Thank you yes I understand when you said when on is faced with this they truly know they are alive. Like refreshing water to my torched mouth. These words you have spoken have blessed me greatly.
Been there done that, bro.
Sounds like you have been through death & hell a bit like me. Do not think that is because you are evil. Quite the contrary. It is because you are ahead of the curve and can use that to help others.
Here are various things I have learned through these things:
Ten Virgins parable: Have you found yourself desperately asking people for answers and not seeming to get what they are saying? Then you have become like one of the virgins that fell asleep and now is awake suddenly to find all of your oil burned out. You go and ask others and they just do not seem to have the answers. Keep listening. So, you go back to "town" - read, study, pray, everything you can - and come back only to see it as if you are locked out. You find yourself crying bitterly in the darkness, and it seems as if God is saying you are rejected and He does not know you.
But do not stop there. It does not say anyone is locked out forever and ever. God is good, God is love, that means God knows your pain and loves you.
Everyone goes through the darkness. Everyone at some time in their life is as locked out. Everyone can feel God has forsaken them. And those moments seem as if they are forever, without beginning and without end. All hope seems to be lost.
But consider this from another angle. You were thirsty and no one gave you any drink.
Those other virgins had water and refused to give it to you. So what shall happen to them?
Was that kind or faithful of them not to give you the water you so desperately needed? Does not the other parable say, "You gave me water when I was thirsty"?
So these are hard ones. And the answers are not as people think. They read "I do not know you, go into the fire prepared for the Devil and his angels" or "into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth". But this does not say "forever". That is important.
In fact, it is warned, "All must pass through the fire". And "That day will be a day of refinement of great testing". It does not say "some". It says "all".
What is that fire if "death and hell are thrown into the Lake of Fire"? Some call it "spiritual death". Whatever it is, it is actually coming alive.
Though, it is written, "no man may see my face and live", it is also written, "I saw the face of God and lived", which was what Jacob said after he contended with Jesus on the hill.
And Paul spoke of this saying, "We will see Him and become as He is by seeing Him". How that is, who knows. But this is what it is like, the spiritual journey, coming closer and closer to the face of God.
There is much more, however.
For instance, in the parable of the rich man in torment in the fire in Hell, who sees Lazarus far off and asks Abraham (literally, here, Jesus, as Father of Nations) in his heart, asks Father Abraham to come and send Lazarus with the merest of water to soothe his pain. Father Abraham responds, "You received your good things when you were alive, while Lazarus here received bad things. Now he is receiving his good things while you are receiving your bad things. Besides there is an impassable chasm separating the two of you".
Has your life before this great struggle been what you considered good things? Have you gotten to the point where you might go, "But I have only received bad things, my life has been miserable". Then that is one step closer to the waters.
For one comes to the point where they must give up everything to continue, and that giving up is truly in the heart, not externally. There, one sees just how miserable their lot has been. For some this is easy, for others hard.
Indeed, such is the mind, or the nature of God to shut doors and keep them shut or open them and keep them open... that one day we can see our lives as full of good things. And the next we can see it as the most miserable life on the planet.
We, too, as children of God must realize inwardly, God is teaching us that kind of control. To shut internal doors on that which should be shut and keep it shut. And to open internal doors on that which should be opened and keep it open. That is internal strength through the Spirit of God. That is life. That is what comes from the "contend with God and man".
That is will and that is the boundary of the will which is one's imagination.
That abyss which can not be crossed? What is impossible for God? For the road we walk in life has an ultimate stop point where, to continue on, we must cross an abyss. Can one cross that abyss through logic, or anything but faith? No. But by faith we can cross that abyss knowing there is a road there even if below our feet it seems certain doom and surely no invisible bridge.
But that invisible bridge is there, held by God, for it is the final test, the final exam of faith.
Where, then are the waters, truly? If we look to others to the point that we find ourselves thirsty, be wary and stop yourself. You are forgetting they do not have the answers, like the vigilant virgins and the oil. God does. And where is God but inside? So stop and look inside for the answer, not "out there". Then, one finds it.
That, too, is by faith. Hard faith, at times.
It can be like a final exam we find ourselves at not having studied. One can get very upset by the testing, until one remembers, "wait a second, whatever answer I give is the answer God gave me, for what is sin but lack of knowledge and if I lack knowledge then God has simply shut that door for me". As this is the truth. In fact, we very often had the right knowledge just minutes before. God shows us how He can open and shut doors so we forget. And then remember.
When one is shown such a thing, then one has learned from the Teacher, who is Christ. Through our hearts, and at times, thankfully, through the mouths and actions of others.
Everybody has different questions. These questions may be on almost anything which so causes them to thirst. They are as questions on a final exam. A test. They may be multiple choice. Maybe there are multiple possible answers one can see -- but one really needs to know the right one. Or maybe it is a true or false question.
In the real tests, true or false can not be cheated. For if one answers a question which is posed to one "true" when they are really unsure and figure they have a fifty-fifty chance of being right or wrong... sooner or later they may be tested again in a different way and answer "false". And so they failed that test.
But faith says, "There is no failure. It is impossible. Because even if I can not understand why God would love me, well, surely God must, for God is love and made me and knows me better then anyone else. Therefore, as David spoke of, 'God even if I go to the abyss, you are there with me'".
And indeed, there is no place one might go that God is not with them.
Would God then wish to keep one of his own children forever in such dark places of crying and gnashing one's teeth? I think not.
Hopefully these things help as well. Maybe some are challenging, and you will have to struggle over it to match your own experiences and current beliefs.
Remember, as far as knowledge goes, however, that 'we never really know anything as we should'. Knowledge is extremely over rated.
And, I suppose finally, if one finds that one is as a child, and everything before is meaningless, then be of good cheer, for 'one must become as a child to enter the Kingdom of God'. Children play. They pretend. They are very serious in their games, but they quickly will go from one to another.
They have fun in playing. And that is what life is about. Even if we are quite terrible children in the sense that we go through quite terrible "games".
These things change us, make us stronger, make us able to believe harder, make us able to change the world. From the inside out.
