25 people. God continued to faithfully give me teachings to share and my understanding of God’s unconditional love grew exponentially. I have always said that I learned much more while preparing for my teachings than I was ever able to share with the people who came to the Bible Study.
In 1990, we adopted a little boy. Bobby was 13 months old when we went through the lengthy and sometimes frustrating process of a private placement adoption. Bobby had been born to a homeless lady in downtown Fredericksburg and we never saw him until the process was completed. And even after he was legally our son, I had to drive to a previously unknown location in Breezewood subdivision in Spotsylvania, Va. to bring him home.
Bobby (whose name was then Brandon, although he didn’t know it) had been living with the boss of his mother’s sister for sometime and she wasn’t sure that we really had the right to have Bobby. God was faithful however, because when I arrived to pick Bobby up and take him home (my wife was at Lindsay’s school for her Thanksgiving Day Party) the lady who was caring for him said, “He is afraid of men, he will never go with you.” I asked to see him and when I saw him for the very first time he was sitting in a playpen in the middle of the living room with his back turned away from the entrance into the room. I walked over to the edge of the playpen and said, “Bobby, it’s your dad. Bobby I’m here to take you home.” He turned his head around, stood up and as I reached down to him he extended his arms to me and we were off. He had the extended belly of a child who was almost malnourished, but I had a tiny shirt and a diaper and some shorts for him to wear. We bounced out the door and into my car. After securing him in his car seat in the back we drove straight to the nearby Dairy Queen. We’ve been best friends ever since.
In contrast to the instant lesson of Agape love that God revealed to me in the birth of Lindsay, the adoption of Bobby showed me the truth of our adoption in God. The Bible says Jesus is God’s only begotten son, meaning I believe that they share the very same essence, whereas we are adopted into the family of God by an act of God’s will in mercy and grace. My love for Bobby is every bit as unconditional as my love for Lindsay and yet it is different in that I paid a price to bring Bobby into our family and I chose him before I even saw him. He had my name (Robert is my middle name) before I had ever met him and he was mine before I even knew him. I had set my love upon him before he had done anything good or bad so his sonship was by my election of him. I believe we are children of God by his will, not because of anything we have done. His love for us is secure because of who he is not because of who we are except for who we are in him.
Chapter Twelve
As God was revealing more and more to and through me about the nature and substance of his unconditional love (Agape), my marriage was coming to an end. As I have now come to understand knowing about something has no effect in your heart until you believe. In Isaiah 41:20, Isaiah writes, “that they may see and know, may consider and understand together, that the hand of the LORD has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it.“ The Hebrew words translated see, know, consider and understand form a pattern by which we are to be changed through revelation.
To see means to behold, to hold up and look at from every angle, to examine. This is how we study things. To know means to become familiar with, the spend time with, to know relationally. This is how we know each other, this is what we mean when we say we know someone as opposed to know something. This is how we know a hobby such as golf or knitting or painting. We don’t just know it intellectually, we know it internally. It becomes part of who we are. To consider means to hold down until it leaves a mark in us, to make war with, to allow to challenge. It is much like taking our medicine even when it tastes bad and swallowing it so it can heal us. We have to let it have its way in us in order to be changed. In the days in which we live, with such divisions, very few times do we consider what the other side has to say. We just spew it out and refuse to be changed. Our pride and insecurities won’t allow us to consider another point of view. We have to destroy the other side because we want to be right more than we want to be changed. To Understand means to know well enough to teach, to become an expert, to have been changed at your core. The purpose of revelation is to be changed into the image of the creator. And having been changed to change everyone and everything around us. Changed hearts change hearts.
The problem in my life at this point was that I knew all about love but I didn’t know love. My relationship with my wife was dead because I had nothing to give, because I had never believed. I intellectually understood the concept of God’s unconditional love and God sovereignly allowed me to reveal his unconditional love to others, but my pain, insecurity, pride and selfishness kept me from choosing to love. I was sharing the knowledge of God’s love with others while I was dying inside, gasping for air, in search of love in this realm.
Chapter Thirteen
But God is a God of redemption. God is a God of mercy. God is a God of forgiveness. God is a God of new beginnings. God is a God of restoration. God is a God of resurrection. When I reached the end of myself, totally disgusted with my own sinfulness, I found love. And because of how God put the pieces back together in my life I finally understood the depth of his love and the purpose for his love and connection between his righteousness, his justice, our sinfulness and real love.
