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Not sure if I am posting this as a form of venting to get stuff of my chest or if I am wanting answers to stuff that may have no answer. Either way, just gonna start typing and let things come out as they may - so I apologize in advance if this becomes lengthy.

I am 43 and have always considered myself a Christian. I have always believed that God is the one true God and that he sent his son to earth to die for our sins. I have also tried my best to live the Christian life style and make the choices that I felt God would want me to make (even though we all sin and fall short). As I have gotten older though, I began realizing that my faith has always been my faith because that was the way I was raised, no questions asked. What if I had been raised muslim or to believe in Buddha, would that be my faith today? Would I be completely different than I am today as a result? So I decided to look further into my faith and ask questions. If I was to believe in God, I wanted to do it because my search lead me to him, because I found him, not just because I was raised to believe in something my parents did.

So I started my own personal search and found I only got more and more frustrated. Questions such as "if God was perfect and knew all, why would he create an angel he knew would turn on him, which in essence was the creation of imperfection, and then unleash him on humanity? If we were his children, why would he allow that? Don't parents protect their kids?" and "if the bible is our source of direction and proof of his existence, why are there so many contradictions and why would he write a book where 10 different preachers could read 1 verse and not all agree on its meaning? surely if this as meant for us to abide by, it wouldn't be this difficult to interpret" My search has only lead to more questions and more confusion to the point I just feel like throwing my hands up.

I don't mean to offend but I often feel like God does a poor job at showing the world his existence. If I had been raised as an atheist, I cant sit here and say that I have seen anything that would have lead me to change my views. Sure the Bible talks about Jesus healing the blind, raising the dead and parting the seas, but I have never seen these type of miracles so if I had been raised differently, stuff from the bible would sound like stories and not fact in which to live my life by. Sure, people could say "you have a job and a house" that is a gift from God or "what about the people cured of cancer" that is proof of God. Problem is what one person would say is from God, another would say is coincidence. It can't be tested or proven one way or the other.

A perfect example would be: we put our house up for sale with plans to move to a city 2 hours away. Wife accepted a job in the new city and for 4 months our family was divided, she worked there while I stayed in our current house with the kids waiting for the house to sell - frustration with God set in. After 4 months, she came home and said she didn't like that area and didn't want us moving there. My frustration then turned into feelings of God did this to show us that he didn't want us moving to this particular place. I gave God the glory, he had to put us through this to show us we weren't meant to end up there. Then our house sold and several houses we wanted fell through, frustration with God began yet again only to end up with a house that was a dream home falling into our laps - So now I feel horrible for all my frustration, God knew what he was doing, it was me who didn't. That's why doors we wanted open were being closed - I felt like such a fool. Now I sit in my dream home and am miserable. We live in a cul de sac and my neighbor informed me in so many words he was building a garage the size of a house on the inside portion of our road. I went to God and said "you gave us this house and I really would really prefer this garage to not be built as it will block most of my house from the road and will obstruct our view but I put it in your hands". Needless to say, over the last year, the garage has slowly gone up, blocks most of my home from the road and cuts off part of our view, not to mention, our road has constantly been obstructed by construction people for the last year making leaving and returning home an adventure. To top it all off, this neighbor is extremely arrogant and rude. Now I sit here thinking, if God opened and closed all these doors to get us here, why would this be the end result: a partial obstructed home with a horrible neighbor. Was everything we went through to get us to this point Gods doing or was it just coincidence. There is no way to know - Based on the faith I was raised with, it was all put in Gods hands from day 1 and I should just have faith. Problem is, when faith is wavering, its almost an impossible task.

The bottom line is I want more than anything for everything I have believed in all these years to be true and that there is a God and an eternity. I've gone to God in prayer several times telling him that I'm struggling with my faith and begging him to make his presence known to me and I feel like I am only met by silence - I don't know, I just feel lost and abandon sometimes. How can a God that created everything not respond in one way or another to someone reaching out who is struggling with their faith? Wish it were as easy as God just showing himself and saying here I am as opposed to having to have a blind faith in something that is physically and scientifically impossible to prove.

Ok, rant is over - cant say I feel any better now that I did all this but at least I got my thoughts typed out for others to see how lost I feel. Please keep me in your prayers.
 
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John Davidson

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Hi Ghostsofwinter,

Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Can you honestly say you are doing that?

You need to establish your own faith and beliefs. You can't survive on the faith and beliefs of your parents.

Do you go to Church regularly? Do you read the bible regularly? Do you read other Christian authors? Do you listen to sermons online? All of these things will build your faith.

I leave you with this scripture:

Psalm 119:10
With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments.
 
