I just need to vent.

[aiki]

I've posted a lot about my own personal story on here and how I messed up and missed the plan that God had for me four years ago and in the process forfeited everything I wanted from Him

Have you ever wanted God just for Himself? God's greatest gift to us is Himself, you know. If He gave you nothing else, you'd still have the very best from God that you could ever get.

It's four years later and right after everything happened, I ran away from God because of how angry I was at Him for taking it away from me or at the very least allowing me to do that,

"Allowing you to do that"? You aren't God's puppet. You have the freedom to choose and you did. Forgive me for being blunt, but that's on you, not God.

It says something about your relationship with God that when He didn't give you what you thought He should have given to you that you walked away. I don't think you really understand who God is and how utterly amazing it is that He offers to you a relationship with Himself.

I've also been asking Him for four years if there is any chance at all that He would be willing to give me another chance at what I refused the first time, and I can't tell what He's saying, but I'm 90% sure He is saying "no", and I just can't take it.

First-world problems, eh? So tough. I mean, you could be living in squalor and destitution, dying of disease, hungry all the time like many are in third-world countries. You could have to hide constantly from roaming paramilitary gangs of killers, bent on raping and pillaging every village they come across as happens frequently in parts of Africa and South America. You could be living under some horrible, fascist regime, worried constantly about ending up in prison or being executed for some trivial offense against the State. But no, instead, you can't do what you really want to do. Terrible. Just terrible. You're far worse off than anyone in these situations I've just described, eh? You should just go to Starbucks and drown your troubles in lattes and pastries and ignore just how privileged and blessed you are to live where you do and to know Christ as your Saviour.

I wasn't aiming to do anything wrong when I refused all of that from Him...I just couldn't be sure that what God did for me wasn't a random moment of generosity to lure me in only to have Him turn on me and start treating me the way my father treated me and I didn't want to do anything to make Him want to do that to me.

Yeah, God isn't like your earthly father. At all. Surely, His becoming a man and dying on a cross to atone for your sins and save you from an eternity in hell should have shown you this. Do you truly think a God who would do this for you - when you absolutely didn't deserve it - is just waiting for you to step wrong so He can slap you down and crush the life out of you? Yikes! What a totally off-base view of God!

I do want to come back to Him and I want to have that relationship with Him, but while I don't have any definite proof that He's going to do and saying what I think He is, I can't make myself get close enough to Him to find out the truth and if this is what He's going to do (take all of those things from me forever and never allow me to have them again because of what I did) then I can't let Him do this to me.

You have no power at all to prevent whatever God is going to do to you. None. God is not in the least constrained by your lack of belief in Him or unwillingness to walk rightly with Him. He has done exactly as He has wished to do since before He created the universe and will continue to do so forever. Isn't it kinda' silly, then, to think that not drawing close to God somehow keeps Him from acting in your life as He wants to?

God isn't manipulated by the If-you-don't-do-what-i-want-then-I'll-leave-you threat. He doesn't need any of us. He's perfect and has always been so. Nothing in this universe makes Him any more fulfilled or satisfies a need He has; nothing in the universe adds to His perfectness. Perfection, by definition, cannot be added to, you see; perfection means to be entirely without need. So, whether you walk with God or not, He's not diminished in the slightest. But you are. Very much.

The flow of benefits between you and God is all in one direction: from Him to you. God doesn't get anything out of giving you the opportunity to know and love Him. You're a lot of work - just like the rest of us. You're wayward, and selfish, playing manipulative games with God, just as we all do. And yet, He still extends Himself to you in love, offering to you an abundant life in Himself. He's not human, you see, loving you only when you have earned His love, caring for you only when He thinks you deserve to be. No, God has moved toward you in love when He had every right to toss you aside, when you were His enemy, and when no benefit accrues to Himself in loving you.

All of this has hurt me so bad and the thought of never getting to do what He wanted me to do, what I had a burning desire and passion for at one point and was all set up for me to take...

Look, God wants you to love Him. That's the First and Great Commandment. It stands before and above all other things God wants you to do. And you can obey this command no matter what you have failed to do in other respects in your relationship with God. You are merely compounding your disobedience by (possibly) failing to follow His leading and then using that failure as an excuse to withdraw from Him and so disobey the First and Great Commandment, too.

