Origin Story

In comic book terminology, an origin story is an account or back-story revealing how a character or team gained their superpowers and/or the circumstances under which they became superheroes or supervillains.  (Wikipedia)  When it comes to movies it seems like everyone has jumped on the prequel bandwagon.  The earliest example I remember is Star Wars.  The characters probably aren’t considered superheroes but they seemed to start a trend where already existing megahits get a chance to extend their stay in the spotlight.  When I was a kid Star Wars 4, 5, and 6 came out.  It wasn’t until about 25 years later that they came out with episodes 1, 2 and 3.  Then you began to see other movies do the same, Batman, Spiderman, X-Men, to say a few.  Even Dumb and Dumber has a prequel.  But I guess I don’t consider Harry and Lloyd to be superheroes anyway.  Chuck Norris isn’t in any movies that have prequels because he existed for millions of years before prequels came into existence. 

As I was thinking about this idea of “Origin Story” it made me think about my own story.  I began to think about what I was like before Jesus forgave me and gave me His Holy Spirit.  In 2 Corinthians 5:16 Paul said, “ So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.”  When I encountered Christ He changed the way I viewed other people and changed the way I viewed Him.  So, what was my life like before Christ?

Some of my fondest memories are when I was a small kid growing up in our neighborhood.  I played just about every sport imaginable.  I was the kid that got all the other kids together to play basketball, football, baseball or whatever.  I felt loved by my parents and I didn’t have a worry in the world.

As time went on things began to get rocky.  My dad began drinking alcohol and was gone many Saturday nights to hang out with his buddies at the bar or playing cards.  His habit got worse and worse and I began to feel like he was becoming less a part of my life.  I remember having ball games wishing he would stick around and watch instead of driving off and doing whatever it was he was doing.  He was becoming disengaged from our family.

More time passed, and he became violent.  I woke up around 2 am one Sunday morning to the sound of my mom and dad arguing.  He had been out drinking that Saturday night and returned home drunk and out of his mind because he had taken muscle relaxers with the alcohol.  I walked into the bedroom and I noticed that my mom was using both of her hands to hold down my dad’s hands.  It wasn’t until a little later that I realized that he had a gun.  My mom told me to go to the neighbor to get help.  As I turned to leave the room he got his hands free and threatened to shoot me.  I felt really conflicted.  This was something that was way too heavy for a little kid to have on his shoulders.  I stayed where I was and turned around slowly.  I sat down on the bed and my mom continued to try to calm my dad down.  Later on, I was able to go back to my room and go to bed.  My mom woke me and my sister up early in the morning and we left as my dad was dead asleep from a hangover.  That was really the last straw that drove my parents to divorce.

As they were going through a divorce I was going through a really hard time.  It felt like my world had fallen apart.  I didn’t have anything stable in my life anymore.  It was all shaky.  I think that it was at this point in time that I began to develop some serious insecurities.  I was already a quiet kid but my life’s situation drove me to a depressed state of quietness.  I also carried shame that I should never had carried.  It was my dad’s fault that my family was broken apart but for some reason I shouldered the burden.  I remember one time in particular when the bus was to drop me off at home.  My mom, my sister and I had left home and my dad was still living in our house.  When the bus dropped me off after school I was supposed to stay with one of our neighbors right down the road.  My dad didn’t know this was going on at the time.  My mom did this to keep me safe.  I told the bus driver to drop me off at the other house before she got to my house.  She asked why and I didn’t give her the whole truth.  I said that my parents wanted me to stay with the neighbors until my parents got home.  I was ashamed to admit that my parents were going through a divorce and that my dad was an alcoholic. 