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St_Worm2

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...I started my own personal search and found I only got more and more frustrated. Questions such as "if God was perfect and knew all, why would he create an angel he knew would turn on him, which in essence was the creation of imperfection, and then unleash him on humanity? If we were his children, why would he allow that? Don't parents protect their kids?" and "if the bible is our source of direction and proof of his existence, why are there so many contradictions and why would he write a book where 10 different preachers could read 1 verse and not all agree on its meaning? surely if this as meant for us to abide by, it wouldn't be this difficult to interpret" My search has only lead to more questions and more confusion to the point I just feel like throwing my hands up.

Hi GoW, first off, WELCOME TO CF .. :wave: I'm sorry to hear about your frustration, but I'm certain that something fruitful and meaningful will come out of it :)

As far as what you wrote above, the answer to your first concern seems to be that for some crazy reason, God wanted beings who would freely choose to love, worship, glorify, and enjoy Him, not robots that He programmed to do so. And once the "free will" door was opened, the bad had to be accepted with the good or "free will" would be nothing but a farce.

As for Biblical "contradictions", I would say there are "apparent" contradictions, and there are also things that we call "mysteries", in the Bible, but I don't know of any actual contradictions. Please point one or two out if you'd like to discuss them. Who knows, maybe I'm wrong?

And as far as the Bible being clear to one and all, I think that has less to do with God and more to do with the lot of us and the presuppositions we each bring to the table. I believe that whatever is unclear (like "if God is sovereign, how can man be free" kind of questions) is that way for our own good, or because in our present state, we cannot fully comprehend it. You continue:

I don't mean to offend but I often feel like God does a poor job at showing the world his existence.

He seemed to up the ante a bit about 2,000 years ago ;) Question for you, if you look at a beautiful watch, do you think "intelligent designer" or do you think that watch just "happened" itself into existence? You continue:

A perfect example would be: we put our house up for sale with plans to move to a city 2 hours away. Wife accepted a job in the new city and for 4 months our family was divided, she worked there while I stayed in our current house with the kids waiting for the house to sell - frustration with God set in. After 4 months, she came home and said she didn't like that area and didn't want us moving there. My frustration then turned into feelings of God did this to show us that he didn't want us moving to this particular place. I gave God the glory, he had to put us through this to show us we weren't meant to end up there. Then our house sold and several houses we wanted fell through, frustration with God began yet again only to end up with a house that was a dream home falling into our laps - So now I feel horrible for all my frustration, God knew what he was doing, it was me who didn't. That's why doors we wanted open were being closed - I felt like such a fool. Now I sit in my dream home and am miserable. My neighbor built a garage on the side of his house that now blocks most of my home from the road and cuts off part of our view. He's extremely arrogant and rude. Now I sit here thinking, if God opened and closed all these doors to get us here, why would this be the end result: a partial obstructed home with a horrible neighbor. Was everything we went through to get us to this point Gods doing or was it just coincidence. There is no way to know - Based on the faith I was raised with, it was all put in Gods hands from day 1 and I should just have faith. Problem is, when faith is wavering, its almost an impossible task.

God is not the Great Sugar-Daddy in the sky, at least not in the way we'd like Him to be a lot of the time :rolleyes: Here are a couple of quotes from Elisabeth Elliot that might help you understand why God acts the way He does in regard to His children (the bold highlighting is mine and is meant to show the main point):

"God never withholds from His child that which His love and wisdom call good. He never denies our heart's desire except to give us something better"

"Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering…. The love of God did not protect His own Son…. He will not necessarily protect us – not from anything it takes to make us like His Son."

The bottom line is I want more than anything for everything I have believed in all these years to be true and that there is a God and an eternity. I've gone to God in prayer several times telling him that I'm struggling with my faith and begging him to make his presence known to me and I feel like I am only met by silence - I don't know, I just feel lost and abandon sometimes. How can a God that created everything not respond in one way or another to someone reaching out who is struggling with their faith? Wish it were as easy as God just showing himself and saying here I am as opposed to having to have a blind faith in something that is physically and scientifically impossible to prove. Ok, rant is over - cant say I feel any better now that I did all this but at least I got my thoughts typed out for others to see how lost I feel. Please keep me in your prayers.

Whatever God is doing in your life (maybe He's just trying to get your attention, BTW), you can rest assured that if you are one of His, whatever happens is being done for your own good, and that the way He is choosing to accomplish His work in you is a far better plan than you could ever come up with :amen: (i.e. Philippians 1:6; Romans 8:32)

Yours in Christ,
David
p.s. - praying for you!
 
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Hi Ghostsofwinter,

Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Can you honestly say you are doing that?

You need to establish your own faith and beliefs. You can't survive on the faith and beliefs of your parents.

Do you go to Church regularly? Do you read the bible regularly? Do you read other Christian authors? Do you listen to sermons online? All of these things will build your faith.

I leave you with this scripture:

Psalm 119:10
With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments.

