My Story

In the Spring of 2011 I met a young Jewish man who I saw was having a hard time of things.  I thought that the best thing that I could give him was Jesus to help him with his problems.  I had never really met an observant Jew before, that I know of.  So it was very interesting to discuss all about what it is like to be Jewish.  I learned a great many things I never knew.  But I still felt he really needed Jesus.  I knew that I would not be able to reach him through an emotional appeal.  He was too smart for that and knew Torah and my bible better than anyone I had ever known.  No, I would have to take a different approach with this man.  So I did something I had never done before.  I went searching for undeniable facts about Jesus.  Why as wide spread as Christianity was, I should have no problem at all.  I should have my undeniable proof in, at most, a few hours.  Well, a few hours past and then a few days and the more I looked the more I found that there was very little out there that I could count as "undeniable proof".  I knew I would not be able to prove it to him using the New Testament.  He had already told me that much.  But I found so very little out there and what I did find was suspected of having been tampered with.  Meanwhile, we had many long conversations and he posed many questions for me and after weeks of searching, speaking with my pastor and reading books to prove Jesus, I came up pretty much empty handed.  The books merely used Christianity to prove itself.  I searched for evidence to prove the New Testament and found that the books of the New Testament were included by a set of standards, or canonizations that merely accepted what was already in use and what people already believed to be true.  Then I began thinking back to the times when I was reading the bible and it did not make sense to me at certain places.  I had some serious questions and when I asked questions I was told that there were somethings that we could not understand until we got to heaven.  We just had to trust.  But now these same questions came back and smacked me square in the face.  Why would a Jew say to drink blood when it was forbidden in the Old Testament to consume blood of any kind?  Why would G_d make a new covenant with only 12 people in the room when the first time there were three million there.  And He spoke to them Himself.  Then I asked the question, "Was Jesus even necessary?"  The Jews offered animal sacrifices as atonement for "inadvertent" sins.  For the real sins, G_d merely required a broken and contrite heart.  I had know that all my life but never put two and two together.  In fact, one of the reasons He ran the previous tenets out of the land of Canaan was because of human sacrifices.  HaShem hates that!  So why would he ask his "only begotten son" to sacrifice himself for the world?  Then I started learning about how the "proof" the New Testament gave was either taken out of context, mistranslated or non existent.  After much prayer and soul searching it occurred to me that I could no longer consider myself a Christian.  When that hit me, I fully expected the roof to cave in on me or a bolt of lightning to strike me dead.  My world had been turned upside down and I was lost.  I was sad because I now understood that all those wonderful words HaShem spoke to the Israelites were not meant for me.  I felt I had lost His love at one point.  But between my Jewish friend and HaShem that did not last long.  He let me know that I did not need Jesus because I had Him.  And He has always been more than enough.  So I put away my bible and took up reading Torah.  It was like a light bulb...no, a flood light, went off in my head every time I opened Torah to study.  I read every book I could get on being Noahide, Jewish thought and Kabbalah.  I could not get enough information.  It was a frantic effort to get caught up.  I had wasted 54 years of my life and now I had so much to learn and re-learn.  My friend just laughed and shock his head at my frantic search for more and more truth...Torah truth.  I can say now that I have settled down a bit now.  I have decided that Torah and one other book at a time was good enough for now.  As I located other Noahides on Face Book, I found they had gone through the same things as I had.  It was normal...I thought I was going crazy. LOL.  I now attend an Orthodox Synagogue and I love it.  I have recently come to the conclusion that I want to convert.  That was a hard decision because I know what all it takes to live a Jewish life.  It is not easy.  But I have already begun practicing the mitzvot (commandments). It is so well worth it.  Well, thanks for listening...reading really.  See ya next time.