I believe that God is love. I believe that love is an act of the will and it always involves a choice. Because it always involves a choice, when God created us in his image he had to give us a choice other than him. Since God is love any creature that he would create would be an object of his love and would have the ability to and a predisposition to love. But there would have to be a choice.
So I believe that when God created man he gave him a choice. The choice is expressed in the Book of Genesis as the choice between believing and trusting God or believing and trusting in our desires and understandings. I believe that sin is unbelief. I believe righteousness, which means right standing with God (acceptance) is belief or choosing for God (trusting him). I therefore believe sin (unrighteousness) is unbelief or choosing against God. So to love God is to believe (trust in) God and to choose against God is to sin (unbelief). The things we call sin (lying, murder, hate, gossip, stealing, adultery, greed, coveting, etc.) are just tentacles hanging down from our cloud of unbelief. Our good works and the fruit of the spirit are tentacles hanging down from our cloud of belief (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control, etc.).
When Adam and Eve chose to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they chose against God (unbelieved, sinned) and upon revealing the existence of good and evil to all creation they also revealed guilt and shame. They had been naked in the presence of God unashamedly until they learned of the existence of good and evil and then their nakedness made them ashamed. I believe that when we choose to believe God we rest in our righteousness (acceptance, love) in him and when we choose for ourselves (unbelieve) we live with guilt and shame, become selfish and prideful. I believe without God we spend every day establishing our own righteousness (acceptability) and every day is a new day in the courtroom of self righteousness. The fruit of self righteousness is either pride and judgementalism or despair and depression based solely on the outcome of the trial.
Chapter Fourteen
The 1990’s were a concentrated period of maturation in my life both emotionally and spiritually. God used so many people to speak truth to me and to reveal to me the idols in my life and the surety and depth of a God’s love. And each of the people God used as a vessel revealed the depth of his love for me, even the ones who pointed out sin (unbelief) in my life or accused me of sins that weren’t true. (My unbelief was so much worse than anyone knew that false accusation was easily forgivable). Love always involves discipline. But it never involves punishment because the punishment for all of our unbelief was paid for by God himself to show us how forgiveness works. True forgiveness always involves the offended party fully absorbing the pain of the offense so that there is nothing left to project back onto the offender. Hanging on the cross Jesus said, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.” (They were acting in unbelief) When we trust God (believe, acknowledge that he is God, thank him) we don’t accuse, slander, or judge because we know that yet for the grace of God there go I and we forgive. And true forgiveness doesn’t involve forgetting because the pain of the offense has been absorbed and there is nothing left to remember.
I had a business partner, Mel Meadows, who, after watching me get overly excited trying to drive a theological point home to a visitor in our conference room, took me into the hallway and said, “Relax, the truth will still be the truth tomorrow.” I had a pastor of a local church who was a real scholar of the Bible and who was a staunch defender of God’s law and deeply opposed to divorce, come into Shoneys with his Bible full of bookmarks. I knew that he was going to point out to me every passage of scripture that spoke of God’s disdain for divorce and I felt like a person on death row as I waited for him to sit down. When he did, he set his Bible on the table, took my hand and said, “I know you and I know your heart and I just want you to know that I love you. And I will love you no matter the outcome.” Howie Holmes and I prayed and cried together. Mike and Terri Jones included Lindsay, Bobby and me for every Thanksgiving and were such a life line for me. God taught me what love is in the lowest place I had ever been.
Chapter Fifteen
In 2000’s God gave me the most tangible evidence of what love is in this realm. In his book, “The Four Loves”, C. S. Lewis discusses four Greek words that are translated love in English. The words are Storge (pronounced Store-Gay), Philia (pronounced Phil-e-uh), Eros (pronounced Air-os) and Agape (pronounced A-gap-a).
Storge is the love of the familiar, is most often thought of as the love of a mother for a child, a dog for her puppies, a cat for her kittens. It is also the love we have for our favorite shoes, our favorite sweater or even our weird Uncle Harry if he comes to live with us for some period of time. It’s the love you have for your coworkers even if you don’t like them. You see that when weird Uncle Harry finally leaves you will miss him even if he drove you crazy while he lived with you. He had become familiar to you and you had unknowingly developed Storge for him. The same is true for your coworkers.