You know, the more you are absorbed with yourself, with your hurts, and failures, and fears, the less you can enjoy God and walk well with Him. You were made by God to be surrendered to, and centered upon, Him, not you. And when you are, you will find peace and contentment that you cannot find in anything or anyone else.

I'm sorry for being a burden on these forums and for just not doing what I should do and for, frankly, being an annoyance.

Meh. We all have stuff we're working out with God. Don't sweat it.

I don't think there is an end to how broken up all of this has made me and I feel like any day I'm going to crack.

The more you allow a thing to absorb your focus, the more power it has to shape you. This is why God in His word tells us to constantly look unto Jesus (Hebrews 12:2-3) not ourselves and our problems, disappointments and regrets.

I also don't understand why God would choose to take it from me or at least let this happen when He knew that the reason I didn't take it was because I was scared, and scared because of everything I'd been through in my life up until that point...

Perhaps part of what He is trying to teach you is the terrible cost of acting in fear in your walk with Him. (See Philippians 4:6-7)

Again, you aren't God's puppet. You are responsible for what you choose and how you act, not God. He has told you how to be who He wants you to be in His word. He has also given you of His Spirit who enables you to live as you ought. How is it God's fault, then, that you went a bit awry?

I don't understand how He could know all of that and still choose to hurt me the way I believe He is going to. It's too painful to call it good even though I know it is, but I wish it wasn't...I just can't let Him do this to me...

See above.

 

[Bob Crowley]

I was still struggling with a lot of things leftover from that old church as well as other things that had happened to me, like growing up with an abusive father before I knew God and also having no exposure to Christianity until I was on my own as an adult).

I may be jumping the gun here, but it seems to me that a lot of your issues come from the fact you grew up with an abusive father. I went through the same thing, although it was mostly emotional abuse - constant ridicule and humiliation to the point where he had deliberately and completely destroyed my self confidence.

As a consequence, the idea of God as "Father" doesn't mean much to me. Oh, I'm well aware He's there - I've had far too many spiritual experiences for that. But even my old pastor said to me once, "All He's done all your life is humiliate you!! What have you done to deserve all this??" Sometimes when I hear the words of a song we sing during mass which includes "I will be a Father to you...", my thoughts are "Yeah, yeah! I'll believe it when I see it." And that's how I feel, based on my experience.

God as Lord, yes. Omnipotent, yes. But "Father"? It doesn't mean much to me, and probably never will.

So your problem, like mine, is to somehow work around the issue of God without dragging in your father, or the cruel and stupid church you attended in your early days as a Christian.

I think one way that would help you would be to get involved in some charitable work, where you are helping others. There are a million other wounded souls out there you know. You're not the only one. Helping others might take you you out of yourself at least a little bit.

I'd also query why you're so hung up on the question of debt. I don't think you've specified what it was for. Student loan to study music? Buy a home? Buy a car? We don't know.

Until you tell us exactly what the proposed debt would be for, we can't advise you much.

So my short term advice would be just to join a local charity and help others. Take your mind off yourself for a change.

Others might advise you to just try to think of God as "Father". But the reality is that since your experience of "Fatherhood" has been so negative, such advice is useless. It means nothing.

 

[Endeavourer]

and what the crux of all of this is has to do with whether or not it would be sinful for a Christian to have debt...I was scared that if I quit the job that I had during those two years that I was off school and in that terrible church that I would be sinning.

It is DEFINITELY not sinful for a Christian to have debt. Without debt most of us would not be able to acquire a home or run a business or finish college.

Most Christians in the US are or were at one time indebted in order to acquire a home. Many Christians in the US who have a college degree were at one time indebted to student loans.

Going a step further, many if not most CHURCHES in the US go into some debt to acquire a church building or to renovate/add on.

Take on debt wisely; don't let it go beyond what you can pay even in difficult circumstances.

 

[Emerald518]

It is DEFINITELY not sinful for a Christian to have debt. Without debt most of us would not be able to acquire a home or run a business or finish college.

Most Christians in the US are or were at one time indebted in order to acquire a home. Many Christians in the US who have a college degree were at one time indebted to student loans.

Going a step further, many if not most CHURCHES in the US go into some debt to acquire a church building or to renovate/add on.

