Sorry guys, I feel ridiculous posting all that. You can delete this thread.
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Long Post, Need some Insight.
- Thread starter beforeimpact
- Start date
joey_downunder
big sister
I am glad we were both around to help you a bit. (BTW For me I think it is great being in such a different time zone to most of you - I wouldn't be able to do it otherwise).
That is a good start. You are at an advantage going to a Bible believing church when you were younger. Compared to children of atheists and children brought up in other faiths you don't have to "unlearn" as much. It is a shame that you missed out on fellowship when you were in your teens though.
Good for you. People are supposed to mature in their faith. How can they do that if they don't question things?
Apparently the Baptist denomination is far more separatist to non-believers and backsliders than most other denominations. Maybe you had absorbed that perspective while growing up? (I only started to going to Baptist churches recenty and that is one thing that I have noticed that is different. That has its good and bad side of course.)
Horrible horrible stage. I was so glad to get out of high school as well!
It sounds like you had real struggles with self-esteem because of weight problems, relationship problems AND academic problems to finish it all off.
Since you experienced all that you won't forget the rejection and emotional pain from that part of growing up. You also had the personal strength to turn yourself around despite all the issues you were facing- that is great to read.
A lot of what you have typed shows that you have a real strength in self-analysis, objectivity, honesty and deep thinking departments. Now that is a advantage if you ever go into ministry with teenagers or hurting people in the future. You're even familar with the good side of psychology!
The LORD has made everything for its purpose,
even the wicked for the day of trouble. (Proverbs 16:4)
That sounds like you started experiencing deep existential depression. God used that to make you think about faith again draw nearer to Him even though you didn't realise it at the time.
The heart of man plans his way,
but the LORD establishes his steps. (Proverbs 16:9)
It is a very painful thing to struggle with. It sounds like nihilism started to get hold of you as well. King Solomon goes into this very well in Ecclesiastes chapters 1-2.
You're sort of in a transition phase, in a type of twilight zone. Do you feel like you waiting for the sun to rise but you fear that you'll never feel the warmth of the Sun again? It is coming. It may take a while to feel the warmth since you've in the cold dead night for so long but it is coming.
Sing praises to the LORD, O you his saints,
and give thanks to his holy name.
For his anger is but for a moment,
and his favor is for a lifetime.
Weeping may tarry for the night,
but joy comes with the morning. (Psalm 30:4-5)
Do you mean what you should do next?I have a picture in my mind of someone standing at the crossroads, holding a spiritual map trying to figure out which way "the way to life" is.
There is a way that seems right to a man,
but its end is the way to death. (Proverbs 14:12)
Have you made sure that you're holding the right map i.e. the way to God map?
Jesus said to him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one
comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)
P.S. you were too late.... I kept some of your comments for you.
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Bahh....
Thanks for taking the time to read through all that. (even though I was a bit too late in deleting it)
I don't know why I typed so much, I seriously was intending it to be maybe a paragraph or two but it just kept going and going. I hate letting myself get worked up like that because afterwards when I've calmed down I look at what I've typed and I feel almost like I'm different person.
Anyway, a lot of what you posted rings true to me. Especially the things about Nihilism,Existential depression and that twilight zone feeling. I'm definitely going to sit down and read carefully over those passages you posted from the Bible and see where that takes me.
Honestly though, thank you again for reading everything and taking the time to post all that. Even though I wish you hadn't of seen all that, it does feel a little easier knowing someone else out there knows about my problems.
Thanks for taking the time to read through all that. (even though I was a bit too late in deleting it)
I don't know why I typed so much, I seriously was intending it to be maybe a paragraph or two but it just kept going and going. I hate letting myself get worked up like that because afterwards when I've calmed down I look at what I've typed and I feel almost like I'm different person.
Anyway, a lot of what you posted rings true to me. Especially the things about Nihilism,Existential depression and that twilight zone feeling. I'm definitely going to sit down and read carefully over those passages you posted from the Bible and see where that takes me.
Honestly though, thank you again for reading everything and taking the time to post all that. Even though I wish you hadn't of seen all that, it does feel a little easier knowing someone else out there knows about my problems.
