Stages a Believer Goes Through When Coming to Torah
Walking this walk for about 20 years now I knew it was a process and a journey; coming out of “Church-ianity;” man’s version of what they feel is Biblical Christianity and into the Way and Walk of Messiah Yeshua but didn’t know how to put it into words until know. From my experience this is the steps, give or take, which ALL Believers who come to Torah go through. I come up with a tongue and cheek acronym that I feel describes well process. I call it: A MoDeL MoRoN.
Sometimes, in navigating these stages with all the up’s and down’s and conflicting feelings, I did feel like I was the “Model” of what a “Moron” was!
The following are the steps that I have observed that virtually every Believer goes through when coming to Torah. I do hope it helps people gage where they are, where they are going and understand what they have gone through and perhaps it will help them better explain things to their family and friends.
- AWAKENING: One day you wake up to the fact that Modern Day Christianity does not line up with Scripture or the Yeshua and is full of contradictions and inconsistencies and when you bring it up to other Believers or Religious leaders you either get brushed off or ridiculed, branded a troublemaker, legalist or heretic.
You begin to make changes in your life like not observing certain holidays and adopting the observance of Biblical ones.
Here you family and friends become concerned and they attempt “interventions.” They try love, reason, and ultimately ridicule and ostracization.
- MOURNING: You go through the Stages of Grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. You reject and ridicule everything Christian because you feel you’ve been lied to and deceived all your life.
Here, you tend to find out who your real friends are you lose the majority of your family and friends.
- DEFECTOR: You reason that because Jews never left the Torah, they must have it all together and end up going all traditional and rabbinical. Yeshua gets put on the back burner and some loose there way and end up denying the Divinity and Messiahship of Yeshua.
Here many of your former friends and family become your enemies.
- LITEARL: You realize that there are just as many contradictions and inconsistencies in Judaism as they are in Christianity you simply try to follow the Torah literally with little or no customs and traditions connected to it.
Here people from your past life begin to see positive changes and begin to question their own beliefs and practices.
- MISSING: You realize that in both cases of Christianity and Judaism that you threw the baby out with the bathwater and begin to cut and paste and pick and choose elements from both faiths into this hybridized, Frankenstein faith, observance and identity. This ends up feeling clunky and unnatural.
Here you begin to mend a few relationships from your past life and they allow you to share more and actually listen.
- REVELATION: You feel like you have learned all you can from Christianity and Judaism and want something more and deeper and many go into Jewish mysticism, Gematria, Word pictures, extra Biblical Scriptures and conspiracy theories and here is another point Yeshua is placed on the sidelines and many lose their faith or return to Judaism, Christianity or become atheists.
Here you question and evaluate everything you have learned up to this point and hash out your beliefs and practices. Family and Friends from your past life take notice and it makes sense to some.
- NATURAL: Everything from the initial Awakening till now just seems to mesh and fall into natural rhythm, belief system and lifestyle.
Here you regain healthy relationship with Christian and Jews and people from your past life and get to share and are invited to share because they see your love, happiness and balance and they realize something is missing from their spiritual life.