Christine Caine — Genuine Christianity
Well, I remember one of my girlfriends at university, I hadn't seen her for three days. She came up to me and I said, "Where have you been, Deb?" At that point she pulls out an ecstasy tablet; this is right when ecstasy just hit Australia, rave pot had just hit Australia.
Right there in the cafeteria she began weeping. She goes, "Christine, I've just been at this most incredible party for three days and three nights. We didn't sleep, we danced. There was so much love and joy and peace."
And she goes, "I didn't want you to miss out on this experience so I saved you this tablet because I want you to experience what I experienced." And right there I just started to weep. I thought this girl has more passion for her synthetic drug than I actually do for my supposed relationship with Jesus.
It was like this wake-up call for me. I remember then thinking I would never let someone be more passionate about that or about things that are not of God than I am with Jesus.
I realized with so many of us Christianity has become like a passionless, boring religious obligation. It is just something we do. It is something like you hear language of I have to do that. I'm a Christian so I have to read my Bible, I have to pray, I have to give -- you do what you want from passion, not what you have to.
Nick and I went to Bible school before we met. I was the lecturer; we're the same age but he went to Bible College later. He said he fell in love with the teacher. So he was trying to find ways to get into my world.
We have a rule in our Bible College, students cannot date. But there were no rules about students and teachers. So he was really -- [laughing] he was really -- he was actively pursuing. And so I used to swim every morning at 6 am at the local pool.
I'd never seen him. So all of the sudden I'd go down to the pool and there he is every morning doing laps. After about a week we bumped into each other and I went, Nick, what are you doing here at the pool? He got very defensive. He goes, "What do you mean, Christine?
I'm always at the pool at 6:00. I love swimming at 6:00 in the morning." Now I've been married to him for nearly 12 years and not once in 12 years has he ever gotten up at 6:00 in the morning to go swimming.
I thought, you do what you want from passion; you do what you have to when it is an obligation. I think often that's where we could go in our relationship with God.