Zero People or The Nature of Conversion

When I was just starting eleventh grade, I was brought in, along with all of the males in my high school - to take a barrage of psychological profiling exams. None of us knew why. A week later I was asked to join a 'special' shooting team being put together at the local Army base. Sounded fun and when I got there I found about 20 others from my school. We had a great time blowing up targets weekly for the next two years. And every month, we had to go and talk with a 'counselor'. Whatever, if it meant we got to shoot for free, then cool!

Towards the middle of my twelfth grade year, I was in the 'counselor' office when all tarnation broke out in the waiting room. Another Vietnam vet, unable to handle civilian life - as we were to grow accustom to encountering, had gone berserk. The 'counselor' quickly took off due to the amount of screams. Now, I sat there eying my folder and wondering about it. I quickly spun it around and flipped it open.

Inside left was my psychological evaluation. I was classified as having no empathy towards people, no feelings, would do as instructed, I was the perfect 'sociopath' - a word I had to write down to look up later. The following pages were all supporting evidences of the first page of test scores. The opposite right all contained situations which would trigger me to kill. The final page had a suggested assignment for the completion of my training.

The stinking military swine had been training us as snipers! I was completely dumbfounded at how blind I had been. And I was DEEPLY hurt to be be categorized a sociopath - once I found out what that was! I considered myself a very caring and lovable person. I even had a girl friend, okay, the only girl at the school whom would talk with a nerd - but she was a girl! Those liars.

But God intervened and I never had to kill anyone, those responsible for the early training program all got black eyes in Federal Court and all of my records were conveniently destroyed in a fire in 1975. I lost track of the other original three still in the program and I had the satisfaction of knowing I had passed all of my qualifying shots with my M-21.

I continued to live my life as a Hutterite and a Christian,a youth pastor, often a youth leader and a counselor of high school youth in my free time ever since. I figured my experience at being the ultimate screw up sort of gave me a good start.....

And the past was just that..... Until I applied for a Government grant a few weeks ago and had to take a personality test.....

The faculty counselor called me into his office for a chat just before Christmas. I was curious and asked what was up. He led off with, "Looking over your test results, I have to ask - what have you been doing for the past 40 years of your life?"

I looked blankly at him and then slowly told him of my work in computer operating systems and evolving across time into a project manager. "But, how did you manage to be a project manager?" His posture was upright, leaning slightly forward - staring straight at me. Very un-Seattle like.....

This guy was really making me think what on earth this was about. Obviously, this was either professional interest and I had screwed something up on the test, or ..... but that was not possible, my records do not exist - father was dead, I had purposefully avoided everything he had ever worked on or with. My deodorant died..... I would have to be very, very, very, careful.

I commented at how there are actually two of me. One, no one is allowed to see (save for now five anyway) and the other is totally a fake me - complete with a very gregarious nature. That guy is the project manager, the sunday school teacher, the counselor. The inner me is still the guy whom lives in the cave, because he does best in a cave and then you throw him a chunk of meat and tell him to write a new operating system. He is very good at grunting and writing things he would never say....

The professor was really quiet, his feet rotated to the balls of his feet and his eyes shifted left and then right. "Do you realize that your personality profile fits less than .0025% of the human population? You are what we call Zero People - you do not even have the ability to score on the people portion of the evaluation you took. I have read about people like you and never thought I would ever meet one......" Afraid, very very afraid. He was lightly licking his lips. He was unsure as to whether or not I was a threat. I felt sorry for him, I think of me in terms of teddy bear (with hidden teeth).

And, so continued the conversation - after he had to retell me I scored a perfect ZERO on the people portion of the test. That is zero out of a possible high of 235. (And so there are roughly 175,000 other people in this world just like me on the inside????? Lord help mankind!)

ZERO PEOPLE!!!!!? My God! Why, I am a very caring, very loving, ..... Wait a minute!, I have been here before.....

What is the nature of our conversion when we become a Christian?

.....All things become new.....

I thought the damaged me had been reborn.

I thought I was as near to normal as I would ever become.

I thought.....

And then I realized that I am still that same rage filled youth, with an incredible natural instinct for destruction.

God did not kill that young man in 1973, He tamed that young man.

My innards are all the same but He chose another path for me to walk and gave me a veneer to isolate that damaged man from the world.

And so I now understand the nature of my conversion by Jesus. He did not pull out the carnal light bulb and put in the new God centered light bulb - He put a brighter bulb next to the old one. They both burn at the same time - the man and the new creation. But, it is the new creation people see in me because the old has grown even dimmer with time. It explains why I fail and why I sometimes do not see with the best light available.

But, that does not mean that the forgotten inner man has gone unchanged. He has learned the secret to the most mystifying of all emotions - God given love (agape). I constantly plumb the depths of the reality of this. You have no idea how many years it took me to just grasp much less understand the very concept of a perfect love - and then to try and understand the less than perfect 'love'.

As you have read this (and if you have been following along through the past month), I hope you have leapt forward to the thought of: how is it that this sociopath, by nature, is concerned enough about a grieving young woman's heart to want to model that new creation for her.....? This should not even be possible.

And the answer has nothing to do with a brighter light bulb being installed, can you find the answer in this post? If you are a Christian, I dare say, the very same thing happened to you.