Take on debt wisely; don't let it go beyond what you can pay even in difficult circumstances.

Thank you. I really hope it doesnt sound like I'm pulling things out of my rear end here, but last night I remembered what the actual thing that happened back there was instead of what I'd twisted it into. Hope this gives more perspective.

I realize that in all of that process, there was a lot of guilt. I knew what the Bible said about me, that I was sinful and evil and as a result I felt guilty for having something I knew I didnt deserve to have and shouldn't have. I didnt want to be that person, so I did everything I could be to not be. I knew initially that debt wasnt sinful, but it wasnt wise to take it out and in my mind I saw God as only tolerating that if push came to shove, but He wouldnt be happy with it. I also believed that if I did that, I'd be only giving Him the bare minimum and what kind of daughter would I be if I only gave Him back the bare minimum after what He'd done for me? In my mind, giving God the bare minimum meant that I didnt really love Him and was like the Pharisees....only going through the motions and giving God the bare minimum to say I'd filled some requirement and God didnt deserve that from me. I didnt want to be an ungrateful, entitled, self seeking, scumbag slouch of a child and i believed that if I did what i wanted to do so badly, that I'd become that person. And in my mind, the only way to love God and keep myself holy, keep myself pure, keep myself as the person I was after I got baptized was to do what I actually did. In my mind it was better because I would be going above and beyond for Him by doing something I didnt have to do and my being the ideal in all parts of my life as I was sure He wanted and would be more pleased with...by doing this, it meant that I really loved Him and wouldnt dishonor Him or fall into sin because I wouldnt become sinful by becoming that lazy, awful scumbag I thought doing what I wanted to do would make me and eventually grew to believe that God not only wanted it from me but was expecting it from me and my imperfection and all of these other things from the fall in Eden were tolerated by Him, but not wanted by Him and He was displeased with them to the point of anger. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I basically thought God only tolerated my sinfulness and imperfection and was expecting me to not give in to it and rise above it all and be perfect anyway. It's like in school how some teachers will offer extra credit on an assignment and tell their students that they dont have to do the extra work, bit deep down they secretly hope they will. I wanted to please God, I wanted to give Him what was good enough rather than the bare minimum when i could give Him more and the way i saw things at the time, the only way I could fully please God and love and Honor Him the way I wanted to and how I believed He wanted me to was if I were as close to perfection as a human could get and if i eliminated all sin and all possible temptations or gateways to sin from my life, as far as they could possibly be removed from me...and from there everything else I believed just slid right in...and I believed that doing anything less would not be good enough and I wouldnt be good enough either...

 

[LoricaLady]

The title of this post speaks for itself. I just need to vent someplace and have felt like exploding all week.

I've posted a lot about my own personal story on here and how I messed up and missed the plan that God had for me four years ago and in the process forfeited everything I wanted from Him (long story short for those who don't know, I was in a spiritually abusive church that taught me lies about God and I was afraid of Him and angry at Him for a long time. I ended up leaving that church and got baptized and the day I did, God made it clear what He wanted for me and gave me a desire for a certain calling and then made it happen. I was still struggling with a lot of things leftover from that old church as well as other things that had happened to me, like growing up with an abusive father before I knew God and also having no exposure to Christianity until I was on my own as an adult). Even though I had experienced what I did from God, I was still doubtful that He wouldn't hurt me or do something to spoil all of those good things for me if I decided to take them, so I refused them because I was afraid and trying to protect myself...and because of that, I missed all of what He gave me even though I so badly wanted to take it...

It's four years later and right after everything happened, I ran away from God because of how angry I was at Him for taking it away from me or at the very least allowing me to do that, and because of that, I never really developed a relationship with Him. I've also been asking Him for four years if there is any chance at all that He would be willing to give me another chance at what I refused the first time, and I can't tell what He's saying, but I'm 90% sure He is saying "no", and I just can't take it. I wasn't aiming to do anything wrong when I refused all of that from Him...I just couldn't be sure that what God did for me wasn't a random moment of generosity to lure me in only to have Him turn on me and start treating me the way my father treated me and I didn't want to do anything to make Him want to do that to me. I do want to come back to Him and I want to have that relationship with Him, but while I don't have any definite proof that He's going to do and saying what I think He is, I can't make myself get close enough to Him to find out the truth and if this is what He's going to do (take all of those things from me forever and never allow me to have them again because of what I did) then I can't let Him do this to me. All of this has hurt me so bad and the thought of never getting to do what He wanted me to do, what I had a burning desire and passion for at one point and was all set up for me to take...

