WASTED YEARS NEVER GO TO WASTE

"I wish I'd never wasted so many years in a cult." Many former members, myself included, mourn the time lost to pseudo churches and movements which end up controlling us. Thanks to the Lord's providence, these supposedly lost years aren't wasted as we had assumed.

Forty-two years ago, I became captivated with the doctrines of a cultic house church leader. His teachings about aliens, teleportation, the pre-Adamic world, and other unbiblical doctrines appealed to my need to feel significant. Consequently, I didn't think the church was strange or blasphemous, even when Brother Herald (not his real name) said that God became deformed by a nuclear war in heaven. Blinded by pride, my belonging to an "advanced" church seemed like the will of Christ.

As the years passed, I became increasingly frustrated. No matter how much I worked up my faith, my eyes never became healed from my poor vision. Worse yet, elders criticized me for lacking faith, having ancestral sins, lusting for sight, and having unconfessed sin. This perennial criticism built up in me a root of bitterness, another fault which the leaders chided me for. One day, I had heard enough. The elderly woman in whose home the church met criticized me from the pulpit. I stormed out of there and turned my back on God for nine years.

When I came to my senses, I realized that God wasn't at fault. It was the wicked elders of that errant house church who created in me unrealistic expectations. In Fact, I learned from Bible passages such as Exodus 4:11 and John 9:3 that my poor vision wasn't the fault of my parents or myself but that the works of God should be manifest in me. This realization gave me immense joy since I wasn't being punished for supposedly lacking faith.

As I grew in the knowledge of God and his Word, I noticed that I knew my scriptures much better than the average Christian. All those times of Bible reading, misguided as I was by heretical teaching, had planted God's Word in my mind.

Now my passion is to proclaim the truth to other lost lambs who fell for the same sort of lies I once did. I wrote How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity to show that there is hope for recovery from the damage cultists do. It's available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Virtual Bookworm Publishers.

Others have had the victorious experience of being led to the truth. One stirring story is told by Jan Groenveld. Visit Cult Awareness and Information Library to hear a thirty-five minute audio recording of Jan's testimony.