As time progressed my dad was able to improve some with his problem but it still existed.  At the beginning of the divorce I was able to stay Wednesday nights with my dad.  He went to the moose lodge many nights of the week to play pool, play cards and to drink.  And he would take me along with him.  Can you imagine that?  An eleven year old kid going to a bar to play pool with a bunch of drunks.  A good thing that came out of this was that I learned how to play pool really well.   I would play partners with my dad or one of his friends.  They would gamble.  They would put down $20 for me $20 for them.  The other team would put down their money as well.  The other team thought it would be an easy win.  I ended up winning hundreds of dollars playing pool.  The other teams would sometimes get mad at my dad because they said that we “hustled” them.  They thought that he tricked them into gambling.  Who knew an eleven year old could play pool?

On February 26^th in 1993 I went to visit my dad for the weekend like I would on a regular basis.  My mom and I found him dead at his kitchen table.  At that moment my life sunk deep into a darker depression.  I felt so numb after this that I began losing my desire to do the things that I once enjoyed doing.  I also think this led me to become more withdrawn. 

My mom had remarried in 1991 so we moved in with my stepdad and his son.  They lived on an apple farm not too far away from where we used to live in the mountains.  I learned to do a lot of things on my own: hunting, fishing, working, etc.  It was very difficult for me to make new friends at my new high school so I felt even more withdrawn and insecure.  People became an interruption to my life.  My junior year of high school I only talked with about six or seven people.  And that number included my teachers that I had to talk to even though I didn’t want to.  I gave up on a lot of things during those years.  I gave up on making friendships.  I gave up on doing well in school.  I gave up on sports.  One of the coaches had watched me play basketball and he kept asking me to join the team.  But I was too insecure to do anything that might fail. 

I always envisioned myself coming back to the mountains to work after I got a degree.  Even though I went to church I didn’t really understand what people were so excited about.  I didn’t understand why those church people wanted to sing to Jesus or to spend time with other Christians.  I didn’t have a desire to read the Bible or to pray.  I thought of Jesus as just a prophet sent from God.  I had no idea that He was really God.  When I went to church I felt like an alien.  Little did I know what God had in store for me when I got to college.  I remember one instance at church when the pastor was preaching.  The thought came into my head, “I could never stand up and preach in front of people.  I’m too shy and I don’t really care about the things he’s talking about.”  God has a sense of humor.  If you told me back then that I would be a missionary to college students I would say that you are crazy.  I couldn’t imagine being able to meet so many new people and share the gospel with them.  I had a vague idea of what kind of person God wanted me to be.  But I didn’t realize that He would change me by giving me new desires and giving me a different way of seeing people and seeing Himself.

That’s where 2 Corinthians 5:16 comes in.  I saw people as unimportant, as temporary and not as eternal creations of God, and I saw them as interruptions.  I saw Jesus as just a man, or prophet sent by God.  I saw God as distant and not caring.  As Paul said, “So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.”  I surrendered to Jesus in college and received His forgiveness. 

After that point, I started desiring new things.  I had a new desire to sing to God and to read the Bible.  I had a new desire to spend time with Him in prayer and to spend time with other Christians.  I didn’t realize that these were things that God wanted to give me as gifts.  They weren’t things that I could earn.  The only power and lasting change that we have as Christians was given to us by God.  As Carl shared a couple weeks ago it says in Genesis 1:28 that “God blessed them…” The “them” was Adam and Eve.  They didn’t do anything to deserve God’s blessing.  We don’t earn God’s love by being superheroes. 

As I look throughout Christian history I see a couple of qualities that tie together all the people that God used greatly.  These are the superheroes of the Christian faith.  Being a superhero through Christ means: 1. that you know the desires of God and 2. that you see people the way God sees people.  Both of these are a gift given to us from God.  They are not given to us because we are superheroes.  They are given to us in order to become superheroes through Christ.

As we take communion it’s a time to remember that Jesus is our hope.  If you need change, He’s the one to bring it.  If you’re looking to have a different desire, He’s the one to give it.  He can do the unexpected with the unassuming.  He can do the impossible with those who are impenetrable.  He can unleash the uncaring.  He can revive those who are resentful. He can lighten the loaded, save the sunken, exhilarate the exhausted, and delight the depressed.  Jesus is our hope.