Wednesday, August 27, 2008

My Spiritual Journey (Matt)

I guess I am still fairly young in my spiritual walk. However, I am finding this group and our dialogue and prayer together to be the thing I was missing.
I grew up in a charismatic Assemblies of God church and always felt a little out of place. I have come to appreciate the many rich blessings that come from that tradition but I have been unable to consign myself to all of their views. I came to Southeastern University a very cynical and bitter young man with a very narrow mind for the things that God was doing. Through different relationships and largely in part to this group I have been able to Let God mold and shape me into a person of deeper faith. I have been able to see that our rational attempts to find God must be subject to our mystical encounters with him. I have been attending an Episcopal Church for a number of years now and I am seeking ordination through them. I hope to start seminary in the fall of 09.  I have been able to share an extremely important time in my life with most of you and for that I am thankful. Thank you all so much. I want to share this quote from Thomas Merton that is helping me to give voice to my minds thoughts.


"Too often our notion of faith is falsified by our emphasis on the statements about God which faith believes, and by our forgetfulness of the fact that faith is a communion with God's own light and truth... Faith terminates not in a statement, not in a formula of words, but in God."

Matt Addis

4 comments:

living stones said...

Matt, These words of yours stood out to me, "Through different relationships and largely in part to this group I have been able to Let God mold and shape me into a person of deeper faith." It seems important and valuable that relationships with people contributed to your growing relationship with God--"showing" is connected to "telling." The Merton quote was great! Thank you for sharing your story.--Anna

RC said...

Matt, thank you for sharing. I am grateful for your heart for God and for community and for God mixing our lives together in these special ways.
--RC

Unknown said...

Thanks for your input Matt. I enjoyed reading your post. Godspeed for the remainder of the journey.

Sarah said...

Matt, it's amazing to me how God can transform our cynicism into openness. Thanks for sharing your story--it's so good to "meet" some of you whom I didn't really know when I was at Southeastern

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