I Am Gateway – Jean

My mind was in a whirl.  I had been raised with a certain amount of Christianity in my life but, at 18, I truly had no idea who Jesus was or, even more, why I should care.  But coming of age is no easy task and one evening I found myself tearfully watching the closing scene of a movie.  Dressed as Jesus, an actor sitting on a green, grassy knoll looked me straight in the eye and quoted those timeless words: “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world”.

Spiritual guidance was what my college class was trying to offer me, even though I didn’t recognize it then.  I had the ideas of Carlos Castaneda, Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha, as well as the nihilist music and lives of the film stars of the 70′s, all dishing out to me their version of reality.  Something went seriously missing as my hungry heart tried to eat the words of Dust in the Wind.  Having nothing to contrast all of these notions against, there was an idea quietly becoming ingrained in me.  It was an idea that said God is impersonal, and unattainable: it began to seem to me that God was a state of mind, existing somewhere far beyond the life that I was experiencing.

It was then that, suddenly, graciously, into this emptiness, and dissatisfaction, the words of Jesus came: “Lo, I am with you always…”

The draw I felt to read the Bible became pretty strong so, completely clueless as to where to begin, I would pick up the book and just let it fall open.  I wasn’t completely mystical in my approach to the Bible, though.  I reasoned that since the words of Jesus were in red, and since the gospel of John had lots of red letters in it, that might be a good place to start.  But each time I just opened the book, it would repeatedly fall open to Acts in the New Testament or to the book of Kings in the Old.  In there, I read about how the Spirit of God “fell” on people, it fell on Elijah and Elisha, fell on the 120 in the upper room, fell on Cornelius’s household.

It was amazing, because I didn’t understand what I was reading and I didn’t really know what it was that I was wanting, but those stories created in me a hunger for God’s presence.  I know what it is to hunger and to thirst for the things of the Spirit.  The Lord knew the hunger and he understood my thirst and, greatest of all, He knew how to meet my need.  He’s done this in a variety of ways and in a variety of places, but the greatest impact has been done to me through the people at Gateway.  I’ve been so blessed by the Body of Christ that’s to be found here, in this little town, on the back of an Adirondack mountain.

All of these years later, I understand more about the One True God. I still have so much more to learn, and though my heart thrills to know more, I am satisfied.  I have tasted and I have seen that the Lord is good.  No longer reeling in confusion, my mind and my heart are filled with hope, with joy, and with peace.  God’s riches, God’s wisdom, it’s all unsearchable…He’s real, and so is His Jesus.

The sum total of all reality is encompassed within two little words:  He IS.