I can see from the hit counter that this story has really resonated with my reader… yes that was “reader”… the singular was intentional.
Am I allowed to say that I enjoyed reading it as well, therefore, that makes two?
Oh, the sheer ecstasy of the hunt!
This may be a little embarrassing, so don’t go red! But it may give you an insider’s perspective to the weird and wacky mind of Jonny King. Simply put, my feeling towards what I write is a little like watching a doting mother towards her offspring, or a little like how I perceive the artist is with his creation.
You see, it isn’t simply about putting down “the facts,” there is a connection, because what has come forth has been birthed within. Now you may be thinking, “that’s some ugly offspring you’re producing.” That may well be the case, but it is my ugly offspring, so back off!
That’s enough unnecessary verbosity, time to get to the focus for our second thought process in our series, which is “the experience of the one and only Jonny King.”
Buckle up, this could get personal!
As an opening reflection on my Christian life experience in regards to the ministry of the Holy Spirit (up to the present), it does seem to be a “game life of two halves,” much of the first half has the eery sense that I am talking about someone else’s existential reality!
My first experience of the Christian faith came pretty early in life, as a four or five year old in the Kitchen in our home in Wanganui (NZ), where in childlike simplicity, I decided to follow Christ. Obviously at this stage, I had a pretty simplistic grasp of what this Christian faith was all about, and I have to admit, I was still a little sketchy on the basics, such as some of the details of the Hypostatic Union (this is a little attempt at humour).
I had the faith of a child, but just as I would not stay a young child, in the like, I would grow in the grace and knowledge of our Messiah and Master.
My parents were pretty much born and bred, spiritually, in The Salvation Army, not to confuse it with The Salvation Navy (thanks Jeremy Bernstein). They decided that the Lord was calling them to serve in this organisation. If you haven’t had much experience with “The Sallies,” the lingua-franca can trip you up (and make you laugh), anyway, they went to “Training College” to become “Officers” [Translation: they were training to become Pastors], and served the Lord for some 25 odd years in this organisation.
If I was to describe my Dad and Mum, they were on-fire Evangelicals committed to the Gospel as the only eternal hope for mankind. However, over a period of time, Dad had been impacted by the charismatic movement, which he (they) viewed as a significant development in their Christian faith. They were charismatic, not Charismaniacs (thanks Jacob Prasch), which means that they inculcated the basic tenets of this movement, while refraining from going to extremes (there is a presupposition here, hands up anyone).
Therefore, growing up, this was the shape of Christianity that I viewed as being normative, and it certainly, at least in the experience of my parents, was desired and believed to be anchored in the Word of God as the basis for faith and practice.
I am told that I was pretty “sensitive to the Lord” as a young man. I do remember being at an Easter camp and going up to the front when the “buffet for blessing” was opened by the preacher (my Dad) after pretty much every gathering. It was around this time, as a fourteen year old that I was given my very own NIV Study Bible… woohoo!
I still have that Bible, and I can still remember the results of using my highlighter in the Psalms. I mean, each line in each Psalm sounded so good and certainly worth remembering. I brought a new meaning to the concept of the red-letter edition, although I tweaked it a little, I had the highlighted edition, of the Psalms at least, until I realised that this highlighting was getting out-of-hand, it was more like colouring in (Yes, I have completed the 12 steps to highlighter freedom. I am no longer a danger to my Bible)!
Throughout my teen years, I was pretty committed to Christ and heavily involved in the church, but the time that revolutionized my faith was in my late teens and early twenties, after we arrived in Palmerston North.
Growing up, I had struggled with fear, and now that I was getting older, I wondered if it had a spiritual element, as I couldn’t shake it. One Sunday, I was minding my own business at church, when Pastor Dad called me out in the middle of church (a word in season you see, it felt like summer at that point) and informed me that this was the case… Interesting.
It would have been some time later, after much reflection on my part, that I asked Dad and Mum to pray with me. Dad had informed me (at church) that when I was conceived, he was going through an extreme bout of fear…There may be a theological can of worms opening in your mind… just let it go!
“Interesting,” you may be thinking, but wait, there’s more!
From this point, I accelerated in my love for the Lord and in my desire to serve Him with all my being. I guess I can be classed as quite a passionate individual, but this passion reached its redeeming best as I sought to serve the Lord.
Our Youth Pastor asked me to preach my first message some 12 years ago (approx.). If you know how old I am, you do the math, which further opened a ministry vista that I was happy to continue downloading as I sought to serve the Lord where He placed me.
At this stage, I was theologically (not that I had this self-awareness at that stage) and experientially charismatic, much like my Dad, which indicates that my understanding, at that time, was that this tradition was the expression of the Christian faith. I was committed to the Word, spending large amounts of time in prayer, and having an active mindset to sharing my faith.
