Under His Desk
From Legalism to Love
By Karon Ruiz
Is God’s affection toward you a reality? If so, consider yourself truly blessed. When I first embraced my faith in 1974, I struggled to find this assurance. Over the years, my intimacy with God has often felt fleeting—brief moments of connection rather than deep, lingering gazes into the Father’s eyes.
A wall of fear, thick and impenetrable, obscured God’s face from me. Just as the veil in ancient Jerusalem concealed His presence from an unholy people, a veil of unbelief separated me from Him.
In the Jewish temple, that sacred barrier—woven from embroidered linen—was no ordinary curtain. Four inches thick and towering sixty feet high, it hung like an unyielding guardian before the Holy of Holies, shielding divine access from all but the chosen few.
It took three hundred priests to hang it and it was beyond human ability to tear. No one but the High Priest could enter past it, and he, only once per year. The terrifying presence of God dwelt behind it.
In His moments on the cross, Jesus cried out, "It is finished!" As He breathed His last, the temple veil was torn from to to bottom, unveiling the Holy of
Holy of Holies—the sacred place where God dwelled. Just as a judge’s gavel marks the conclusion of a trial, this divine act was the Father’s declaration: “The separation is finished!”
Many of us enter the Kingdom carrying wounds from painful beginnings. Our parents, in their own brokenness, may unknowingly distort our understanding of Father God's true heart toward us. My sister Beth once told me, “Some are given a Rolls Royce to navigate life, while others receive a jalopy.” I was handed the latter. Like a worn-out relic from The Beverly Hillbillies, my jalopy sputtered, leaked oil, and rattled its way down the road of life. But I wouldn’t trade it for a sleek, luxurious ride. That battered old “car” steered me straight to Christ! My upbringing in the Conkle family left me with a deep hunger to be fathered. What the enemy intended for harm, God transformed into something good.
Brokenness is an open door to the grace of God. Throughout my life, fleeting yet profound glimpses of that grace have illuminated a path toward His love—a love I might never have recognized otherwise. My journey with God has been marked by these moments, each one lifting the veil of unbelief that once obscured His face. For too long, I clung to falsehoods about who He was.
I came of age in the chaotic sixties, a time of upheaval that mirrored the turbulence within my own home. Alcoholism, rage, and neglect shaped my world, distorting the very essence of love. Affection and affirmation were rare, and the nurturing voice that calls children into their own sense of worth was painfully absent.
As the three Conkle children, we learned that survival meant remaining unseen—tucked away in our bedrooms or lost in the vastness of our backyard, beyond earshot. When Dad arrived home, affectionate kisses were replaced with our father's shouts. “Hit the cave!” was our signal, and we obeyed without hesitation, retreating to our rooms as the clash of children and double martinis proved an unforgiving mix.
Dad’s relentless rants left lasting scars on all of us. My older brother, Steve, was repeatedly told he was stupid. My younger sister was made to believe she needed a nose job. And I was only eight years old when my father told me I was fat.
Old family photos tell a different story. At that time, I wasn’t fat at all. Compared to my skinny siblings, I may have seemed bigger, but in reality, I was a healthy weight for my age and height. Yet, those words stuck. They shaped my relationship with food in damaging ways, leading to years of yo-yo dieting and a self-image I still struggle with today.
My parents raised us the only way they knew. Their own difficult upbringings had left them unable to offer much beyond material comfort—a nice home, adequate clothing, and toys. They signed me up for Girl Scouts, ice skating, and summer camp. From the outside, our Scottsdale ranch house at the base of Camelback Mountain may have seemed like a home filled with love—a safe, nurturing space for five people who cared for one another.
But that illusion didn’t hold up. My father’s repeated infidelity eventually shattered my parent's marriage in 1968. My mother, sister, and I moved to California, while my troubled fourteen-year-old brother, Steve, stayed behind in Phoenix with my father.
In California, my sister and I became latch-key kids, free from the tension that had filled our previous home. Slowly, things began to improve. Mom tried to connect with us, enjoying the newfound independence of her divorcee lifestyle. Men came and went, but in time, the excitement wore thin, and her loneliness deepened.
Then, during the summer of 1974, I packed up my car and made the eight-hour drive back to Phoenix. Dad had offered me a job and a full ride to Arizona State University. Thrilled at the chance to finally leave home, I returned to the Valley of the Sun, ready to begin a new chapter as a business student at ASU.
Settling into my new off-campus apartment, I reconnected with an old elementary school friend for a night of barhopping. After hours of dancing and drinking, our conversation unexpectedly veered toward prophetic end-times. With a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other, Michelle passionately insisted that Jesus was coming back soon. If I was curious, she urged, I should read The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey—a book she called "fantastic."
Settling into my new off-campus apartment, I reconnected with an old elementary school friend for a night of barhopping. After hours of dancing and drinking, our conversation unexpectedly veered toward prophetic end-times. With a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other, Michelle passionately insisted that Jesus was coming back soon. If I was curious, she urged, I should read The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey—a book she called fantastic.
The next morning, while shopping for textbooks in the A.S.U. bookstore, I stumbled upon a display featuring that very book. Without hesitation, I bought it and devoured most of it that night. It was compelling—convincing, even. In that moment, I realized I wasn’t a Christian and, according to its message, I needed Christ or I would be lost. A sense of urgency gripped me as I searched for a church that could tell me what I needed to do to be saved. I wasn’t pursuing a relationship with Jesus—I was looking for a quick escape, a get-out-of-hell-free card.
Finding a structured, rule-keeping faith seemed like the logical step. As long as I upheld my side of the contract, surely God would do the same. It felt familiar, almost like childhood—just be good and Dad won’t yell too much, or worse yet, hit. Religion became a refuge, much like burying myself in books in my room when my father came home. It was safe. Predictable.
That weekend, in a little church in Tempe, Arizona, I became a Christian. Father God met me there, in my fragile and misguided understanding, where His Son’s light remained obscured by my own faulty belief system. That night, after being baptized, I walked away with a clear verbal checklist—tithing and church attendance, required; pre-marital sex and alcohol, strictly forbidden. For months, my enthusiasm for God waned under the weight of shame for every misstep.
I returned to California, but I didn’t stray from Christianity for long. Before I knew it, I was swept into the heart of The Jesus Movement, a remarkable revival that ignited across the West Coast of the United States.
God was stirring the hearts of young people across the nation. While I was in Arizona, my sister and mother had come to Christ in California. Unlike me, they were ablaze with passion for God. Together, we began attending Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa—the epicenter of a powerful revival, famously depicted in the recent film Jesus Revolution.
Pastor Chuck Smith’s expository teaching anchored me in the scriptures, deepening my faith. I was profoundly shaped by the testimonies of inspiring believers like Corrie ten Boom and Brother Andrew, whose unwavering dedication to God ignited a longing in me to serve. That longing led me to a ten-month term with YWAM (Youth With A Mission).
Yet, despite the rich teaching and transformative experiences, the mission field failed to free me from the grip of performance-based Christianity. Self-imposed legalism muffled the cry of my heart—a yearning to truly know God as my Father. That’s the danger of deception: you become convinced that God mirrors your earthly dad—harsh, critical, unrelenting. No matter how many scriptures declared His love and forgiveness, I remained shackled to the belief that His nature carried the same flaws and disappointments. And so, I resigned myself to this reality, accepting that it was the best I could hope for on this side of heaven.
But then, one evening, everything changed.
In a moment I will never forget, He broke through the darkness.