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Deusmaximaerror
Newbie
- Mar 8, 2012
- 200
- 34
- Country
- Canada
- Gender
- Male
- Faith
- Un. Church of CA
- Marital Status
- Single
"So I apologize for that huge life-story/rant I just wanted to finally tell someone and I'm hoping someone out there can possibly point me in a direction."
I said pretty much the same thing in one of my longer opening posts. I believe now (which I didn't a few days ago) that we internally confound ourselves a little more when we believe that asking for help is beneath the current and future readers/listeners. For me, believing that I was beneath help clouded my thoughts and created wandering doubts about whether or not I was worthy of meaningful help.
I'll do my best to address every point I can be relevant to. First thing to note though is that I am no theologian. The deeper meaning of some basic principles regarding healing from Christ and the process of being made whole (that is, transformed over time) through Him elude me. And if I may be so bold, not many concepts that are secular (for sheer contrast) elude me. That proves how deeply underlying the causes of spiritual pain are, and how deep the appropriate healing must be to help us. The good thing is that God through Jesus (Or the other way around? See? No theologian here! XD) is the greatest brain surgeon in the universe! (I use the term brain surgeon because I can't think of a word for spirit surgeon)
"My mother was always trying to be a devout Christian and always referring to her bible for help when situations came up."
Do you still talk with her? Maybe she could help with guidance about reading the Bible. There are some members here too *cough Joey!* who are very good at applying solid Biblically natured advice to many, many, many different aspects of life.
"While I had faith, and believed everything I was learning,I do remember always questioning things I learned from church. I remember how I couldn't ever understand how God could ever love people who killed others (like straight up Murder)and I remember always asking "Well, if God made us, who made God?" I always have been the type of person who liked to dig deeper into things that interested me and always asked questions. "
I can relate to that interest in digging deeper. When I was hardly into the 4th grade I started reading Young Oxford astronomy textbooks and such because I wanted to know what stars were made of. Lights just hanging in the sky didn't seem like a good enough answer for me.
Of course, finding out that they were gigantic reactors in a cold vacuum called space which were compressing different gases and metals (but still expanding!) and causing highly energized elemental fusion for billions upon billions of years was my reward for sounding out all the hard words like synthesis and electromagnetic radiation!
To say it another way, anything worth understanding in its entirety is beautiful. And beautiful things are hard to describe. When things are hard to describe, we can get confused. When we get confused, we get lost. When we get lost, we can fall down. When we fall down we have choice: stay on the ground, or get up and try to find our way.
Sometimes finding our way means we retrace our steps, but thats following our own advice, so we might end up staying lost. But every night, we can see the stars, and at some point we might notice that a star points the same way every night, for a couple hours to our eyes at least. So if we follow that star for those few hours every night, we will probably be heading in the same direction all that time, and ultimately somewhere new, instead of wandering around retracing the footprints that lead in circles through the underbrush.
That new place might seem like a lot of different things at first: unusual, illogical, not understandable, too hot, too cold, and there might be some really bad weather too at times, like torrential storms and hurricanes.
But if I was out in a new place, but not so lost anymore, and things didn't seem right, or that I was in the wrong place altogether...Who knows? I might just be confused because I was so used to eating bugs and using leaves for toilet paper back in the jungle! XD
"My Mom would always explain how God loved everyone even though they made mistakes and I would understand more when I was older. She also told me that God has always been there and that its impossible for us to wrap our heads around it. "
When I first started stumbling through Christianity, I came to the realisation that space time is a construct. Just like the periodic table of elements is a construct, and the four (yes I know, everyone says its three) states of matter are a construct. So by that definition, if space is finite, time must therefore be finite. So when I expanded on that thought process, I realized that God existed before time. When Christians say God created everything, they really mean...EVERYTHING. Time, space, matter, energy, nature, electromagnetics, elements, even weak nuclear force (what keeps our molecules and such together)...EVERYTHING. He made the rules, the players, the table and the objective, in essence. He made a system for us to live in, and because He exists outside of time He didn't even have to "think" about it, even as extrodinary His intelligence is. It just was. It was the perfect way to manifest a physical universe. Instantly. The system of rules that make up the basic building blocks of the universe are old, but God, I believe is much older than that.
I understand the physical world well, but I can't comment on the spiritual world (or worlds). It dwarfs my understanding. I got to the point where I thought it was better to die and cease to exist, even after I knew about the essentially irrefutable existence of the afterlife (there were too many near death experience stories of so many stripes I couldn't dismiss them all).
