Smoking Weed Not Conducive To a Healthy Relationship With Jesus Christ

I used to smoke pot.  I also wondered about many things.  I looked up in the sky and at the stars and I just knew that my Creator was SOME where.  I wanted to know my Creator.  I searched in many new age venues and pagan religions, even the Catholic church in which I was brought up.  I wasn’t finding Him.

  A friend suggested that I read the bible.  I had always thought that the bible was just a kind of allegorical book of old fables but I decided to give it a try.  My friend bought me a bible and I began to read.  I didn’t understand anything that I was reading so I asked my friend what it all meant.  He told me to ask God to help me find Him and to make clear the things in the bible so I could understand. I was smoking pot all the time, too.  

One night (while completely straight) I was reading in the book of Romans and the light came on.  ”Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:”  Romans 5:1  It’s all about faith!  It’s about this One Person – Jesus Christ!  My proverbial cup “runneth over” and I KNEW I had found what I was looking for.  God sent His Son to pay for our sin and we must BELIEVE this (not as blindly as most think; the bible has proof that it is the inspired written word from God if you will search)  

I was SAVED and all I could do was weep tears of sorrow and joy and tell God that I was sorry for the sin path that I was previously on which was leading me to Hell. (I was a rebellious teen, trying to find my identity and had some bad influences as friends)  I had found what I was looking for and it was much better than anything I ever knew.  

I was so completely changed in my being that I immediately stopped doing the things that I had been doing that were against the law and were sinful.  It was like I was watching the world with new eyes.  When my parents found out what had happened to me, they didn’t exactly celebrate.  They were both liberal university types and were not understanding of the ways of God.  I remember telling my parents that I was going to go to church with my friend that gave me the bible (Lou) thinking they would be happy to see the change in me yet I recall that they didn’t bat an eye away from their TV show.

It didn’t take long for me to be pulled back into the world from my new worldview because in hindsight, there was nobody to help me find my way except Lou and he was not around much anymore so I kept to the rebel friends that I had in High School (I was 16) and felt that part of me slipping away.  Not completely, no, God (the Holy Spirit) was always there; with me to the end just as His word says but I couldn’t seem to STAY in the place I had found so safe and comfortable and secure.

One day, a few months after my conversion to Christ, I found myself in the backseat of a car full of kids (probably 7 or 8) going to lunch at MacDonald’s.  When the distinctive aroma of the burning weed hit my nostrils, I knew I was going to have to make a decision and a quick one.  The joint finally came to me and I (seemingly helpless to avoid it) took it and smoked it the way I knew how from so many times before.  As I inhaled, I instantly recognized the smoke as a very potent and desirable form of marijuana called Sensimilla AKA Skunk weed. One hit is enough to make you high for hours.  

Fate would have it that it was really potent weed and the new Person in me immediately wanted to exhale (SPIT) it out quickly but peer pressure made me choose not to “waste” it and I did the ritual of holding it as long as I could. As the inroads of sobriety began to slip from my grasp and the consciousness of my choice left me, it seems that the Holy Spirit that had been with me since that night on my knees before my bed was slipping away too.  I grasped the seat of the car as I felt the most uncomfortable feeling of dread overtake me.  I was holding onto something in my being but it was being RIPPED from me.  

That whole day was one of intense lack of well being and I knew (thought I knew) what happened.  Satan had me convinced that God had left me and was never coming back so I might as well live my life.  So I did.  I fornicated and cursed and partied by changing my drug of choice from pot to alcohol.  Booze always made it easier to sin…yeah, that’s right; I had to dull my senses in order to be like the world!  I used alcohol as a social lubricant all the way through my twenties but when I hit 30 years old, He came to me and asked me if I was ready to “settle down” and come back to Him.  Long story short, I did and I have never regretted it.  

The most notable thing about the whole experience (for the sake of this story) was the way that marijuana affected me.  I continued to try to smoke it and get that old “high” felling back but I never did.  Smoking pot made me feel TERRIBLE since that time.  Paranoia and fear of death and evil around me prevailed through the use of weed that I would avoid being anywhere people were smoking it.  I reluctantly smoked it on many occasions because of peer pressure…  I can’t imagine how I must have felt then about my peers.  They had such influence on me.  If you would like the rest of the story, ask me.