@ThePaulEllis gets Real Messy

Okay. Let’s get real…I mean real and messy. I am one of two sons of a retired preacher. I am the youngest of four children. I grew up in many different locations, where the people called to be the church, meet. (Foundation and walls are not the church). Now I know people out there don’t believe that church people are real! I say that we are as real as they come! Why? Let’s see, first, we are some of the world’s biggest liars and hypocrites in the entire world. Second, we cheat on things (and each other…wives, husbands and so on). Third, we act like our world is separate from the world we live in! We pay more attention to what selfishly makes us happy! We decide that if we like it and we benefit from it then we will do what makes us feel good!

I have always heard the message of Christ and yet hearing is seeing, and seeing isn’t living.  Let’s face it I didn’t care at the time! I was wild and promiscuous at a young age. I slept with girls, drank beer, and did drugs from the time I was 14 till I was 22 or so. I still went to church but only to see what girl would be there and to size them up! I didn’t care about God. I cared about sex… I cared about being in control of my life, not surrendering my life to a savior. I was like the church. Or was I like the world? I don’t know but I thought I was happy.

You see, we have this misconception and think people in the church can’t get real. Well I will get real. I liked to drink. I liked girls and they liked me. I liked drugs. Weed, cocaine, pills…whatever felt good I wanted to do it. I needed something hardcore because I dealt with unfulfillment. I dealt with pressure, with parents separating, fake friends, and people who turned their back when I failed! I dealt with it all!!!

I had to take the focus off of being the person who dealt with it. I needed to break myself of being alone. I didn’t know how till God gripped my heart. He made me be alone with Him in a hot dry place (aka a desert). I had a desert in my life. I wondered it for years like the Israelites leaving Cairo. God had me though. I didn’t do a lot in that desert except cry out where the #@?! are you!?!?  Why won’t you let me go to sleep and not wake up?? I stopped crying one day and I started searching. I felt like I wanted to rise above where I was, but how? I did not know nor did I make any real attempts. I knew my hurt was real and I began to see self-inflicted pain. Oh, how I wished I could go back and undo the hurt.  I knew as much hurt as I felt, I probably caused fifty times that hurt. I wanted to die and cursed the fact that I ever woke up on those days! But I was drawn to the Bible and a specific passage. It was Luke 22:31-32.

Luke 22: 31-3 says “31 And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. 32 But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.”

It called out to me! I began to wonder could I lay myself aside and really pursue Christ? I decided to do something. It initially came in small doses. Little by little, I would pray sometimes and then still go out right afterwards! I was still in the world and the world was still world in me. But now, at least, I was talking to God on a regular basis. Christ was gently remodeling the house. The outside was still the same but He was making it His house again after I ransacked it! Christ started to build the interior from scratch – scrapping the infected materials that I left to fester. God made a new place in me then told me to take that same exterior and parade it around and let the light on the inside out! Hahaha I thought! Yeah right! People will laugh at me! They will say you’re full of sugar honey iced tea. God didn’t care what they thought and he wanted me to not care either! I wanted to stop caring about the world…but Christ said to me plainly…I died for that world!! Then in that moment I realized unless I take that message and live it…truly live it, I would never be satisfied with my life and the mission that Christ called me to!

I am not perfect! I only live to die more every day so others may see the living Christ. That’s what I wanted to say this whole time and I had to get messy and real and let the doors be open. Know that Christians aren’t perfect yet we are human! I won’t speak for others. I will however invite you to connect with me. I’m on twitter @thepaulellis. Send me a DM and I will connect with you personally to let you know that real people are Christians…and real Christians are people!