"I still had faith and prayed every now and then because I didn't like the idea of logically questioning the religious part of my life."
I'll cut in here because I notice you use the word religion alot. I grew up as an athiest, and I was an athiest until I was 21. I'm 23 now. One of the first things I started learning when I started trying to understand Christ, who is the Redeemer, the Prince of Peace, the Wonderful Counselor, the King of Kings, and so on (He has ALOT of titles), is that He is the point of Christianity, the Christian religion is not the point of Christ.
We are the point of Christ.
If we weren't, He would've had 77 legions of warrior angels descending on those people Judas led to arrest Him so fast there wouldn't have been a scrap left of the mob after 10 seconds.
Instead, He forgave the people capturing Him. He even healed the ear of one of the people after Him, after one of His disciples cut it off trying to defend Jesus. And that healing was done when they were in the middle of the physical act of arresting Him. Nobody on earth but Him could've (or would've) done that, and I'm not even touching on the miracle healing aspect. I would've been stabby that day, thats for sure. Anyone of us would have been.
Off topic: Oh, that felt nice. A little tingly when I wrote that nice bit there. Spirit conductive maybe (for once)? (As opposed to spiritually rubberized! XD) Oh, and although I certainly did not correctly quote the Bible there. The verses dealing with that are from John:22:47-51
"My main concern was trying to fit in and get a girlfriend."
The thought of fitting in was almost incomprehensible to me. I found a decent group of people to play music (they were all about 5 years older than me too), and I'm glad I was able to do what I love with them for the 3 years I did. Speaking of which, I was so hopeless with girls (I didn't even think I was eligible, ever, at all) it came as a shock that I was able to get in a relationship that the memories I still hold dear to this day. But as good and fulfilled I felt with her love, and her affection, and what she meant to me, it was hard to let go when it was over. I still haven't truly gotten over it, and that was 8 years ago.
God has never done that to us, and He never will and if God truly ever did remove His love from us, we'd probably die on the spot because even if we didn't know in our thoughts He did, our spirit would know what we had lost.
"I ended up dropping out"
I never finished high school either, I was in special education (ever since grade 1! Imagine making friends at all with that hanging over your head!)
and by the time I was done the full term of school, I had only half of the needed credits because the other half were "special education credits", and they didn't count. (Nice society eh?)
"I started studying and got my G.E.D in a few weeks which really boosted my esteem for a bit so I started working out and dieting hardcore."
I'm glad you had that experience. It seems like you learned alot during that time. And I know that there are things you can't unlearn, but God doesn't want us to unlearn anything, I believe. If anything, my human mind can only say we are never supposed to stop learning, regardless of how helpful it seems at the time. I don't think God puts us on trial every day for what we know or don't know. He would make a supercomputer from the year 70 million look like an abacus. How much can He expect us to comprehend at one time? I think everything we learn serves a purpose. I know how to write, and how to read. Am I a writer? No. Am I a professor? No. Am I a wicked awesome bass player? YES. Could I be all three? Sure, I guess!
Maybe my true calling is to write books about psychological warfare in Latin with my feet while singing the Illyiad backwards in Greek and playing YYZ by Rush to a laser light show detailing the history of Canadian involvement in the Normandy invasions.
I'm serious, thats the best idea I've had in months. But I do have a feeling God has a little bit of a better idea of what I can do. I hope He leads me to it in His own time.
"I was getting a little frustrated because a huge part of my motivation for losing all that weight was because I figured that was a huge part of me not being able to get past friendship with them."
Oh man, I have had no luck since my last relationship. I feel as if I am the creepiest guy this side of Sherlock Holmes.
"The only explanation I could come up with was maybe there is something going on with my personality."
It took me a long time to realize what I was doing wrong, but I have never been able to fix it. I'm not easy to understand, thats for sure. Its not that I blame women, God, or anyone for that. I just can't be as open and fun, and interesting as I should be. I know that I'm a good person underneath it all, with a lot of love to give. One day, maybe eight thousand years later for all I know, I'll meet someone who would want to be with me. I can actually be very patient if I put my mind to it. Its not easy though. The thing to realize though is that all those seemingly happy couples, or jerks with pretty girlfriends is that their feelings are temporary, and even if they are smart, nice people, they can still be closed minded and not all that attractive under the surface.
