Growing up Christian: 9 things I wish I hadn't learned, and several I'm glad I did. (Introduction)

Starting a book is hard. I have a good idea of what belongs in the middle parts of this book, but where to begin?  That is a problem.  So, I will begin with a story.

First a little background. When I was about ten or eleven years old there was a man I knew in the church that my family has always attended.  Let's call him Steve.  Steve had an extraordinarily broken life.  He was a drug addict, alcoholic, womanizer, and actively worshipped Satan.  His life was literally a car wreck.  What I mean by that is that one night when my dad and some of the others guys from the church were out trying to talk to Steve and help him he became violent and rammed his car into my family's shiny green sedan.  That was probably the nicest car we had growing up, and I think we only had it for about 5 weeks before Steve went demo-derby on it.

Fast forward 1 year.  Steve is clean. Steve is sober.  Steve is married to the woman that he is still with today (I think they have 15 kids(it might not be that many, but it's some other absurdly wonderful amount)).  If I have ever witnessed a miracle, this was it.

This story takes place at one of our many Wednesday night church meetings.  Steve was up front that night and he told us all his amazing story of how he had been pulled out of death and destruction, and into life and a group of people who loved and cared for him.  The juicy details could not have been more appreciated by anyone in the room than that 10 year old boy in the third row who was also me.  To me it was an epic adventure, and better yet the good guys had prevailed.  It was a happy wonderful ending and I soaked it up like a pasty white sponge.

After the service I quickly went up to Steve and began to gush all over him with how much I loved his story.  I remember telling him that his story was one of the best I had ever heard.  I will never forget how he frowned and stopped me, and then said, "No Josh, your story is so much better because it doesn't have all that bad stuff in it."
I was crestfallen, but something much more insidious was taking place.  You see, this was just another in a long series of reinforcements to something I was learning as I grew.  One of several things I learned growing up that I wish I hadn't, and a few I am glad I did.  This lesson was that I was better than most other people.  I belonged to a special club made up of people who God loved slightly more than everyone else.  Furthermore, since I had been born into that club I must have a leg up on new recruits. No one ever said these things to me explicitly, and I am sure it was not intended, but I was learning it nonetheless.  While I was growing up Christian.