Philia is the root of the word Philadelphia, so of course it means brotherly love. It is the affection for a friend. Philia most often grows out of Storge when two people realize they share common interests. In fact, it has been said that Storge serves as the bedding from which all the other loves come forth. When two people spend time around one another and become familiar to each other and then realize that they share common interests (golf, science, politics, religion, schools, interests) Philia is born. When Philia has matured it involves commitment and covenant which makes it a springboard to Agape.
Eros is the root of the word erotic and is the most selfish of the loves. Eros wants the best and the most beautiful for itself right now. Eros is the lust for a feeling of satisfaction, or of excitement, or of victory, or of conquering. Lewis uses the example of a cigarette. A smoker says, “I need a cigarette!”. But he doesn’t really desire a cigarette. He is lusting for the feeling of smoking a cigarette not actually for the cigarette. In fact when he “finishes” with the cigarette he disposes of it. He is finished with it because he has no further use for it. He has gotten out of it everything he wanted from it. Eros is only appropriate when enveloped by Agape, because otherwise it will look for newer and better objects from which to find its pleasures.
Which brings us to Agape. Agape is the most unselfish of the loves, in fact it is always other looking. “To love at all is to be vulnerable,” Lewis says. “Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” Agape love is the love of God and is put on full display in the atoning death of Jesus on the cross.
Agape leads us to die to our own self interests and to come alive to the interests and needs of others. In Romans Chapter 12, after Paul lays out the complete exegesis of the Gospel in Chapters 1 through 11, Paul writes, “Now I plead with you, in response to the love of God revealed in the Gospel (mercy) I beg you to offer your lives (all that you are) as a living sacrifice (the hardest form of sacrifice) knowing that because of the Gospel you are Holy (set apart for his purposes) and Pleasing (you are the righteousness of Christ) which offering is your only rational response to the truth.” A living sacrifice is one who has given up the right to be right, the right to be powerful, the right to be worshiped and adored in exchange for becoming the righteousness (acceptability) of God in Jesus Christ.
Agape is the only of the loves that cannot spoil and degenerate. Storge can be ruined if it becomes the purpose and reason for ones life. A mother who only lives to raise her children will be ruined by rejection or by abandonment by her children. Or if her Storge is overdone for her grown children than the death of a child can become the end of her life. Philia goes bad when it becomes a consumer relationship which means I will be your friend so long as I get a return on my investment in you. And obviously Eros can go bad because it is selfish by its very nature.
Chapter Sixteen
In 2000 I was finally ready to be involved in a true relationship. I finally understood that love was an act of the will. I finally had gone through all the steps required to truly love someone and to be married. I was three weeks short of 50 years old and finally I was ready to be in a relationship. And yet I was still afraid.
Karen and I had been through the Storge stage of love. We had worked around each other, we worked together and we became familiar with one another. We discovered that we had common interests and common beliefs and common goals. Storge became Philia over several years. It didn’t happen because we had planned it. It didn’t happen because we wanted it. True friendship cannot be made to happen. People who say they are looking for friends are missing the point of friendship.
Philia is always focused on something outside of itself. Lewis says that Storge can be pictured as a litter of kittens with their mother or a worn pair of slippers. Eros can be pictured as two lovers staring into one another’s eyes. But Philia is pictured as two people walking side by side staring ahead at the same thing. It is always focused on something outside of itself. True Philia never makes demands on the other but stands secure in knowing that the other is beside. That is why friends can be away from one another for so long and still come together and act as though no time has passed. The common interests and focus have never changed.
As should be, Eros was the third step of four in our relationship. Eros when sprinkled onto Storge and Philia is the spice that brings the relationship to the brink of fulfillment. I believe that Eros, when it is in its rightful place in a relationship, is the spark that the Holy Spirit is to a believers relationship with God. It can never be the foundation or focus of the relationship because it is at its core selfish. Learning to be other looking in Eros is only possible when a relationship has reached Agape. That’s why it’s such a slippery slope outside of not just marriage, but a marriage grounded in Agape.
I believe Agape love is only possible once a person has accepted and trusted in (believed) the Agape love from God because God is not just the source and creator of Agape – He is Agape. Without having received the Agape love of God, we are incapable of having Agape love for God or any person, even ourselves, because by nature we are self interested. Inherently there is nothing wrong with self interest, because God created us with self interest so we would survive. However, self interest easily becomes selfishness, narcissism and egomania. It is only when we receive the revelation of and believe in the unconditional nature of God’s Agape love that we are equipped with the necessary internal (heart) changes that are required to be able to be other looking.
