My Search

My Search
By Neva F. Darbe

Author's Note: ▼

This essay concerns the second of two dreams I had about the Return of Christ. Both dreams occurred in Blackwell, Oklahoma, but several years apart and in different houses. Both of these dreams have remained clear, and encouraged me to look beyond boundaries of my Southern Baptist upbringing. However, it was the second dream that began my search in earnest.

I was setting cross-legged in the middle of my Grandmother Newland's bed reading, when someone knocked at the side door. Getting up, I went to the door and opened it. Standing there, with the sun behind her, was the Jenkins girl.

"Come to the Mission on Sunday!" She said.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because Christ is returning then!"

"No He's not! He's already returned!" At that moment I woke up.


"Christ has already returned!" I sat straight up in bed, my spiritual search had begun in earnest.

The conviction, with which I made that statement forced me to stop and reexamine my religious beliefs. For the first time I had to look closely at the differences between what my religion taught and what I knew was scientifically possible. How could Christ return in the manner I had been told?

As I examined my beliefs, I realized that there were several Southern Baptist doctrines I could no longer accept. Yet I could not reject God completely. Neither could I reject Christ, although I no longer believed Him to be God Incarnate.

I was lost in a no-man's-land of unanswered questions. A situation that got worse as the years passed. The more questions I asked the fewer answers I got that made sense; that felt right. Then after several years of pray er, meditation, and search, I found the solution to my dilemma: Baha'u'llah and the Baha'i Faith.

According to Baha'u'llah religion is progressive and evolutionary. It is revealed to humanity by series of messengers or Divine Manifestations, who reflect God's attributes to the human race. Each Divine Messenger had a two fold station. In one station He spoke with the voice of God. In the other He was a distinct human being. Each religion is a chapter in the Book of God..

The light, or the Holy Spirit, reflected from the mirror of Baha'u['llah was the same light that Christ reflected. The same light reflected by Krishna, Zoroaster, Buddha, Moses, Mohammad, the The Bab. The differences in each religion arose from the different capacities of humanity in the ages in which they were revealed. As humanity matured, and its capacities increased, God sent another messenger to reveal Himself more fully to humanity.