"I started researching very deeply into social interactions with people, the psychology and looking at how healthy relationships develop for friendships or relationships. How the brain interprets things depending on how you view yourself and others."
Heh, one of my favourite topics to study. I have found though that a big portion of social interactions is influenced by what society deems as good, normal, acceptable, attractive, funny, etc. The more I studied social psychology, the more I realized that myself and everyone else like me is being boxed in by what "they" want us to think and feel and act like. Who are "they"? I don't know personally. I just call it money for short.
" Anyway, I started applying this stuff to my life and started helping others with their relationships and even got a decent relationship of my own started. I started making new friends and my relationship with customers at work improved. I started to become very outgoing and a generally happy person."
I'm glad that you experienced such improvement in how you applied your knowledge! Thats an important thing about knowledge and wisdom (notice I seperate the two), is that it has to be applied in order to have results. I've studied the retrograde motion of Mars and Venus that lead Nicolas Copernicus to establish the Heliosentric universe theory. I applied his knowledge to learning how to understand ecliptical orbit, apparent and true luminosity, and tidally locked planets like Mercury. But I have never been able to apply my knowledge of Erikksons hierarchy of needs!
Ironic, no?
"I figured out a lot of those superficial things matter very very little when it comes to relationships with people or feeling happy in general."
Exactly right. We were created with the intent to rely only on God for our needs. When we turned away from Him though (I'm talking Adam and Eve here) we started a downhill rolling snowball of despair. Every generation had new ways of trying to be happy, and trying to make ourselves better.
Those things are out of our control, and God has the keys to those locks. Jesus came to bring us ALL back to Him, so that He could open them. Original sin is hard to comprehend, but its ramifications are far reaching. (Thats not to say I ascribe to the olde tyme belief that even children are perverse heaps of filth. They used to talk to the faithful so nicely back then. I believe that we are all inherently good because as God's creations, we wouldn't have been designed to be evil. That makes no sense.)
LOL, the post is too long. Have to add a second one
I said pretty much the same thing in one of my longer opening posts. I believe now (which I didn't a few days ago) that we internally confound ourselves a little more when we believe that asking for help is beneath the current and future readers/listeners. For me, believing that I was beneath help clouded my thoughts and created wandering doubts about whether or not I was worthy of meaningful help.
I'll do my best to address every point I can be relevant to. First thing to note though is that I am no theologian. The deeper meaning of some basic principles regarding healing from Christ and the process of being made whole (that is, transformed over time) through Him elude me. And if I may be so bold, not many concepts that are secular (for sheer contrast) elude me. That proves how deeply underlying the causes of spiritual pain are, and how deep the appropriate healing must be to help us. The good thing is that God through Jesus (Or the other way around? See? No theologian here! XD) is the greatest brain surgeon in the universe! (I use the term brain surgeon because I can't think of a word for spirit surgeon)
"My mother was always trying to be a devout Christian and always referring to her bible for help when situations came up."
Do you still talk with her? Maybe she could help with guidance about reading the Bible. There are some members here too *cough Joey!* who are very good at applying solid Biblically natured advice to many, many, many different aspects of life.
"While I had faith, and believed everything I was learning,I do remember always questioning things I learned from church. I remember how I couldn't ever understand how God could ever love people who killed others (like straight up Murder)and I remember always asking "Well, if God made us, who made God?" I always have been the type of person who liked to dig deeper into things that interested me and always asked questions. "
I can relate to that interest in digging deeper. When I was hardly into the 4th grade I started reading Young Oxford astronomy textbooks and such because I wanted to know what stars were made of. Lights just hanging in the sky didn't seem like a good enough answer for me.
Of course, finding out that they were gigantic reactors in a cold vacuum called space which were compressing different gases and metals (but still expanding!) and causing highly energized elemental fusion for billions upon billions of years was my reward for sounding out all the hard words like synthesis and electromagnetic radiation!
To say it another way, anything worth understanding in its entirety is beautiful. And beautiful things are hard to describe. When things are hard to describe, we can get confused. When we get confused, we get lost. When we get lost, we can fall down. When we fall down we have choice: stay on the ground, or get up and try to find our way.
