My testimony.

[DanielB]

I can't remember all the details of my conversion to belief in UR, the stuff that led to it, and how it changed me after being convinced but I do remember some so I am going to share it(I thought I already did but I guess I didn't).

I was raised in a christian family(both my grandpas are preachers and arminian), I went to a catholic school("Cray of Ars" or maybe "Cure of Ars") as my first school(for kindergarden and I think first and maybe second grade) so I have been raised christian(but not biblically literate) and I have at least mentally assented to God as far back as I can remember. I think I probably had a better relationship(on my end) with God and others as a little kid than I did throughout my early and middle teen years. As a little kid I prayed and talked to God a lot and I think I my relationship to God was a lot like it is now. I think I had heard of hell and maybe it was taught to me but I did not have some of the kind of horrible willful fear mongering in my life you may have heard of or experience and it did not really affect me as a little kid. I reasoned that "the bad guys" going to hell must have been like demons or pure evil and I thought of them as philosophical zombies(so I did not have a bad view of God at that point).

I think my problems with anger and spite(even some level of hatefulness) started as I began to understand that the people going to hell were as alive as I am and could suffer like I can. So my options were...
1. Endure the torture of caring about such people. 2. Apathy. 3. Hate and anger.
So I chose(not really consciously but more like a defense mechanism) apathy at times, anger at times, and hate at times.

I became very phariseeic and saw "sinners"(somehow I didn't think or act like I was a sinner myself) with disdain. I don't know if I had been influenced by some angry calvinists(as opposed to inexplicably kind-hearted calvinists) on youtube or if if I just reasoned more naturally that God must not want to REALLY save people since he is almighty and not everyone will be saved. I also came across and became hooked on porn when I was about 12 or 13. I will spare you all the details but it contributed to hardening my heart further. I think the porn and my beliefs about hell complemented each other(that is not to say they were necessarily dependant on each other) because my not caring about prostitutes(and seeing them with disdain or even spitefulness) allowed me to enjoy watching it and watching it contributed to further hard-heartedness(which is probably how I fell as far as hate). I was also influenced by anger-mongering "news" and politics.

So after/during years of that I went on a vacation with my family to New Orleans(which is where this gets really good). There are LOTS of people to look down on and condemn in New Orleans(at least the area we were in). So I did for a few days. The whole idea of Mardi Gras(or at least the overly hedonistic parts) seemed incredibly bad and angered me and inspired disdain. But one night we were walking back to our hotel and my family made the mistake of deciding to take a shortcut through Bourbon Street(it turned out lucky for me though). I can't remember if I began to condemn all the partiers, drunks, and prostitutes but my heart softened and I couldn't or wouldn't choose to be cold as usual. I started to see them as people being foolish and self-destructive and I pitied them and began to be depressed over the concept of them going to hell(hypocritically as if I were wiser or more righteous despite me practically being a prostitute and sinner myself from the porn addiction that was still going on and all my other wrongdoing but there was genuine compassion). After we got off the street we were resting on a bench(maybe at a buss stop) and some old super drunk guy came stumbling near and said something along the lines of "You're all going to hell!" and stumbled/rammed/fell hard and loudly into something by the bench(the fiberglass wall of the buss stop or a sign or some metal box maybe) which either made things more distressing or started that track of thought that led to more distress(my family helped him up).

I remember crying at the hotel and arguing with my family who were trying to comfort me saying that most of those people are probably going to repent, "God will understand" or something and some futile arminian attempts at comforting.

My life after that(for weeks or months) was full of depression/despair and I often worried over people going to hell to the point of emotional torture. Pretty much any sin and anything I considered sin that I saw plunged me into emotional torture(along with seeing atheists and anyone else I would have coldly condemned before the restoration of my compassion). I was confused and suffering and wondering how it could be that people will be damned when God apparently loved everyone(I had a higher view of God's love at that point than when I was at my worst) but also be all-powerful(which I have pretty much always believed). I thought God must be somehow unable because he couldn't go against his own "justice/holiness" but that he wanted to. I was coming up with crazy theories and ideas. At one point I thought maybe there was some sort of loophole. I told God if nobody else was willing that he should send me to hell and give me strength to make it a less horrible place because I would not be restrained by "justice"(it was more of an idea out of desperation than delusions of grandeur and I thought I would wimp out upon setting foot in hell so I basically told God to give me strength not to change my mind).

One night I was taking out the trash and I was alternating between begging God to make me understand why it is necessary for people to be damned and telling God that he should just forget about "justice" and save everyone that he loves. I was basically asking God to reconsider his priorities! It was like I was trying to give God a pep talk! lol To be fair, I was not in the right state of mind to see how absurd such a concept is(but I guess it is less absurd if you believe in a God who is pretty much a tortured slave to his sense of "justice"). I was still outside paceing around praying/begging but still felt hopeless and figured that I would turn to google until God answered my prayers(What would Job do? lol). I typed some nonsensical string of keywords like "how live faith hell" or something and I came across a google link "The Bible Hell"-by John W. Hanson on Tentmaker.