Hey John,

Thank you for your response

In regards to your post, can I honestly say that I am doing that? To be honest, more so in the past than in the present. Up until I started searching for myself, it wasn't even a question. God was as real to me as if he were standing beside me. It was a love that exceeded my wife and kids. Seems that the more I searched for him, the more questions I ended up having and the further away I got. Its truly a frustrating and defenseless feeling.

I do go to church regularly with my wife and kids, I read books by authors such as Jonathan Cahn and John Brevier, a lot of times I will listen to John Hagee on YouTube while I work. I am guilty of not reading the bible much - have tried many times in the past and find myself re-reading the same verses over and over trying to understand what I am reading. Ultimately, I end up relying on my pastor to feed me the word during service.

I'm not a lost soul as evidence by the fact I haven't given up on searching for him (hence my post here). I don't know - maybe its my frustration with God that creates a barrier as I simply don't understand why he doesn't make his presence known to someone reaching out to him
 
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John Davidson

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Hey John,

Thank you for your response

In regards to your post, can I honestly say that I am doing that? To be honest, more so in the past than in the present. Up until I started searching for myself, it wasn't even a question. God was as real to me as if he were standing beside me. It was a love that exceeded my wife and kids. Seems that the more I searched for him, the more questions I ended up having and the further away I got. Its truly a frustrating and defenseless feeling.

I do go to church regularly with my wife and kids, I read books by authors such as Jonathan Cahn and John Brevier, a lot of times I will listen to John Hagee on YouTube while I work. I am guilty of not reading the bible much - have tried many times in the past and find myself re-reading the same verses over and over trying to understand what I am reading. Ultimately, I end up relying on my pastor to feed me the word during service.

I'm not a lost soul as evidence by the fact I haven't given up on searching for him (hence my post here). I don't know - maybe its my frustration with God that creates a barrier as I simply don't understand why he doesn't make his presence known to someone reaching out to him

Ghostsofwinter,

Your second post gives me a bit more understanding about your situation. You seem like a really good guy.

I am going to recommend a few things to you that may help grow your faith.

First, I recommend that you listen to some online sermons during the week.

Here are a few good resources:

Calvary Chapel has sermons through the entire bible: https://calvarychapel.com/resources/teachings/

John MacArthur and Grace To You also has some good sermons: https://www.gty.org/resources/sermons

Second, I recommend you do more reading of Christian authors.

Here are some more books I recommend:

http://www.christianbook.com/mere-c...Ntt=2926X&item_code=&Ntk=keywords&event=ESRCP

http://www.christianbook.com/the-pursuit-of-god/a-w-tozer/9780764216244/pd/216244?event=ESRCQ
 
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St_Worm2

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I would also like to add Dr. Packers classic, Knowing God, to John's list of books as three books that I would HIGHLY recommend reading, for any Christian, but especially in your particular case GoW.

And two more radio/online ministries to add to John's excellent recommendations would be: 1) Dr. R C Sproul, Renewing Your Mind and (his larger website) Ligonier Ministries and 2) Dr. Chuck Swindoll's, Insight for Living.

God bless you! (Jude 1:24-25)

Yours and His,
David
 
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Hi GoW, first off, WELCOME TO CF .. :wave: I'm sorry to hear about your frustration, but I'm certain that something fruitful and meaningful will come out of it :)

As far as what you wrote above, the answer to your first concern seems to be that for some crazy reason, God wanted beings who would freely choose to love, worship, glorify, and enjoy Him, not robots that He programmed to do so. And once the "free will" door was opened, the bad had to be accepted with the good or "free will" would be nothing but a farce.

As for Biblical "contradictions", I would say there are "apparent" contradictions, and there are also things that we call "mysteries", in the Bible, but I don't know of any actual contradictions. Please point one or two out if you'd like to discuss them. Who knows, maybe I'm wrong?

And as far as the Bible being clear to one and all, I think that has less to do with God and more to do with the lot of us and the presuppositions we each bring to the table. I believe that whatever is unclear (like "if God is sovereign, how can man be free" kind of questions) is that way for our own good, or because in our present state, we cannot fully comprehend it. You continue:



He seemed to up the ante a bit about 2,000 years ago ;) Question for you, if you look at a beautiful watch, do you think "intelligent designer" or do you think that watch just "happened" itself into existence? You continue:



God is not the Great Sugar-Daddy in the sky, at least not in the way we'd like Him to be a lot of the time :rolleyes: Here are a couple of quotes from Elisabeth Elliot that might help you understand why God acts the way He does in regard to His children (the bold highlighting is mine and is meant to show the main point):

"God never withholds from His child that which His love and wisdom call good. He never denies our heart's desire except to give us something better"

"Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering…. The love of God did not protect His own Son…. He will not necessarily protect us – not from anything it takes to make us like His Son."



