I met God on a Dancefloor...

I absolutely have to start this blog with this quote I ran across a few months ago:

"You can search for God in the Bible, in church, leadership, healing... even in heaven... but until you find God in the mirror... you haven't found Him at all." taken from Evie Turnquist and modified a bit


Man... that is one of the most profound and awesome statements I've ever heard. You could add so many things to the beginning of it... since we have all looked for God in sooo many places. Sadly, Religion is the place so many go to to find Him... and the truth is that He doesn't exist there. However, He is big enough to reach you in spite of Religion... if you'll let Him. That's what happened to me... albeit... probably not the way you are thinking.

I would now like to offer a brief description of my testimony......

Fifteen or so years ago, my life changed dramatically... I was a good kid... very athletic... freshman in college... good grades... blah, blah, blah... not the point here...

I began to expose myself to a culture in the night club scene in Orlando that was like nothing I had ever known. The electronic music and psychedelic drugs that were prevalent there... in addition to the natural curiosity and naivety of an eighteen year old boy... combined to creat an arena of great revelation for me. I began to journey deep into my psyche and belief system on my many "journeys". The hypnotic sounds of some of the best dj's in the world being played at our legendary clubs was like icing on the cake for me... I began spending hours and hours dancing... becoming very attuned to the very Truth that I was created with a Spirit.

My time on the dance floor can best be described as Spiritual Foreplay... I would be in a club with lots of people... climb on top of a large speaker box... and gradually enter my own universe in the Spirit. It would start out as me wanting to dance... then feeling like I had to dance... to my eventual total submission to the music. It was like I was being taken on a tour of myself by my Spirit, and we danced the whole way... room by room through my thoughts, beliefs, and dreams.... dealing with the pains, emotions, and confusions of a teenage mind. This was a common scenario for several years of my life in the early nineties... and it all came to a head on the eve of my 20th birthday...

You see... I had made a religion out of taking psychedelic drugs. Taking them was how I got closer to God. It's where I thought Peace was.... so much so that I realized something really sad and heavy on this particular night: That there was a very real chance that I would overdose on drugs... due to the inevitable "coctail" mixtures of drugs, this was becoming a regular occurrence in this scene..... and the crazy thing is, I was actually okay with that. I mean... I was having Revelation, right? It was certainly worth the risk, right? Sadly, and due to a very clouded reality... that is what I thought....

...and herein lies the point..... Religion may offer periods of Peace and revelation.... but always at a cost to the believer...

That very night, during an intense episode... I had a moment of clarity that changed my life forever... I was standing in the living room of my apartment, only a short time after having the above mentioned awareness that I was willing to die for the experiences I was having. I was getting my groove on... in my own world as usual... but then, in an instant, I was as sober as I am sitting here typing this... I had total clarity and awareness of what was happening... and was no longer in that living room... in fact... I was not in the physical realm at all. I don't really know where I was, but there was no gravity... no sense of direction... nothing... it wasn't dark, and it wasn't light... I think there was some sort of fractal pattern, but I suspect it was just an image from my memory of a large poster we had hanging in the apt... but here's the important part:

I suddenly had an overwhelming sensation that touched me to the deepest core of my Being... The 26 letter alphabet that I am fluent in has absolutely no hope of ever explaining it... the best I can come up with is this:

Love...

HIS LOVE.

I knew it the moment it happened... it was the most personal, intimate, amazing, and REAL experience I've ever had... and I was instantly in full revelation of several things: That I was perfectly and intentionally created... I was not an accident, or a by-product of some accidental scenario that produced this life... That I was accepted just like I was... that I had a great purpose for being created... and most importantly..................... that this LOVE that I was experiencing was EXACTLY what I came from.... what I was MADE of..... and, very clearly, I knew that I did not even have the capacity to measure it... in fact, what I had experienced, I knew, was such a tiny, tiny fraction of it... and it absolutely rocked me to my very core...

I guess one way of putting it is that I wanted to know God... really really know Him... for myself. Although I was giving the credit to a little pill or dose of psychedelia, and had made a Religion out of it... somehow I had put my heart in a place of true yearning... I had rebuked all other versions of him I had ever heard... and I simply experienced my God personally... exactly how my unique character needed to experience Him to find Peace... HIS PEACE.

In spite of my self-made Religion.... God is a Heart God, and I experienced Him because of the very basic God-inspired yearning in my Heart to know my Maker.

***Please do not take what you just read as any sort of reason to take drugs. As I mentioned, I actually was willing to risk death to continue the relentless pursuit of Peace through drugs. I went to jail twice, damaged many relationships, had many sketchy experiences, and much more through this lifestyle. I could easily be in jail, for many years from the poor decisions I made at that time... or much, much worse. This is my testimony, and I tell it for the sole purpose of reaching people with the Gospel. If you read this, and seriously think I am promoting drugs, you are totally missing the point.***

Though it was a gradual process after this... I eventually removed myself from this scene... I needed to... it was time. I began to follow my passions, settle down, and begin down the path of growing up to be the man I am today. I had stopped looking for God in any Religion I had ever heard of, as I felt none of them could even touch what I had experienced... that is, until my son was born.

My wife and I were both raised in Christian families, and it was tradition to baptise your child. We both agreed that we didn't want to do it just to do it, so we started checking out churches. We found one that we liked, and began attending regularly. I started looking in the Bible to see if I could find my Friend, but for several years stumbled through the Bible like most of us do... Then, a few years ago, I had my second greatest revelation at a leadership conference at our new church (and, if you're still wondering... I was NOT on drugs this time!). The speaker was teaching on our true identity in Christ, and it hit me like a ton of bricks:

Jesus IS my identity. He represents what God created me to be... Jesus is a MAN who had a TRUE revelation of who he is... that He is both MAN and GOD!!!

My Friend that I had been searching for for so long was not "out there" somewhere.... He was IN ME!!!

As I sat there in awe of what I was hearing, I remembered an event that occurred during one of my "sparkly-eyed" adventures:


Very early on, I had learned that it was a common belief that you were not supposed to stare at yourself in the mirror too long when you were tripping... so.... naturally, I felt obligated to try it. It had never resulted in much more than some pretty far-out fractal visuals... and it became a normal thing I did any time I went to the restroom on one of my "journeys". However, on one particularly deep journey, I had a very clear vision in the mirror as I stared deeply into the depths of my enlarged pupils...... I was staring right at Jesus... and He was staring right back at me... I dismissed it that night as no big deal, probably another image from my memory... but as I was listening to the speaker that morning.... well, it was clear to me it was no coincidence...


So.... why do I tell you all of this? Why do I risk you judging me for the testimony I just gave? Why don't I just keep this to myself? Well.... it's really quite simple...


I can't...


I have been so touched by the Love of God... so radically changed by a Revelation of my Friend.... so inspired with Hope that this Life is not as it appears..... that I can't keep it to myself... If there is a chance that my testimony can reach somebody, and help them to see that God has gone to the ends of the Earth through Jesus to give us the Peace we so long for... if I can help somebody step out of their "box", and feel true Hope..... well... that is my motivation.


As I see it, Religion is trying to suck the Life out of every person on this planet... As I stated in an earlier blog, it is like an Operating System, and every thought and experience we have is funneled and processed through it.


...but God has an answer for Religion...


...He is my Friend.... He dances with me daily.... His Spirit is my Inner Groove...


...His name is Jesus....