The day after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, his doting wife appeared statuesque behind the Turning Point USA Podium, to a live audience, preaching the goodness of God. On the podium were the words, “May Charlie be received into the merciful arms of Jesus, our loving Savior.” With a quivering voice, she made repeated mentions of Charlie now being “home.”

My eyes rolled to the back of my head. This seemingly-performative allegiance to Him, the sort of pageantry only natural to the ice-eyed, platinum blonde Erikas of the world, was precisely the reason I’d considered myself agnostic for so long. Admittedly, my reactions have been similar upon any mention of faith during times of strife. Clearly, my understanding of spirituality fell in line with country-artist Jelly Roll’s notion of a “Prison Christian”: adopting faith was only a means to gain privileges, a simple means to an end. They did not want God, but just want God could do for them. God only served me when I got what I wanted, and it’s embarrassing to share so openly this child-like insight.

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When I first heard Jelly Roll’s chart-topping single, “Need A Favor”, the rhythm was not what struck me. The lyrics took a fresh highlighter to my hypocritical beliefs about how we form opinions and live out our value systems:

“I only talk to God when I need a favorAnd I only pray when I ain’t got a prayerSo, who the hell am I, who the hell am ITo expect a Savior?”

I’d nurtured my own resentment toward God for many years, commanding Him to reveal Himself, without hoisting the mirror in my direction: where was I? I had zero evidence for expecting anything from a Lord I’d cursed over and over again without a lick of remorse. Had I used my fixation on crucial conversations, lively debate, and unabashed self-reflection as deterrents, as distractions for all the other shitty parts of myself I refused to see? Indignant, I’d decided, “Nope, God is just not worth the effort, He hasn’t done much for me anyway.”

My shtick has long been that of resilience as the human default, and touting a sort of “anti-trauma-informed” approach to my work and my personal endeavors: do not assume trauma, assume transformation. Assume that any hardship will blossom into what is now referred to as “Post-Traumatic Growth”, which occurs at higher rates than Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Hold yourself and others to increasingly high standards and be amazed at how most will rise to the occasion.

I’ve yet to hear Erika Kirk speak of any post-traumatic stress, nearly a year later, despite widespread attention and even celebration brought to her husband being fatally shot in the neck. Stockpiles of demented people, mocking such brutality with their stupid fucking crumpled signs and giggles--- and Erika repelled. Those who made reality TV of her true love’s murder would eventually meet their maker, for better or for worse, and Erika would take no part in their hatred.

What was I missing about her belief in God? Why could she appear so assured while I sat bitter and dismayed, cursing his name in times of challenge? How can she lose her husband and still croon scripture? It wouldn’t be just then, but I’d reevaluate my understanding of Jesus’ message.

All while dispensing my share of “Goddamnits” throughout the day, I’d embodied a person I claimed to despise. A person who sought refuge in Him only when I’d been rattled and wanted comfort. Only when I’d demanded unearned support for stress I’d brought entirely on myself. I’d reached out for trivial reasons, like aching for a promotion or that my battered car would make it another trip, or that we could survive one more Midwestern summer with a 30-year-old A/C unit.

I only talked to God when I needed a favor.

This recognition did not immediately shift my stance on religion. It took time and exposure to conversations with religious people (namely my mother-in-law, a devout Jehovah’s Witness), listening to guided Scripture, and eventually watching The Passion of the Christ.

The scene of Jesus’ crucifixion, no matter how cliché that may be, is what forced my hand to open the Bible.

Battered, bloodied, his skin peeling off in tattered sheaths of crimson, raised brutally upon the cross to the cackling faces of the Romans, Jesus’ voice rang out: “Forgive them, Father!” This broke a dam in my spirit. All this time and for reasons He’d yet to reveal, I willfully misunderstood the Bible’s ancient wisdoms.

To degrees far distanced from what Jesus sacrificed for us, we can understand the wallop that is social disapproval and humiliation. Having lived through my own experience of being “cancelled”, and having learned from the tragic death of my twin brother, I found I’d had more in common with the Bible’s teachings than I’d thought. Perhaps He had revealed himself during these tests, and I’d balked at His efforts.

One of the clearest threads between my personal value system and Jesus’ teachings is the responsibility toward others: to treat people how you’d like to be treated, and to extend a hand to those damaged, broken, addicted, and afflicted. The patience we provide to others dwarfs the very-human obsession with social standing, outward image, and even rigid rule-following. I hold true to treating people with respect, even those who made voracious efforts to destroy my livelihood.

The most difficult message for me to swallow was how heavily hypocrisy was criticized in the Bible, as my own was showcased through my cries for favors from Him for no good reason other than ego. “Of course You do this to me,” I’d mutter, “You don’t give a shit anyway”; “What sort of God allows torturing of animals and psychotic people to walk freely?” This criticism aligns with Jesus’ insistence that we remain honest in our behavior and in our words, that our beliefs must match what we do should our goal be cohesion with others. My goal has always been that of honesty regarding my beliefs, and such honesty is more important to me than the style in which I fashion it online.

The core principle of the Bible which resonates with me most is meaning-making through suffering. He does not pretend life is simple nor smooth, and does not mislead His followers into such surface-level understanding of what it means to be human. Rather, the Bible grants us opportunity for growth through repeated tests of what we can handle. The Scripture I think I hold closest is James 1:3: “God says, ‘My timing may test your patience, but My plan will never fail you.’”

When my twin brother Conner died and I hovered over his lifeless body at the crematorium, I expected to feel some sort of… sensation. Some sort of experience of his squelched spirit dissipating, his life now floating upward toward the Heavens, leaving his twin sister aglow with the serenity he so often quoted in the Alcoholics Anonymous prayer. I’d practically scripted a transformation I felt I was owed.

I felt angry for years following Conner’s cremation, his official goodbye, wondering why God would choose to retreat in a time I desperately searched for him. He was permitted to vanish with my brother while I was left here. He left me void of closure, to which I assumed He mocked my hope.

I’d felt nothing, no hint of soul or impression that God was standing beside me. Or so I thought.

Maybe God didn’t strand me at all, but I had withdrawn from Him. I see now I likely wasn’t scouring my psyche for evidence of Him for the sake of forgiveness or guidance. I’d waited, cynical and smug, for Him to prove Himself to me. It was me, though, who initiated each flight from Him.

Me.

I was the problem.

Admittedly, I’m not sure I “feel God inside of me” just yet. I’m new to absorbing Jesus’ teachings, and I’m reorienting my many viewpoints to one through the lens of the Bible. I’m learning that the greatest proof of our faith lies in the adversity which convinces us we’re cursed, or that God has chosen some other fortunate bastard to collect His good graces.

I don’t know if I’ve found God yet. But for the first time… I’m not only calling Him when I need a favor.

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