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Town Heretic

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I wasn't planning on spending any time online today, but I thought this couldn't wait answering, so...
Well I think maybe you misrepresented some experience that happened to you by giving God the credit for it.
For the sake of argument, let’s not assume that to be the case. Let’s assume that as more people than not who enter into a faith relationship with God remain, and do so with an increased degree of happiness and longevity, that the problem here might more easily be explained by some particular involving you and your choices and/or reservations. Bear with me until the end and I think you might see things a little differently.
...why does He ignore some who honestly ask for him and not others?
You assume your conclusion in your question. I don’t’ know that he does. In fact, I cannot imagine that a God who has expressed His desire to be known to you and given His Son toward the purpose of your salvation would reject you. So either that God doesn’t exist or we have, again, another problem before us.
Why do some get picked out as special and not others, it makes no sense to me.
I don’t think I was picked out for being special. I believe my pursuit of God, indirectly, evidenced a heartfelt desire to see things as they are as clearly as I was capable of seeing them. That was my invitation and God chose to use that invitation to His purpose. Since that moment I’ve had numerous opportunities to be a witness to people who were like me and many from very different situations and understandings. The only special thing about me is God. I think that's the case for everyone.
How did He shake and call you to Him, if you don't mind me asking.
I don’t mind. He put me through a long dark week of the soul well into my second year of law school. I went into it elsewhere and I’ll see if I can find the link to a more full description than I think would serve the purpose of my response at present.
...it takes work and and courage of faith to ultimately find God? The problem I have with this is that, yes I did feel a serenity when going to church and being with likeminded people, yes I felt more content when convincing myself that I was not alone and yes this was an ongoing
Here’s a problem in what you just related that I touched upon in my initial response. Your “when convincing myself” is a telling bit of personal revelation. To go back to my earlier post, I didn’t have to convince myself every day to commit to my wife. I don’t see in your comment that you gave yourself to God. Rather, you seemed to interject yourself in a process and derive some benefit by association, but only within the context of your own reservation.

This is not how one comes to know God. This is not that yielding I wrote of earlier. And this will never be sufficient. You cannot embrace the cross from a distance.
There are many reasons to hate organised religion, but the main one would be that it is devisive to people of other religions, and that many of the rules it enforces are harmful.
Except I’d wager you don’t hate laws because they aren’t universal. Do you abhor the Constitution because its protections are unique? I don’t think you've thought this stance through sufficiently. It is the nature of wisdom that it divides itself from folly, just as knowledge divides one from ignorance. As to the rules you find objectionable…once again we come to the idea of reserving judgment and a part of yourself from the relationship of your faith.

At the risk of repeating myself (elsewhere, twice) you cannot learn from God while reserving the idea that you have something to teach Him. Now you might find one understanding superior to another (men struggle to rightly divide), but this sort of blanket condemnation smacks of that earlier reservation again. The moment you begin to understand God and the obligations of spirit you begin the creation of dogma and those pesky rules and your blanket condemnation applies to you. It’s problematic and shortsighted if you understand me.
I don't see this as the problem...I have always had a clear distinction between God and Religion. They are totally opposite things.
Then I would argue your clarity is perhaps nothing more or less than a justification for your withholding submission to God. And how did that work out for you? I’m strongly suggesting that the problem between you and God isn’t that you weren’t called. It’s that what you desired wasn’t to know God, but to define God yourself and to be known in that narrowed sense. That won’t and didn’t bring you to the point of meaningful commitment and is, I think, the root of your dissatisfaction and separateness.
Religion teaches hatred of others,
No. It really doesn’t. Some men use God the way some men use politics. The problem isn't politics or religion.
God, if real, would be pure love and understanding.
And again, this is you telling God what He must be for you to accept Him, how He must be defined instead of letting Him define Himself to you... I think you establish the rightness of my earlier suspicion here, the root of your separation from Him, as clearly as it can be made. You are the thing standing between you and God. He never failed you.
Thank you for your welcome and very fine questions. :wave:
Well, I hope you still feel that way, as I hope you reconsider your position and demands and find the relationship you thought of having, in the fullness of its intended design and without the interference of your carnal mind. If I can be of any assistance, don’t hesitate to call on me.
 
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