Everything that I am today as a human being, a man, a father, and a member of humanity and society, my whole foundation stands on these two Bible verses:
- Matthew 6:33
“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all things shall be added unto you.”
- Proverbs 3:5-6
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.”
I remember being seventeen like it was yesterday. While out with some friends late at night, I analyzed my surroundings, the social construct around me, and how people respond to and react to other people. I concluded that if you fear someone, you respect them more.
I am going to be a “bad boy”, I decided.
Dumb idea!
When you truly decide you want something, you develop tunnel vision, and the world becomes your oyster.
Data collection.
The music I listened to, the movies I watched, and the people I spent time with all changed to fulfill and feed my new purpose.
I must say it took me some time, but I was quite successful in my endeavor. I became somewhat of a “cool bad boy.”
That was me building my Ego.
I became that guy and have lived that life to the best of my abilities.
When you build your Ego, it is like building an armor or a character. You are not building yourself. That is weak and superficial, and the only people who will resonate with you are also going to be weak and superficial.
The years past.
A weak and superficial self with a cool bad boy Ego – built on nothing but sand – went out into the world, got married, and started a family.
Must I carry on? How obvious is it for you what followed?
On paper, I was successful. I married a beautiful woman, had a beautiful daughter, and was making around four thousand euros a month from car importing and detailing.
Worst time of my life.
Nothing seemed real because it wasn’t. Everything was built on that stupid and weak Ego. Nothing was truly me or my true expression.
Decision time.
Like The Tower of Babel, I took everything to the ground. I smashed my whole life to bits.
Divorce.
Career change.
Different phone number.
No more friends.
Everything had to go. And it all went.
I remember starting from the next feeling: I must return to my factory settings.
Four years.
It took me four years to go straight to hell and get back to zero.
Going to hell included depression, anxiety, panic attacks, fears beyond imagination, public humiliation, and a lot of gray hair.
Getting to zero means being able, as an adult, to take care of yourself. Being at zero means you are not a burden to anyone physically, mentally, emotionally, or financially. Being at zero means you are able to stand on your own two feet.
Four years.
It was the hardest thing, by far, I have ever had to do and also the most beautiful and rewarding.
I thank God for that calling every day—that soul resonance—that deep feeling: “You can be more than you are, and it is never too late to start.”
The Tower of Bable was down in pieces, and I cleared the grounds of my mind, body, and soul with prayer, meditation, reflection, reading, and writing. I also spent a lot of time alone, taking long walks in nature and digesting insane amounts of positive podcasts and people.
I heard someone say somewhere that they did not find
God in church. God found them in hell.
I must be honest with you and tell you that I did find Him in church, but He also found me and pulled me out of hell.
Being in hell is the most intense feeling of disconnection and loneliness. You feel disconnected from God, life, everyone, and everything. The fear and the pain are almost unbearable.
That is the place where the devil, that cunt, comes to offer the kingdoms of the world. That is where he, the king of lies, bargains with you for your soul.
God lets him.
God permits this because He loves you so much that He wants you to be a hero.
When the devil offers you the kingdoms of the world, the only other choice you have is death. That is the place where you make peace with your mortality. True piece. Pure choice.
As soon as you tell the devil, that cunt, that you rather die right then and there than to give him your soul or to live with him, or for him, for a second, God arrives.
God comes and pulls the veil down, and you see, for the first time, what the devil truly is.
A weak, lying magician. A cunt in the purest form of the word.
You must understand, right in this moment, that nothing happens to you. Everything happens for you.
There is no hero without a battle – the harder the battle, the sweeter the victory.
Think about it. Would you enjoy a movie in which the hero has no struggle and everything just falls into his lap out of the sky?
No, you would not. None of us would.
It is ingrained in our DNA, in our fiber – the struggle, the fight, and the victory.
We want it, and we need it.
I heard Doctor Jordan B. Peterson say that Dostoevsky wrote somewhere that if there were perfect order in the world and people had only to perpetuate the species, we would get bored very fast and start breaking things around us just to have something fun and exciting happen. We would create problems so that we have problems to solve.
I felt that, understood that, resonated with that, and I am sure that if you spend one moment thinking about it, you do, too.
Back to the issue at hand.
Tower down, ground cleared.
Rebuild.
Once I found God and discovered that He is more real than ever and that you can have a personal relationship with Him, I became like a child hanging on to his coat and never letting go.
I Am.
Moses asks God what Hi’s name is, and in Exodus 3:14, God answers: “God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.'”
This Bible verse made me understand that because He Is, everything is. Because He Is, I am.
The notion of I am freed me from all my background and all of my previous stories about myself. I am first an individual, as pure and singular as that can be. I am because “He Is “, is the structure on which I started building my identity.
Prayer changes everything – remember that.
The most powerful prayer I found is The Jesus prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”
Reading and writing became trusted companions of mine.
In essence, ideas and problems are not fully tackled until they are submitted to paper. Reading broadens your mind by exposing you to new ideas and perspectives, while writing teaches you how to think critically and articulate your thoughts clearly.
My perspective on time and my relationship with it started changing. There is no more January, February, August or, Monday, Tuesday, and so on.
I only have two days.
- Sunday – The Day of The Lord.
- Today and now.
That is it. No more Aww, it’s Monday again, and no more Thank God it is Friday.
Going to the gym is a necessity.
Too much comfort seems to be detrimental to us humans and our mental health, and going to the gym allows us to get rid of that extra physical energy. Also, it gives us the opportunity to win at something every day. No matter how bad your day is going, you can always go to the gym and reap your heart out at the bench press or on the treadmill.
From a Romanian bad boy importing cars to someone who writes in English about God and life and is a better human altogether.
My life is not perfect, and I still have a lot to learn, but for the first time in my whole existence, I have a purpose and a healthy target to aim at.
Be the one who has the courage to bring down the towers you built if they are no longer serving you.
You made some choices based on the information you had at the time. You made mistakes. So what? Own them and move on—to better information, better decisions, better results, a better life, and a better you.
You can pray, you can read, you can write, you can go to the gym. You can do all those things.
You can build a whole new human being out of the ashes that remain from burning your weak and fragile Ego.
If I could do it, you can do it too.
The personal relationship with God is mandatory. There are too many pitfalls along the way to try doing it without Him.
And even if you succeed without Him, the victory will be shallow and pointless.
He gives meaning to life and existence because He is love!
Where there is no love, nothing good can ever be.
With love, yours truly, Cristian.