Without the reality of God’s Agape for us we are too busy trying to prove our value to ourselves and to others and therefore not just self interested in a healthy way but we are self reliant and self focused. Then when we feel we have done enough to be held in high esteem we expect, even demand that others acknowledge our worthiness and importance. When Eros becomes part of a self centered life, the object of our Eros becomes nothing more than a means to an end – a cigarette that is tossed aside when the nicotine is consumed.
Chapter Seventeen
God brought Agape into my life when he brought Karen into my life. And at the same time he made sure that she knew exactly how steep a price one must pay to Agape another human being. The 1990’s had taken such a toll on me emotionally and physically that shortly after we were married, I began suffering from panic attacks.
The irony of me suffering panic attacks would not have been lost on Barry Sale had he still been alive. Once during a softball tournament in Richmond, Barry and I were driving to get some lunch between games. As we were racing across town to find the place we liked to eat in Richmond, Barry turned to me and said, “‘World’ (that’s what he called me), I have never seen you nervous in all of the years I’ve known you.” Little did he know that I was insecure and afraid right below the surface at all times. He had only seen me on the field or on the course or on the court and remember those were places of comfort for me right from my childhood. Now that I had become a believer, I was also secure in the presence of the Lord, but I didn’t take that peace and comfort into every aspect of my life. I was still trying to earn people’s favor and earn my own self esteem.
The most strange way that my panic and anxiety truly manifested itself was at our wedding. On the evening before the service, Mark Caulk warned all of us, “When you are standing up at the altar during the vows and prayers, be sure not to stand with your knees locked because it could cause you to pass out.” All I could think about all night, all morning and right up to the time for the service was, “you could pass out.” Fear overwhelmed me. I had suffered from a bad back for several years prior to our wedding and my back would cause me to feel dizzy at times. Now with the addition of my fear of passing out, I was a basket case. Karen knew from that moment that she was in for a real battle. And she has been proving her heart of Agape ever since.
Chapter Eighteen
In the nearly twenty years of our marriage, we have been through a lot and we have grown in every way imaginable (some of you are thinking, yeah you have grown to be twice the man you once were). We basically lost everything because of the economic collapse in 2008 however God made provision for us in a man named Bob Schwartz. We found a great little church but even there the enemy attacked and tried to destroy a family of God. But God has been faithful.
I now believe God is revealing to me the most important truth that I have ever come to know. As with most profound truth, the simplicity beyond complexity is the treasure. Karl Barth, a renowned theologian, was asked during a question and answer session after a teaching at the University of Chicago what he thought was the deepest theological truth revealed in the Bible and he said, “Jesus loves me.” Simplicity beyond complexity.
My simple treasure is this: “We are the righteousness of Christ.” I spent my entire life trying to prove my righteousness. And not just to God. I spent my whole life trying to prove my righteousness (acceptability) to you. I spent my whole life trying to prove my righteousness to everyone. But most troubling and debilitating I have spent my whole life trying to prove my righteousness to myself.
Chapter Nineteen
You see righteousness doesn’t mean being good. Righteousness means acceptability. The opposite of righteousness is not immorality. It is rejection. I have been using this example of what it means to be righteous. Larry Hogan is the Governor of Maryland. He is also my first cousin. Our mothers were sisters. We are very close. On the day of his first Inauguration as Governor, Karen and I were invited to the Prayer Service at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in the morning. We were also invited to the Inauguration Ceremony at noon.
When the Prayer Service was over, as Larry and his wife Yumi were leaving the church, we had the opportunity to speak with Larry and give him a hug. As we hugged he whispered in my ear, “I’ll see you up at the mansion.” I, of course, said, “Ok.” and turned to leave.
Once outside we now had a problem. Karen and I had no idea where “The mansion” was. So we looked around. All of Larry’s half brothers were getting into limos no doubt heading to the mansion. I moved up to one of them and asked, “Where is the mansion?” His answer surprised me. He said, “You’re not on the list.” I said, “OK, but where is the mansion?” He repeated, “You’re not on the list.”
I turned around and asked someone else for directions to the Governor’s mansion. I was told again that I wasn’t on the list but finally someone pointed up the hill to the left and said “walk up the street for 5 blocks to the east of the church.” Karen and I took off up the hill on a cold winter’s day. We said to each other, “Well if we don’t get in we will just walk back down the 5 blocks and wait in our car until the Inauguration around noon.” One thing we were sure we knew to be true – “we weren’t on the list.” The testimony of the majority had made that clear.