Whatever God is doing in your life (maybe He's just trying to get your attention, BTW), you can rest assured that if you are one of His, whatever happens is being done for your own good, and that the way He is choosing to accomplish His work in you is a far better plan than you could ever come up with :amen: (i.e. Philippians 1:6; Romans 8:32)

Yours in Christ,
David
p.s. - praying for you!


Hey David,

First of all. thank for your reply, it was very well thought out and written.

Before I proceed, just wanted to emphasize, I have lost my way a bit lately in search of God and am merely trying to find him again. I am not wanting this to get off topic and turn into any type of debate based on my responses - I am just sharing my view point in hopes of better understanding (not referring to you David or John :), just any future responses).

Regarding the "free will" and "not having programmed robots" response - I understand the concept of God wanting people to freely believe and follow him - Its just hard for me to fathom the method it is done, a fallen angel being allowed to wreck havoc on a world God created and placed his children, where in the end, the true believers are identified - It's just hard to wrap my mind around. I still know that this is how it played out, just one of those things I don't understand

In response to the biblical contradictions, I was referring to such things as who the father of Joseph (married to Mary) was. According to Matthew 1:16, Jacob is the father of Joseph ("and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.") but in Luke 3:23, it indicates that Heli was the father of Joseph ("
Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli.") - Please keep in mind, I am not here to discredit anything in the bible - again, I want everything that I have believed for so many years to be true - I am just outlining some of the things I struggle with

As far as the bible being unclear from verse to verse - I realize we are all human and take away different interpretations from things we read, that's what makes us individuals and different from one another - the human side of me just says if this is our foundation, it should be a bit more definitive - that's just me but I am a very structured person and expect everything else around me to have the same structure - this is on the other hand not something that deters me much - was just typing out my thoughts and included it in the original post.

I appreciated the quotes you posted, but this is something I struggle with. Not necessarily your quotes but uplifting quotes in general. I have always believed God wants more for us than we want for ourselves and that he loves us beyond comprehension, but then I look around this world and am left scratching my head. Seems that sinners get everything their hearts desire and Christians receive the persecution and struggle through life, which seems to be the opposite of what God wants for us - Again, I'm just trying to better understand, I am not trying to offend or debate

Lastly, I do hope you are right, that whatever God is doing is for my own good. Feels very lonely searching for validation of something you believe in and becoming lost in the process
 
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Ghostsofwinter,

Your second post gives me a bit more understanding about your situation. You seem like a really good guy.

I am going to recommend a few things to you that may help grow your faith.

First, I recommend that you listen to some online sermons during the week.

Here are a few good resources:

Calvary Chapel has sermons through the entire bible: https://calvarychapel.com/resources/teachings/

John MacArthur and Grace To You also has some good sermons: https://www.gty.org/resources/sermons

Second, I recommend you do more reading of Christian authors.

Here are some more books I recommend:

http://www.christianbook.com/mere-c...Ntt=2926X&item_code=&Ntk=keywords&event=ESRCP

http://www.christianbook.com/the-pursuit-of-god/a-w-tozer/9780764216244/pd/216244?event=ESRCQ

Thanks for the links John, will give them a listen tomorrow when I'm working :)

I truly hope no one interprets my posts as debating anything regarding God. As I stated before, I have always believed in God (at least since the age of 7) but it was a belief based on my upbringing. In searching for him myself, it just lead me to more questions, frustration and feeling lost. It would definitely make my life easier if God could just email me and say "I am here" or could pick up the phone and say "have you lost your mind???" but sadly, its not that easy.
 
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St_Worm2

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I truly hope no one interprets my posts as debating anything regarding God. As I stated before, I have always believed in God (at least since the age of 7) but it was a belief based on my upbringing. In searching for him myself, it just lead me to more questions, frustration and feeling lost. It would definitely make my life easier if God could just email me and say "I am here" or could pick up the phone and say "have you lost your mind???" but sadly, its not that easy.

Hi GoW, no one is supposed to debate on this board, so you've come to the right place :oldthumbsup:

As for getting an email from God, you already have in a sense, 1) The Law and the Prophets, IOW, the OT, + the NT, of course and 2) each and every time you are taught and guided in this life by the HS :) Also, don't forget what Abraham said to the "Rich Man" (who was writhing in agony in Hades at the time and hoping, as a result, that Abraham would send someone to warn his family to repent before they died and ended up in the same place):

"If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.” ~Lk 16:31*

*(it might be worth reading all of Luke 16:19-31 again if you don't remember the story, as it is truly a GREAT parable :oldthumbsup:)
Yours and His,
David

 
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Thanks for the links John, will give them a listen tomorrow when I'm working :)

You are very welcome. There is a lot of good material on those links so I hope you are blessed by them.

I truly hope no one interprets my posts as debating anything regarding God. As I stated before, I have always believed in God (at least since the age of 7) but it was a belief based on my upbringing. In searching for him myself, it just lead me to more questions, frustration and feeling lost. It would definitely make my life easier if God could just email me and say "I am here" or could pick up the phone and say "have you lost your mind???" but sadly, its not that easy.