That was probably the first time I heard of bible-based christian universalism(as opposed to Oprah or people who just believe in whatever sounds nice). I thought that I had stumbled across some heresy or christian spin off religion like mormonism or Jehova's... witnessism(or whatever it is called lol) and was in unbelief despite my desperation. I don't know if I had any hope that it was true(I certainly wished it was) but it just seemed "too good to be true"(I might have said it was a book made for "itching ears" if I was a little more cliched  :winkgrin: ). I read some of it out of curiosity(because I was generally curious about the crazy beliefs of cults) and maybe some amount of hope. I was amazed to see the book using the Bible to make a case and how it seemed to explain the most terrifying verses. I think when I got through a lot of the book I was thinking that it might be true but I was afraid to be wrong on such a matter. I searched for refutations of biblical christian universalism but most of the arguments against it did not seem to be good arguments at all. The best arguments against christian universalism I could find were AT MOST equally credible compared to the universalist arguments. I ended up deciding that universalists had better arguments and that christian universalism made much more sense and explained a lot where ECT just seems to cause confusion and contradiction.

I can't remember if my epiphany came before or after my intellectual certainty of universal salvation but one day I was laying in bed and I had some sort of epiphany or intense realization(that I am pretty sure came from God). I can't remember what images were going through my head but I remember that God deciding to save us and suffering on the cross for us became more real to me as if I had seen it myself and I had far greater(but I assume still incomplete) understanding of the love that God must have had for us to endure such a thing(whatever the reason). I saw what I felt was a little of the love of God and I was full of guilt and shame but somehow feeling joyful and in awe at the same time. The epiphany made me see my past hatefulness, pettiness, and wrongdoing as utterly worthless. It seemed that there was no possibility or foundation for pride(so I lost it for a time at least) and no glory to be found outside of God! My guilt only increased the amount of love I could see and I was focused on love(so I was not suffering from guilt).

I realized that nobody could resist worshiping God if they had such an epiphany or what I saw/realized. I also became free from dependency on self esteem(that is a problem in America and probably other countries). My happiness or worth is not tied up in how much I esteem myself or my actions or my personality or on me being a good person but on knowing that God loves me and values me.

My attitude on epiphanies is that they can potentially give us a better(but still incomplete) idea of God's goodness, glory, beauty, greatness, etc. If we have an epiphany that sees God as greater than we have previously perceived him to be then we should side with the epiphany and say that the epiphany is more true than what we have previously believed. I think this because I believe in the idea that God is far greater than anything our relatively puny imaginations can come up with. I suspect my epiphany about Jesus was God-given(not that I think I am a prophet or anything) but I still consider it to be true even if it was my imagination or something more "mundane"(because I can't imagine anything greater than God so it must have been a step in the right direction either way).

[sheila]

 :HeartThrob:  I just love watching Jesus and Father stealing men's hearts away!

[Searching_For_The_Truth]

Great testimony! God works in mysterious ways to open many hearts and minds. I am always thankful that he is on the throne and watching over all of us.

[rosered]

 :HeartThrob:    AWESOME !!!

[Patinak]

DanielB,

I like your use of epiphany, versus revelation.  It sounds to me like you are putting the epiphany to the test before you confirm it to be a revelation from God ('test the spirits').  I like it...... epiphany.

Pat

[Dandelion]

Hi Daniel.

You had quite a journey so far, and it's not over yet!

God be with you, and bless you, always.

D.                                       :dsunny:

[DanielB]

Glad you guys like it. I like seeing stories of people being set free from all that fear, etc(so I figured I would share mine). I want more and more people to have the confort and hope of belief in God and his gift of universal salvation and unending life.

DanielB,

I like your use of epiphany, versus revelation.  It sounds to me like you are putting the epiphany to the test before you confirm it to be a revelation from God ('test the spirits').  I like it...... epiphany.

Pat

One of the best things about it and something I like pointing out is that it pretty much proves the same points(if someone can trust that I am not trying to deceive) even if it was just something manufactured by my brain alone(rather than a gift from God). If I(a human) could think up a God that awe inspiring, humbling, and loving then just imagine how much greater God is and how much more transforming an encounter with the real God would be! And if a person thinks it is a deception from the devil and or myself then maybe they should read where Jesus says that a house divided against itself will fail. :)

[rosered]

Glad you guys like it. I like seeing stories of people being set free from all that fear, etc(so I figured I would share mine). I want more and more people to have the confort and hope of belief in God and his gift of universal salvation and unending life.

DanielB,

I like your use of epiphany, versus revelation.  It sounds to me like you are putting the epiphany to the test before you confirm it to be a revelation from God ('test the spirits').  I like it...... epiphany.

Pat

One of the best things about it and something I like pointing out is that it pretty much proves the same points(if someone can trust that I am not trying to deceive) even if it was just something manufactured by my brain alone(rather than a gift from God). If I(a human) could think up a God that awe inspiring, humbling, and loving then just imagine how much greater God is and how much more transforming an encounter with the real God would be! And if a person thinks it is a deception from the devil and or myself then maybe they should read where Jesus says that a house divided against itself will fail. :)

  So very true  :dsunny: 

It is God whom gives us Life  , raised up out of death   , the Holy Spirit took Jesus straightway  into the wilderness    after baptism  ,  to be tempted of satan / adversary[ to me it is the worldly  lusts of things   is the power of satan being blinded and unable to SEE GOD  in His glory 

and to tempt God  :sigh:]....    satan tempts God  by the accusing of the brethren all the  time day and night    , Jesus is the first born from the dead  and our PRIME EXAMPLE   of how to follow the pattern    into   perfection /completeness   LIFE   fully without end  by the WORD AND SPIRIT OF TRUTH  ...

It is not to judge  any man  , but judge what is right in the Sight of God ...