HOME / PROCLAMATION! MAGAZINE / 2008 / SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER / LIVING BY THE SPIRIT

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2008
VOLUME 9, ISSUE 5

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D E P A R T M E N T S

Living by the SPIRIT

Road closed
Cora Holder

 

A few weeks ago a new nurse came to work at the clinic. She is an Adventist, and eventually, during conversation, it came up that I had previously been one also. She insisted on hearing my story; she was horrified when I told her that someone had put a flyer one day on my daughter Genelle's car. The flyer had been an invitation to hear Mark Martin, a former Adventist preacher, speak at a local church. Genelle's attendance at that meeting led to our leaving the Adventist organization. 

"They were wrong to do that" she exclaimed! I tried to explain to her that showing people they are going about things in the wrong way is a loving thing. One feels compelled to share that information with others once they find out that they have believed in a lie.

I am constantly faced with the accusations of being bitter, of questioning Adventists' sincere love of Christ, and of saying that an Adventist can't go to heaven. It is so frustrating to be so misunderstood. 

I believe that God has helped me develop an illustration to explain my true concern.

Last November on a trip to the Big Island of Hawaii, we left Kona early one morning to go to Hana for a helicopter tour of the volcano. After the tour as we whizzed past Volcano National Park, we saw the volcano from the helicopter. Our plan was to tour a coffee plantation and get back to Kona for our last evening on the island. 

We were less than 10 miles from our intended destination, Kona Coffee Country, and eventually our condo, when we spotted handmade signs that stated ROAD CLOSED. What! You have got to be kidding!

We quickly pulled in at the Lilikoi Fruit Stand hoping that the signs were a joke designed as a ploy to get us to stop and try some of the strange fruits they were selling.

They were no joke. The landslide had happened in the morning. It was now early afternoon, and we hadn't seen any warnings along the way. Apparently Hawaii doesn't have an official system of alerting travelers if a road is closed, and the lady at the fruit stand cared enough to warn travelers.

We had two choices. One would have entailed sitting in the car in a line of traffic waiting for the road to be cleared. This choice would likely have meant spending the night in the car and finally missing the plane in the morning. The other choice was to turn around and definitely be able to catch the plane.

Hawaii is called The Big Island for a good reason; it was a very long trip back around the island. We turned around, but in doing so we embarked on a more fulfilling experience than we would have had otherwise. This time we stopped at Volcano National Park. We were able to smell the sulfur and put our hands in the steam vent. We had seen it by helicopter, but we hadn't physically experienced it. In other words, we did have to retrace our previous route, but we were now able to enjoy something that we would have missed otherwise.

What was I missing as an Adventist? I lacked the joy, peace, and reassurance that even when I fall again into temptation, He is faithful and just to forgive me (1 John 1:9). I missed the fact that I have been sealed by the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13) and not by keeping the 10 commandments. Trying to live by the commandments is a guaranteed death sentence; I break one of them within minutes of waking in the morning. Jesus told us that we only have to think the thought, and it's the same as doing the action (Matthew 5:22, 28).

Now, as a former-Adventist Christian, I don't have to keep wondering if I am keeping the Sabbath correctly, if I'm giving enough offerings, or if eating meat really does pollute "the temple". Those doubts kept me from experiencing Him. In Adventism I was parked on the road, facing the right direction, close—yet infinitely far from my destination. Now my focus has changed. I don't just see how majestic He is from afar. I have a full experience; I feel and smell and am able to taste and see that He is good. He cares about every detail of my life; I include Him. He corrects me when I'm wrong. I love Him! 

If your desire is to know Jesus Christ, if you acknowledge His death and resurrection and what that means in your everyday struggle, if you accept His atonement for your sin—His blood poured over the mercy seat once for all, He will not leave you in deception.

You can drive down the road and come to a wash out, but your desire will not get you to your destination, no matter how sincerely you want to get there. The road is broken, and the route you are on is not navigable.

 As an Adventist I said the words "atonement", "mercy", and "grace", but the meanings are so different now. I can't explain it.

I do know that if you are truly open to being led by the Holy Spirit, you won't be able to stay an Adventist. When the Holy Spirit shows you deception after deception, you have to see that you are waiting for a closed road to be cleared and opened. Make the choice to turn around.

Since telling my story to my new colleague, I learned that the flyer Genelle found wasn't placed on her car; instead, she found it lying in the grass. The flyers had been put into the teacher's boxes at her Adventist academy, and one of the teachers must have thrown his flyer away. Thank you to whomever it was that cared enough to place the flyers in the Loma Linda Academy teacher's boxes that day! What a miracle—the flyer one teacher discarded as promoting false teaching was picked up by God and blown into a teenager's path to bring truth to her household.

Praise God! †
 

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Cora Holder is a graduate of Loma Linda University School of Nursing. She currently works as an RN for Kaiser Permanente in Colton, California. She and her husband Wally were both fourth-generation Adventists. Today they are approaching their sixth year of living in Christ's freedom. They have two adult children, and they worship at Calvary Chapel Redlands.