Giovanni: God is Gracious

Act 20:24  But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.

I have spent the last thirty years of my life, studying and proclaiming the gospel (good news) of God's grace. In that time I have found that most of what is taught by evangelical Christianity and orthodoxy for that matter is in gross error. First, let me briefly explain my beginnings here on planet earth. I was born into a family that was fundamentalist Christians in the mid 1940's. I was raised in the church and in fact one could take that quite literally. I was in two to three services on Sunday, two during the mid week, and often there was a youth meeting or activity on either Friday or Saturday. So, yes, you can conclude that I was indoctrinated in fundamentalist evangelical dogma. However, early in my twenties, I left the church, deconstructed my belief and explored many other forms of spirituality. This changed my world view definitively. It changed many of my former beliefs that I inherited from my evangelical upbringing. However, in my mid forties, I circled back to faith is Jesus, albeit with a completely different paradigm. In the beginning it was difficult bringing the two disparate world views together but over time, I was able to meld them quite nicely.

This brings me to the story of Giovanni. In the late 70's early 80's I lived in Phoenix AZ. During that time I was introduced to Yolantha. She was a Dutch woman that had a Dutch accent to her English and hosted spiritual walks. The way that these walks worked was a group of us would sit around a candle lit table. We were instructed to close our eyes. Yolantha would then talk us into a deeper state of consciousness by having us breathe and relax to her instruction. She would then give us assignments to accomplish while meditating. I believe this is called guided meditation. This was a very spiritually productive time for me and the walks accomplished many things including ridding me of my fear of water. I went from fearing being in water over my head to being able to dive to the bottom of the deep end of the pool and lay on my back floating for hours at a time.

It was on one such walk that she asked us to find and communicate with our spiritual guides. I discovered a man that looked middle eastern, had deep reddish curly hair with a full thick beard and an irrepressible smile. Yolantha told me that his name was Giovanni. At the time, I did not really think about his name or pay any great attention to it. I do know that the input that I had with him over the course of a couple of years was extremely productive and beneficial. In fact, I had not thought of Giovanni for years. This morning I was surfing the internet and on my home page of the Microsoft Edge I saw a photo of an Israeli man being arrested by two police officers for protesting near the Prime Minister's home. While he was not smiling irrepressibly, it was the face of Giovanni as I remembered it so vividly after all those years. In fact, the image of Giovanni is a fresh as the first time I saw it. So we are fastforwarding from 1980 at the latest, to 2020 today. Still after forty years though my memory has dimmed to most things from that period, it is still vivid as I recall Giovanni.

That prompted me to look up the meaning of the name Giovanni. I did and I was completely blown away. It means God is gracious! Wow! As I returned to my faith in Jesus in the early 1990's, my focus from the beginning has been the "gospel of grace." Early on, as I was pastoring a small church, I decided to use my carpentry skills to make a small pulpit. I got out my router to write Jesus Saves on the front of the wood, and the Spirit said write "God is Love." If you read my paradigm shift blog you will find that over the last ten years I have focused on grace and love. That is certainly the theme that I am carrying on with this "Freedom Blog."

My point in this trip down memory lane is that even when I had completely deconstructed Christian beliefs, the Spirit of Christ never left me, and did not forsake me, and actually made an appearance in my guided walk meditation, and the facilitator was inspired to tell me his name was Giovanni. Giovanni, God is gracious... yes indeed! This just proves to me that God is SO MUCH BIGGER than the small box we have tried to put him in. God, Christ, the Spirit are beyond any religion.