In a way God has "emailed us". He has sent us a clear message regarding his existence through his creation. Consider how complex the human body is. This is why I really want you to read the book I recommended in post #3.
 
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Not sure if I am posting this as a form of venting to get stuff of my chest or if I am wanting answers to stuff that may have no answer. Either way, just gonna start typing and let things come out as they may - so I apologize in advance if this becomes lengthy.

I am 43 and have always considered myself a Christian. I have always believed that God is the one true God and that he sent his son to earth to die for our sins. I have also tried my best to live the Christian life style and make the choices that I felt God would want me to make (even though we all sin and fall short). As I have gotten older though, I began realizing that my faith has always been my faith because that was the way I was raised, no questions asked. What if I had been raised muslim or to believe in Buddha, would that be my faith today? Would I be completely different than I am today as a result? So I decided to look further into my faith and ask questions. If I was to believe in God, I wanted to do it because my search lead me to him, because I found him, not just because I was raised to believe in something my parents did.

So I started my own personal search and found I only got more and more frustrated. Questions such as "if God was perfect and knew all, why would he create an angel he knew would turn on him, which in essence was the creation of imperfection, and then unleash him on humanity? If we were his children, why would he allow that? Don't parents protect their kids?" and "if the bible is our source of direction and proof of his existence, why are there so many contradictions and why would he write a book where 10 different preachers could read 1 verse and not all agree on its meaning? surely if this as meant for us to abide by, it wouldn't be this difficult to interpret" My search has only lead to more questions and more confusion to the point I just feel like throwing my hands up.

I don't mean to offend but I often feel like God does a poor job at showing the world his existence. If I had been raised as an atheist, I cant sit here and say that I have seen anything that would have lead me to change my views. Sure the Bible talks about Jesus healing the blind, raising the dead and parting the seas, but I have never seen these type of miracles so if I had been raised differently, stuff from the bible would sound like stories and not fact in which to live my life by. Sure, people could say "you have a job and a house" that is a gift from God or "what about the people cured of cancer" that is proof of God. Problem is what one person would say is from God, another would say is coincidence. It can't be tested or proven one way or the other.

A perfect example would be: we put our house up for sale with plans to move to a city 2 hours away. Wife accepted a job in the new city and for 4 months our family was divided, she worked there while I stayed in our current house with the kids waiting for the house to sell - frustration with God set in. After 4 months, she came home and said she didn't like that area and didn't want us moving there. My frustration then turned into feelings of God did this to show us that he didn't want us moving to this particular place. I gave God the glory, he had to put us through this to show us we weren't meant to end up there. Then our house sold and several houses we wanted fell through, frustration with God began yet again only to end up with a house that was a dream home falling into our laps - So now I feel horrible for all my frustration, God knew what he was doing, it was me who didn't. That's why doors we wanted open were being closed - I felt like such a fool. Now I sit in my dream home and am miserable. We live in a cul de sac and my neighbor informed me in so many words he was building a garage the size of a house on the inside portion of our road. I went to God and said "you gave us this house and I really would really prefer this garage to not be built as it will block most of my house from the road and will obstruct our view but I put it in your hands". Needless to say, over the last year, the garage has slowly gone up, blocks most of my home from the road and cuts off part of our view, not to mention, our road has constantly been obstructed by construction people for the last year making leaving and returning home an adventure. To top it all off, this neighbor is extremely arrogant and rude. Now I sit here thinking, if God opened and closed all these doors to get us here, why would this be the end result: a partial obstructed home with a horrible neighbor. Was everything we went through to get us to this point Gods doing or was it just coincidence. There is no way to know - Based on the faith I was raised with, it was all put in Gods hands from day 1 and I should just have faith. Problem is, when faith is wavering, its almost an impossible task.

The bottom line is I want more than anything for everything I have believed in all these years to be true and that there is a God and an eternity. I've gone to God in prayer several times telling him that I'm struggling with my faith and begging him to make his presence known to me and I feel like I am only met by silence - I don't know, I just feel lost and abandon sometimes. How can a God that created everything not respond in one way or another to someone reaching out who is struggling with their faith? Wish it were as easy as God just showing himself and saying here I am as opposed to having to have a blind faith in something that is physically and scientifically impossible to prove.

