So you want to be an influencer now?

The daily onslaught of dark thoughts are real. It doesn't go away, but I have found that the deeper my faith gets the less they control me. Here's an unfiltered peak inside my mind.

So you want to be an influencer now? You think you have the words to convince them that there's a God, in a place called Heaven, who sent His Son to earth, to live a perfect life, and die for everyone's sins. Then three days later, He raised this same Son from death to prove He is who He said He was. Good luck!

Aren't you the guy who two years ago still had thoughts that Christianity could be a cult? Aren't you the guy who acted one way at church and completely different the rest of the week? I mean you couldn't even get home from church without yelling at your kids in the car! Now you want to go online and give people hope? You want to encourage other people when you were wrestling with reality of people reaching a point where they take their life. Weren't you eight beers deep when you came to this conclusion? Come on now! Let's not embarrass yourself anymore. Take the posts down, crawl back in your hole and pretend like this never happened.

Why are you still writing? Your history is riddled with failure after failure. You are the typical Christian hypocrite! You say you're a follower of Jesus, but didn't you used to cuss like a sailor? How about being an expert at clearing your online search history for all those years? You don't have enough ink to cover that period of your life! Seriously, this is amusing that now, you of all people, want to help others.

Now you want to mentor young adults! This gets even better, haha. You were and still are an awful father. You only cared about yourself for years and years. What kind of example were you? A bad one, that's it. Are you getting the point yet? Go tell everyone the good parts about your life and leave the bad ones out. Continue living a lie, praying no one finds out who you really were.

Listen, if you're going to keep writing I'll keep piling up your dirty laundry. I mean come on, you got a divorce! You screwed up one marriage and were a wreck for at least 6 years of your current marriage. This is the real you. This is the ugly person that you don't want to share. So save yourself the embarrassment and burn the pages of this notebook.

What could you possibly have to say that would convince someone that if they truly become a Christian it will change their life?

I mean sure, you've changed a little over this past year, but you're still the same loser you've always been. You're just lying to yourself, suppressing who you really are to make yourself feel better. Maybe you've done a little house cleaning. Sure, you stopped drinking after 20+ years and never looked back. That's one. Good for you. So what if you stopped cussing and listening to bad music. Who wants to listen to Christian rappers and worship music all day? You'll get tired of it. So what if you can pray out loud now. Yes, you serve at church now, but remember who you were. You're just a house of cards. Yeah, yeah, you lead a men's Bible study now, whatever! Don't you remember, you applied for a residency position at church and they told you it wasn't a good fit for you. Need I say more? Dude, pull yourself together! I'm embarrassed for you!! You wouldn't tell anyone about your faith a year ago and now you're applying for a position at church? Classic.

Big deal, you get up and read your Bible, journal and pray. Think of the days you oversleep! Don't forget how you felt God calling you to quit your job to start a faith-based business! Remember all the money you were making!? I tried to warn you, but here you sit, deeper in debt, wearing out the pages of this notebook. Filled with "joy and peace." Ugh, it makes me want to vomit. To make matters worse, now you make shirts to advertise Christianity? How many have you sold? None, that's right. You haven't made any because your idea will fail. The artwork will fall off, just like this "new you" will someday.

Maybe you've become a better husband and father, but how long can you keep it up? You're not depressed and worried like you used to be, who cares? Your life has meaning and purpose now, but what about getting the latest toys?

You're going to give up so much, just because you believe in this Jesus character? Remember what happened to His earliest followers? Didn't they all get killed for believing they saw Him raised from the dead? Weren't they the ones who hid when Jesus was arrested and killed? Sure, the body was missing from the grave they buried him in. Yes, He told them this would happen before being arrested, but isn't that impossible? Okay, yeah those same people He told that He would come back, weren't they the ones who hid in fear of getting arrested too? How crazy could they be to go from hiding to telling everyone and their mother that He really did get raised from the dead? Remember, they were beaten and put in prison for doing that! Then when they got out of prison they'd go right back out and do it all over again! If you ask me, only a madman would die for a lie! How'd Jesus find these guys who all died for the same crazy story!? They must have been pretty delusional to go on trying to tell everyone to believe He truly was God's Son because they ended up getting a tortured to death for it. It seems strange that they'd give up their comfortable lives to follow this Jesus person. This Jesus who claimed He was sent to earth, from Heaven, to save all of us from death. Sure he lived a perfect life and never sinned. Sure, He did a ton of miracles to prove He was who He claimed to be. Sure, there's a book that was written over a thousand years before He showed up, predicting His arrival. He had to be crazy to say He was the Son of God, because He kept saying it until the day they killed Him.

Do you want to end up like Jesus or one of His followers? There's a lot of people who have over the past 2,000 years. You're telling me, this "new you" is better than the old you? I'm not convinced! You'll get tired of it someday. I'll remind you daily, just in case you forget!

I can't believe you're gong to tell people that if they confess they've sinned and want to change, that they'll be saved. That if they believe Jesus truly came to earth, died, and was buried, then raised from death by God, that they will go to heaven. That their lives can be transformed and filled with peace, joy, and love too.

Look at these pages filled with nonsense. No one will believe any of it so why post it? Well, they're going to believe you're a screw up, but not that Jesus changed your life.

Until next time, God bless....