- Apr 11, 2016
- 5
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- Faith
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- Married
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- US-Republican
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.
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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