When we completed the march up the hill we discovered that the beautiful Governor’s mansion was surrounded by a black wrought iron fence protected by a security detail of State Police officers and plain clothes agents. We figured out that the very few people getting in were going through a single gate to the front of the mansion. I decided to walk up to the largest man in the security force hoping to convince him that we should be allowed in because of our verbal invitation personally from the Governor. I said, “I know I’m not on the list. But I am the Governor’s first cousin and at the Prayer Service….”. He cut me off. He said, “How do you know you’re not on the list?” I said, “I was just told ‘I was not on the list’ 10 times down at the church.” He said, “What’s your name?” I said, “Steve Herl” and he ran his finger down the list.
As he reached the bottom of the list he said, “There you are! You are on the list!” On his way back to the mansion, Larry had stopped his limo at the gate and he had written my name at the bottom of the list. I was on the list. I was acceptable. I had right standing in order to be received. I was righteous.
Not long after we had arrived inside the mansion, Larry took me aside and said, “You won’t believe what just happened. A very important person in the eyes of many people in the Washington DC area (He used his name) is at the gate throwing a fit because he can’t get in. He is making a scene and saying ‘Do you know who I am?’ I told them not to let him in. He’s not family.” Larry and I laughed. It’s good to be family. It’s good to be acceptable. It’s good to be righteous.
Chapter Twenty
I didn’t do anything to be righteous in Larry’s eyes. It wasn’t about my looks, my money, my accomplishments, or my good works. It was about being family. I was acceptable in his eyes because of who I am. That’s exactly how it is with God. You see, God knows I can’t earn his righteousness. He’s God and I am not. He doesn’t want me to stand at the gate of acceptability and yell, “Do you know who I am?” I’m cute enough, I’m good enough. I’m clever enough. I’m rich enough.
I believe there are two altars from which to choose. At one altar we try to measure up and we compare ourselves to whatever we’ve learned from our upbringing, or from commercials, or from our friends, or from our fantasies makes us good enough or accomplished enough to be worthy enough. We spend every day in the courtroom of self esteem and every day we pass judgement on ourselves. If we determine that we are doing well we either become prideful and arrogant or we become judgmental and angry because others are not living up to our standards and not giving us enough credit for just how good we are. Or we decide we are failures and we sink into despair and depression or we lash out at others because in order to dispose of our shame and guilt we make ourselves out to be victims. We blame others for our failings and when confronted we attack and condemn. I lived my whole life at this altar bouncing back and forth from arrogance and shame, judgmentalism and condemnation.
But there is another altar and it is the altar of the righteousness of God. At this altar I am righteous because of who I am in Christ because he lived the life that earned me the prize and he paid the price for all of my moments of unbelief. I am now on the list because of who I am and I can rest in the arms of God, safe and secure, loved and protected, now and forevermore. I don’t have to measure up. I am being changed from the inside out by the power of the truth of relationship. I am being changed by the power of Agape. I am being changed by the power of the Gospel.
To repent means to change your mind or turn around and head in the other direction. At the altar of effort, I was trying to be God and that is a tough job. “God never slumbers nor sleeps.” Jesus said at the beginning of his ministry, “Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand.” God is saying to me, “Repent, (Turn around and walk the other way) the altar of the righteousness of God is at hand.” Accept my free gift. If you will choose to trust me, you are on the list. I love you.
Chapter Twenty-One
We are living in a time when the purpose of God’s call for repentance can be clearly seen. We are all being told that by social distancing we can keep a virus from spreading. In other words, if we stay to ourselves, we will not be infected or affected by things on the inside of others. In our current situation that is a good thing.
In understanding God’s purpose in repentance it is enlightening. Here’s what I believe. When we worship at the altar of self righteousness (where I spent most of my life) we tend to become more and more self focused either because we determine ourselves better than most others and become aloof and or we determine that we do not measure up and thereby unworthy. But when we begin to worship at the altar of our righteousness in Christ, we become ambassadors for and vessels of the very life of Jesus Christ into the world in which we live. We become the light in the darkness. We don’t cover our light with a mask, no we let it shine. We are filled with an infectious love of God and we take it with us wherever we go. Let you light shine! Be who you are in Jesus – a child of God, righteous and holy because you are in Christ.