Ok, rant is over - cant say I feel any better now that I did all this but at least I got my thoughts typed out for others to see how lost I feel. Please keep me in your prayers.

human unrighteousness is the root of all the world's mess, especially the spiritual iniquity, God is actually not evil, but the other "god" is the wicked one, and unfortunately there has been some misbelief in the world of human religion including some part of the christianity, for example the Bible is full of many things that can't be properly understood only by reading(2 Peter 3:15-16, 1 Corinthians 2:6-16), but there is still a tradition which says: read the Bible systematically, as if the spiritual things, of which the Scripture is consisted and about which it is written there they can be discerned only spiritually through right exercise of faith, can be understood just by reading, especially when they are represented in the Bible with many different figurative words?!, another example of misbelief is that (ostensibly) God created the devil or some angel that subsequently became satan, which is not possible, because God is not a sinner to make such a general mistake, but it is written that the devilish spirits such as satan, the beast, the death, the hell, etc. are unsouled manifestations(spirits) of the "darkness", which is also not created by God, but indefinitely existing without a beginning or end like God Himself (Genesis 1:1-2)

but why has God allowed there to be so much evil with so many people for all the centuries/millennia since the day of the original sin(fall)?!, actually He has not been absolutely fully able to stop the manifestation of the "darkness", because He fell into a centuries/millennia-long state of (somewhat of) some kind of half-sleep on the seventh day(Exodus 20:8-11), which doesn't mean He is weak and got tired, but He has also faced some difficulties(1 John 4:17), and mostly the clash between Him and the "darkness", which for some reason(s) might be kind of grueling to Him during some centuries/millennia at the beginning of (the) eternity, however, the show of pure love for the neighbor/cohabitant, the right exercise of faith, the good prayer, and in general the good works wake Him (up), and He can thus be woken up much sooner than otherwise(Matthew 24:22)

Blessings
 
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Hoghead1

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You have touched on some very good theological questions that are very difficult to answer. However, I'll take a stab at it. I don't think God "allows" evil. I think that God represents the ultimate form of governing, which is democracy, power presiding over powers, participating in their self-decision process. In short, we have free will. Hence God cannot decide our decisions for us. We have to decide for ourselves. Evil occurs because we often make bad decisions for any number of reasons. I don't believe that God knows all the future ahead of time. That would go with the idea that God predestines it all, but that view allows no human freedom. God cannot decide for us, as I said. Until we decide, the future is open-ended , both for ourselves and for God. God knows the future for exactly what it is in its own nature, possibilities that may or may not be actualized. Many mistakenly assume that the Bible is claiming God has planned all the future. But that is not true. In more than one passage, God's knowledge of the future is"iffy." See, for example, Sodom and also Jer. 18.
 
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John Davidson

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another example of misbelief is that (ostensibly) God created the devil or some angel that subsequently became satan, which is not possible, because God is not a sinner to make such a general mistake, but it is written that the devilish spirits such as satan, the beast, the death, the hell, etc. are unsouled manifestations(spirits) of the "darkness", which is also not created by God, but indefinitely existing without a beginning or end like God Himself

These are unorthodox beliefs and not widely held Christian doctrine.

Yes, it was possible for Lucifer to fall from grace just as it was possible for Adam and Eve.
 
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John Davidson

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You have touched on some very good theological questions that are very difficult to answer. However, I'll take a stab at it. I don't think God "allows" evil. I think that God represents the ultimate form of governing, which is democracy, power presiding over powers, participating in their self-decision process. In short, we have free will. Hence God cannot decide our decisions for us. We have to decide for ourselves. Evil occurs because we often make bad decisions for any number of reasons. I don't believe that God knows all the future ahead of time. That would go with the idea that God predestines it all, but that view allows no human freedom. God cannot decide for us, as I said. Until we decide, the future is open-ended , both for ourselves and for God. God knows the future for exactly what it is in its own nature, possibilities that may or may not be actualized. Many mistakenly assume that the Bible is claiming God has planned all the future. But that is not true. In more than one passage, God's knowledge of the future is"iffy." See, for example, Sodom and also Jer. 18.

I emphatically disagree with this post as well.

I will address only a few points here for times sake.

I don't think God "allows" evil. I think that God represents the ultimate form of governing, which is democracy, power presiding over powers, participating in their self-decision process.

Of coarse God allows evil. He is all knowing and all powerful. He could have called ten thousand angels. He could stop evil in an instant.

Also, God does not "represent democracy". God's desire for us is to be a Theocracy and to be brought under the rule and authority of his kingdom.

God's knowledge of the future is"iffy."

God is God. He is omniscient. He knows all things.
 
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Thir7ySev3n

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Not sure if I am posting this as a form of venting to get stuff of my chest or if I am wanting answers to stuff that may have no answer. Either way, just gonna start typing and let things come out as they may - so I apologize in advance if this becomes lengthy.

I am 43 and have always considered myself a Christian. I have always believed that God is the one true God and that he sent his son to earth to die for our sins. I have also tried my best to live the Christian life style and make the choices that I felt God would want me to make (even though we all sin and fall short). As I have gotten older though, I began realizing that my faith has always been my faith because that was the way I was raised, no questions asked. What if I had been raised muslim or to believe in Buddha, would that be my faith today? Would I be completely different than I am today as a result? So I decided to look further into my faith and ask questions. If I was to believe in God, I wanted to do it because my search lead me to him, because I found him, not just because I was raised to believe in something my parents did.