I'm sorry for being a burden on these forums and for just not doing what I should do and for, frankly, being an annoyance. I don't think there is an end to how broken up all of this has made me and I feel like any day I'm going to crack. I also don't understand why God would choose to take it from me or at least let this happen when He knew that the reason I didn't take it was because I was scared, and scared because of everything I'd been through in my life up until that point...I don't understand how He could know all of that and still choose to hurt me the way I believe He is going to. It's too painful to call it good even though I know it is, but I wish it wasn't...I just can't let Him do this to me...

There are many paths in life that can bring you blessings, and cause you to serve the Father at the same time. I have no way to know what He wants, but I know He wants YOU to know.

If you are very healthy, I suggest a 24 hour water only fast once a week with prayer for guidance and help. Praying for you.

 

[Emerald518]

There are many paths in life that can bring you blessings, and cause you to serve the Father at the same time. I have no way to know what He wants, but I know He wants YOU to know.

If you are very healthy, I suggest a 24 hour water only fast once a week with prayer for guidance and help. Praying for you.

Thank you. This week I know that I've really come to understand just exactly what happened back there and it has really helped things a lot. I think much of the anger that I had been carrying around was coming from just not being able to put a name to a lot of those things that i was feeling and the conclusions about all of this that I'd come to in my head.

I now understand that I didnt take what God was offering me because I felt like if I did, then I wouldnt be loving Him enough or loving Him as much as I should. I thought that by doing what I wanted, that I'd only be giving back to God the absolute bare minimum that I could and was capable of giving Him and in my mind, what kind of daughter would I be to Him if I only did that? I believed that if I did that, it wouldnt be good enough for Him and I would be ungrateful, selfish and someone who was only using God to get what she wanted and I didnt want to be that person...so I didnt choose it...

 

[Bro. Dave Gardner]

I'm not sure if you are addressing me here or not, but since you quoted me, I will presume to chime in. The short answer to the question of debt is that it is a cruel taskmaster. The basic position of Scripture is that not only is the taking on of debt unwise at best, but that this matter is posed as a verily, verily by stating that God's people should not even be engaged in the lending of monies. Generally speaking, If I have money enough to risk in lending, I feel I should instead give it if, of course, the Lord seems to be leading. Barring this judgment, and on the other hand, the possibility that God is punishing you for a mistake made in this life seems somewhat unlikely. He seems to only do that to those who are involved in high-handed, open rebellion, and even then, except in rare cases, it is designed to be redemptive in purpose. If God is calling you to minister in music, you will be surprised at how He will make the way clear for you. You are very young, and you need to exercise exhuberant, youthful faith as often as you have opportunity so that you can quickly begin to expect big things of Him. Let Him lead, but try not to run ahead of Him. He will not fail you. You will see.

For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.
(Hebrews 10:37-38)

An Excellent, Free E-book On Cultivating Faith

Excellent Book!!!

 

[LoricaLady]

Thank you. This week I know that I've really come to understand just exactly what happened back there and it has really helped things a lot. I think much of the anger that I had been carrying around was coming from just not being able to put a name to a lot of those things that i was feeling and the conclusions about all of this that I'd come to in my head.

I now understand that I didnt take what God was offering me because I felt like if I did, then I wouldnt be loving Him enough or loving Him as much as I should. I thought that by doing what I wanted, that I'd only be giving back to God the absolute bare minimum that I could and was capable of giving Him and in my mind, what kind of daughter would I be to Him if I only did that? I believed that if I did that, it wouldnt be good enough for Him and I would be ungrateful, selfish and someone who was only using God to get what she wanted and I didnt want to be that person...so I didnt choose it...

On reading your post it seems to me that your biggest problem is not the one you mentioned, though that is important. It seems the biggest problems are that you seem to have a tendency to get under condemnation about yourself and that confusion is being your enemy. To me those areas would be the first ones to address in prayer and any fasting. Your Heavenly Father does not want you beating yourself up all the time, and He does want you to walk in light. Praying for you...