There is much more that could be said, but the next two to three years were about fulfilling the descriptions of my Christian faith, but I did have big dreams, which I believed were for the right reasons (mostly anyway), however, I left these in the Lord’s capable hands, and if it was His will, He would see to it!
As I try and reflect on this time, apart from any other factors involved, my memory is not a compliant accomplice, but I can remember that nearing the end of this period, I came to the point that I believed I needed to go deeper in God’s Word. No one had said anything to me to suggest such a course of action, and on reflection, it seems so simple, but at the time, it was significant.
Let me explain, I loved to read God’s Word, and I spent much time reading God’s Word. In fact, there was a period of time where I could read the New Testament in approx. three days, but it dawned on me, or more correctly, it was dawned on me, that I needed to go deeper. Therefore, I began praying for God to bring the appropriate resources into my path.
My first plan was to read the series of commentaries, which included William Barclay’s, as we had his New Testament set. Therefore, we purchased the Old Testament commentaries in this set by various theologians, but as I started to read Genesis, I literally found that trying to read this commentary was like pulling teeth, abnormally difficult. In the end, I only read a very small amount. It was only some time later, after I understood the context of these commentaries, that I was thankful for the grace of God at that time in my life.
However, the Lord did put the right gifted men into my life and I gave myself to my study, and I devoured what I was studying, thankful that I was able to redeem the time this way.
By this time, years had gone by, and I was nearing the time of marriage (we were engaged for eighteen months), which would be shortly followed with travel, to stranger shores… Australia.
At this point, if I was to analyse my experience in the Christian faith, it had definitively changed, both in theology, which was great, but more so in practice, which was not so great.
Let me digress some.
Even though I had completed most of my personal study through an individual who was a soft cessationist (only viewing Ephesians 2:20 as relevant), the expression of my faith had changed. Part of the catalyst for my change had been a growing belief that I had an overly emotional component to my faith, which, I believed was unhelpful to my growth and satisfaction in God. I think part of the reason why I had come to this conclusion was legitimate, the years without depth in the Word had taken their toll, and I viewed this type of sanctification as promising much, but delivering little. I also believe that my understanding of the process of sanctification was defective.
On reflection though, I have realized that what was most out of kilter was not my passion and zeal for knowing and experiencing God, but my knowledge and understanding of the Word of God and my understanding of this process, which was progressively being rectified. Therefore, while not immune from criticisms of superficiality, the needed solution was not to kill the passion, but to increase the Word.
I also failed to connect the dots and think through what are the components involved in personal relationships, particularly the relationship that should define all others, with my Creator, mediated through the Holy Spirit.
Without realising it, I was committing suicide to the various components that helped to define and mature personal relationships, thereby providing a context for a relationship to suffer.
As I have said in previous posts, hindsight is a wonderful genius in all our realities. Misunderstanding the true source of my frustration, with my understanding beginning to grow into almost disgust, I began pointing the finger at the now-realized and understood charismatic element.
As a result, something that we humans are prone to do, instead of asking the right questions about what is the right position, and making changes accordingly, I reacted out of this disgust, thereby, progressively in my practice, crossing over to the other extreme, thereby, progressively and solely intellectualizing my faith, making it an activity of the head up.
I was also making many of my judgments based on given cultural observations, with anything “looking” charismatic viewed as guilty by association, such as raising one’s hands in worship or prayer.
I failed to think through the implications and application of such Scriptures as Psalm 63:1-4:
O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you: my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands.
Or Psalm 42:1-2
As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?
My life would continue to be fine and dandy as long as I foolishly acted and believed that I was in control, or until circumstances would highlight the folly of such an understanding (and by God’s grace He would change them).
Because now, I was a Deceptacon, a robot in the Christian faith, with much of my humanity encased in a cultural framework that was being rooted more and more in control and pride, extinguishing a genuine part of my redeemed humanity, and limiting the expression of my faith to mere words and slogans, thereby defining my relationship with the personhood of my Creator, by my intellectual comprehension of words on a page.
At this time, although I knew things were different, I was not aware that there was really anything wrong, and to be sure, the subtle sickness of conceit-based pride in not being like those other “crazies” was also “neither seen nor heard,” but it was lurking where it can damage none-the-less, but also remain free from prying eyes.
As Dan Wallace affirms about himself, I was the frog in the pot, the water was still swimmingly cool, but in time, it would be paradise lost.
It is probably worth affirming that much of this understanding has only come after the fact, as I have had the time and opportunity to reflect, and by the grace of God, I have had both!
I am yet to reach the twist in the plot, but this post is already long enough!
Therefore, if anyone is still reading, I will leave you hanging… no doubt… as the water begins to get hot, there will be a return of the Jonny King.
This Post will be Continued!
Until Next Time…
I am Jonny King
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