So I started my own personal search and found I only got more and more frustrated. Questions such as "if God was perfect and knew all, why would he create an angel he knew would turn on him, which in essence was the creation of imperfection, and then unleash him on humanity? If we were his children, why would he allow that? Don't parents protect their kids?" and "if the bible is our source of direction and proof of his existence, why are there so many contradictions and why would he write a book where 10 different preachers could read 1 verse and not all agree on its meaning? surely if this as meant for us to abide by, it wouldn't be this difficult to interpret" My search has only lead to more questions and more confusion to the point I just feel like throwing my hands up.

I don't mean to offend but I often feel like God does a poor job at showing the world his existence. If I had been raised as an atheist, I cant sit here and say that I have seen anything that would have lead me to change my views. Sure the Bible talks about Jesus healing the blind, raising the dead and parting the seas, but I have never seen these type of miracles so if I had been raised differently, stuff from the bible would sound like stories and not fact in which to live my life by. Sure, people could say "you have a job and a house" that is a gift from God or "what about the people cured of cancer" that is proof of God. Problem is what one person would say is from God, another would say is coincidence. It can't be tested or proven one way or the other.

A perfect example would be: we put our house up for sale with plans to move to a city 2 hours away. Wife accepted a job in the new city and for 4 months our family was divided, she worked there while I stayed in our current house with the kids waiting for the house to sell - frustration with God set in. After 4 months, she came home and said she didn't like that area and didn't want us moving there. My frustration then turned into feelings of God did this to show us that he didn't want us moving to this particular place. I gave God the glory, he had to put us through this to show us we weren't meant to end up there. Then our house sold and several houses we wanted fell through, frustration with God began yet again only to end up with a house that was a dream home falling into our laps - So now I feel horrible for all my frustration, God knew what he was doing, it was me who didn't. That's why doors we wanted open were being closed - I felt like such a fool. Now I sit in my dream home and am miserable. We live in a cul de sac and my neighbor informed me in so many words he was building a garage the size of a house on the inside portion of our road. I went to God and said "you gave us this house and I really would really prefer this garage to not be built as it will block most of my house from the road and will obstruct our view but I put it in your hands". Needless to say, over the last year, the garage has slowly gone up, blocks most of my home from the road and cuts off part of our view, not to mention, our road has constantly been obstructed by construction people for the last year making leaving and returning home an adventure. To top it all off, this neighbor is extremely arrogant and rude. Now I sit here thinking, if God opened and closed all these doors to get us here, why would this be the end result: a partial obstructed home with a horrible neighbor. Was everything we went through to get us to this point Gods doing or was it just coincidence. There is no way to know - Based on the faith I was raised with, it was all put in Gods hands from day 1 and I should just have faith. Problem is, when faith is wavering, its almost an impossible task.

The bottom line is I want more than anything for everything I have believed in all these years to be true and that there is a God and an eternity. I've gone to God in prayer several times telling him that I'm struggling with my faith and begging him to make his presence known to me and I feel like I am only met by silence - I don't know, I just feel lost and abandon sometimes. How can a God that created everything not respond in one way or another to someone reaching out who is struggling with their faith? Wish it were as easy as God just showing himself and saying here I am as opposed to having to have a blind faith in something that is physically and scientifically impossible to prove.

Ok, rant is over - cant say I feel any better now that I did all this but at least I got my thoughts typed out for others to see how lost I feel. Please keep me in your prayers.

Your problem seems to be rooted from a lack of understanding of God's providence, i.e., His creative decree based on His foreknowledge of future events and His knowledge of all true counter-factuals (counter-factuals being what would be true given a different circumstance, such as what you would have done in Judas' position). Given that authentic good and love requires freedom of the will, and the concurrent realities of the necessity of human freedom and God's perfect nature, we can infer deductively (that is, with these two premises being true the conclusion must be true) that God's creative decree in creating this particular world was the best option present to Him in the multitude of feasible options (by "feasible" options I mean those options which would culminate, by our free choices, into some desirable outcome). Now the best option, by definition of God's salvation plan, would be that world which would culminate into the greatest number of souls freely saved through their favourable response to the work of Christ by the testimony of the Holy Spirit. I will present this in a concise inference format for the purpose of enhancing understanding and subsequently follow-up with a sufficient Scriptural basis to ensure you that I am not proposing this by merely "human reasoning". We can infer that the world in which we exist is that which would produce the highest number of souls freely saved by what we know of God's nature, that He is omnibenevolent, oniscience and omnipotent (for short, in my argument I will designate the highest number of souls freely saved as the "greatest potential good"):

1. Because God is omnibenevolent, He would desire to create the world which would produce the greatest potential good.
2. Because God is omniscient, He would know which world to create to produce the greatest potential good
3. Because God is omnipotent, He would be able to create the world which would produce the greatest potential good.

