Riverdale Class of 2010

It's 9:04 a.m. and today is the day! You have been studying for this test for weeks and weeks on end. Class starts within the next hour and your professor is up bright and early in preparation for the exam of your life. You roll out of bed with the remnants of sleepies that the sandman left behind in your eyes, hurry to shower while attempting to collect your thoughts on the hour to come, and suddenly are alarmed by your annoying ringtone you've been meaning to change. With all of this happening at once you find it hard, if not impossible, to think about life and the grand scheme of everything. 

But what if..

What if one day everything that you knew ceased to exist?

Since high school, each one of my fellow classmates have changed. Some I have talked to and others I have not. 

The class of 2010 has brought forth mothers and fathers, druggies and scholars, nobodies and television stars. I mean we have our diversity.

But who remembers Alisha Nance?

At the time of her car wreck, I was the Fellowship of Christian Athletes president. At the time, I said that I believed in God. I led devotion every morning in the gym. I specifically remember Natalie Lanning coming out of the basketball girls locker-room each and every morning. She always looked at me and I always felt pressured when she did. For it brought me back to being an insecure shy middle schooler when I first met her. I was a senior now with few insecurities. I was leading a group of 60 people every morning but I was doing too much and God wasn't doing enough.

From the age of 10 years old, I felt the drawing of God calling me to surrender my life to him. Yet, I always failed to do so. I always held onto something. That is what I was missing. I never fully let go. In order to find Christ you must fully let go of everything. 

I hate Christianity in our country today. It has corrupted everyone's perception, even mine until I researched without bias. What you find in Christianity today though is self-rightoues, egotistical, holier than thou hypocrites who try to clean up the way they dress, talk, and act but they are still as atrocious as the most vile human one could think of because they still have evil minds. 

They care about themselves and their best life now. The American dream has defiled the church to such an extent that I would hate to call myself a member of nearly every one that I have the patience to sit through. 

Christ demands a radical change! Your whole life turns complete circles. You are not who you were before! And wouldn't you want that from something real? If you are to believe that Christ healed the sick, blind, lame and deaf should you stay as troubled and selfish as you were before? No! You would be completely new. 

But in high school, I didn't grasp the truth completely and most churches you walk into today don't. They don't because they are taught that you repeat a prayer after a preacher and you're saved from hell. How absurd! Christ isn't a toy in the kids meal! Anyhow, I never grasped Christ completely in high school though I looked like a goodie two shoes on the outside.

Well, during the time of Alisha Nance's accident I was the leader of the "Christian" club. Natalie Lanning called me and asked if I would conduct the prayer service for Alisha. Of course I agreed. And so I did. Though I led the prayer, I honestly thought she was going to die. I had no faith at all that she was going to pull through. As I had been a pastors son my entire life and stood beside too many coffins to count. I definitely thought she was gone. 

And thank God that my doubt was ignored because she made it! Christ gave her life. Those of you that prayed in that meeting, I still remember. God heard your prayers. 

So let's take time to think about the God of the Bible thats still performs miracles and still is alive and almighty. You of little faith surrender to Christ Jesus. 

I ran for too long.