Therefore, the world in which we exist is that which would produce the greatest potential good.

The Scriptures I will provide are extensive so I will simply refer you to them. I highly recommend you read them to compliment your understanding of this subject and the Scriptural basis for it so that you will not be susceptible to confusion in future encounters with adverse circumstances or detractors of this position concerning God's providence:

Acts 17:26-27, Jeremiah 25:8-14, Judges 14:4, Genesis 50:20.
All of these verses, among many others, demonstrate not only the truth of God's providence but explain specifically the level to which God uses or allows our free choices, even those of others that affect us undesirably, to culminate into the greatest potential good we could have in a world of human free agency.

So you are right in saying that you could have been and believed something else entirely if God had placed you under a different set of circumstances, but that is exactly why He did not. As is stated in Acts 17, God placed you within your context because He knew that if given that context you would freely choose to accept Him by the testimony and in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit. It could then be rightly asked "well then could God have not provided a precise set of circumstances that would be those which are necessary to win the soul of every person?", and the answer would be no. For some people, there is no such set of circumstances that would be sufficient for them to freely receive the salvation of Christ by the Holy Spirit's testimony. This is affirmed doubly in the Scriptures. First, in Daniel 12:10 concerning the course through to the end times Jesus says: "Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked. None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand." Again, concerning God's providence Paul says in Romans 9:22: "What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?"

It may also seem confusing to think that God has among His human creation "objects of wrath" which He prepares for destruction, until you comprehend these points and Scriptures collectively. There are some souls which God would create that will freely reject Him under any and all circumstances, but are still necessary in the grand scheme of world history to play a role in drawing all those who will be freely saved into that salvation. God Himself illustrates this wonderfully in His statement to Pharaoh in Exodus 9:15-16: "For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth. But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."

In conclusion, my focus on God's providence as it relates to our salvation is that it is God's primary goal in the life of every person who will be saved. There are things we will endure because of our sin, because of the sin of others, because of natural disasters or other events outside of our control; and there are rewards we will receive because of our practice of wisdom, the grace of others or the grace of God. But ultimately, all things caused and allowed by God in this world in which we find ourselves is to cooperate with us in our free agency to achieve the greatest potential good in our lives and the fate of our world. If you have any specific doubts concerning any aspect of our shared faith, let me know and I will do my best to answer these as well.
 
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Thir7ySev3n

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The bottom line is I want more than anything for everything I have believed in all these years to be true and that there is a God and an eternity. I've gone to God in prayer several times telling him that I'm struggling with my faith and begging him to make his presence known to me and I feel like I am only met by silence - I don't know, I just feel lost and abandon sometimes. How can a God that created everything not respond in one way or another to someone reaching out who is struggling with their faith? Wish it were as easy as God just showing himself and saying here I am as opposed to having to have a blind faith in something that is physically and scientifically impossible to prove.

David and Job would be very familiar with these sentiments. God uses such occasions to continually draw us towards Himself for the edification of our souls, whether it be for discipline or the endurance that grows from trials (James 1:2-4, 1 Peter 1:6, 1 Thessalonians 3:3). But as it says in Psalms 105:3-4: "Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice. Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always." God wants us to continually seek Him to find satisfaction from Him in all things, whether that be in our hearts (our emotional needs), in our minds (our intellectual needs) or for our bodies. Notice also that the author says "let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice". Indeed they are right in saying this because Christ has confirmed "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day (John 6:44)." So a man's seeking, when it is authentic and not pretense to create an intellectual facade for the love of spiritual darkness, is direct evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. This is certainly praiseworthy and something to be jubilant about.

Regarding God's speaking and the evidence for His existence, I would first agree with Elihu when he responded to Job in his predicament: "For God does speak—now one way, now another— though no one perceives it (Job 33:14)." God speaks to us in a manner that is necessary for us to encourage us in the right direction. I have done much investigation into the hidden-ness of God from a biblical and natural theological perspective, so if you would like me to elaborate on this I would happily do so. I would also add that God's existence is overtly obvious and easy to apprehend. Rationally we can discover this by recognizing the necessity of a timeless, immaterial, spaceless and personal first cause of the universe, among other arguments. Scientifically we can apprehend this from the overt signature of intelligence behind our design and the intricate design throughout the entire universe and the laws that govern it. Historically we can infer from an abundance of evidence the historical reliability of the gospels and their account of the resurrection of Jesus. Lastly, we can complete this discovery personally through the experiencing of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and His testimony concerning the person and mission of Jesus Christ in our own lives. This is why Paul could say: "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse (Romans 1:20)."

As previously stated, feel free to ask any further questions concerning these matters.
 
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