Sometimes finding our way means we retrace our steps, but thats following our own advice, so we might end up staying lost. But every night, we can see the stars, and at some point we might notice that a star points the same way every night, for a couple hours to our eyes at least. So if we follow that star for those few hours every night, we will probably be heading in the same direction all that time, and ultimately somewhere new, instead of wandering around retracing the footprints that lead in circles through the underbrush.
That new place might seem like a lot of different things at first: unusual, illogical, not understandable, too hot, too cold, and there might be some really bad weather too at times, like torrential storms and hurricanes.
But if I was out in a new place, but not so lost anymore, and things didn't seem right, or that I was in the wrong place altogether...Who knows? I might just be confused because I was so used to eating bugs and using leaves for toilet paper back in the jungle! XD
"My Mom would always explain how God loved everyone even though they made mistakes and I would understand more when I was older. She also told me that God has always been there and that its impossible for us to wrap our heads around it. "
When I first started stumbling through Christianity, I came to the realisation that space time is a construct. Just like the periodic table of elements is a construct, and the four (yes I know, everyone says its three) states of matter are a construct. So by that definition, if space is finite, time must therefore be finite. So when I expanded on that thought process, I realized that God existed before time. When Christians say God created everything, they really mean...EVERYTHING. Time, space, matter, energy, nature, electromagnetics, elements, even weak nuclear force (what keeps our molecules and such together
)...EVERYTHING. He made the rules, the players, the table and the objective, in essence. He made a system for us to live in, and because He exists outside of time He didn't even have to "think" about it, even as extrodinary His intelligence is. It just was. It was the perfect way to manifest a physical universe. Instantly. The system of rules that make up the basic building blocks of the universe are old, but God, I believe is much older than that.I understand the physical world well, but I can't comment on the spiritual world (or worlds). It dwarfs my understanding. I got to the point where I thought it was better to die and cease to exist, even after I knew about the essentially irrefutable existence of the afterlife (there were too many near death experience stories of so many stripes I couldn't dismiss them all).
"I still had faith and prayed every now and then because I didn't like the idea of logically questioning the religious part of my life."
I'll cut in here because I notice you use the word religion alot. I grew up as an athiest, and I was an athiest until I was 21. I'm 23 now. One of the first things I started learning when I started trying to understand Christ, who is the Redeemer, the Prince of Peace, the Wonderful Counselor, the King of Kings, and so on (He has ALOT of titles), is that He is the point of Christianity, the Christian religion is not the point of Christ.
We are the point of Christ.
If we weren't, He would've had 77 legions of warrior angels descending on those people Judas led to arrest Him so fast there wouldn't have been a scrap left of the mob after 10 seconds.
Instead, He forgave the people capturing Him. He even healed the ear of one of the people after Him, after one of His disciples cut it off trying to defend Jesus. And that healing was done when they were in the middle of the physical act of arresting Him. Nobody on earth but Him could've (or would've) done that, and I'm not even touching on the miracle healing aspect. I would've been stabby that day, thats for sure. Anyone of us would have been.
Off topic: Oh, that felt nice. A little tingly when I wrote that nice bit there. Spirit conductive maybe (for once)? (As opposed to spiritually rubberized! XD) Oh, and although I certainly did not correctly quote the Bible there. The verses dealing with that are from John:22:47-51
"My main concern was trying to fit in and get a girlfriend."
The thought of fitting in was almost incomprehensible to me. I found a decent group of people to play music (they were all about 5 years older than me too), and I'm glad I was able to do what I love with them for the 3 years I did. Speaking of which, I was so hopeless with girls (I didn't even think I was eligible, ever, at all) it came as a shock that I was able to get in a relationship that the memories I still hold dear to this day. But as good and fulfilled I felt with her love, and her affection, and what she meant to me, it was hard to let go when it was over. I still haven't truly gotten over it, and that was 8 years ago.
God has never done that to us, and He never will and if God truly ever did remove His love from us, we'd probably die on the spot because even if we didn't know in our thoughts He did, our spirit would know what we had lost.
"I ended up dropping out"
I never finished high school either, I was in special education (ever since grade 1! Imagine making friends at all with that hanging over your head!
)and by the time I was done the full term of school, I had only half of the needed credits because the other half were "special education credits", and they didn't count. (Nice society eh?)
"I started studying and got my G.E.D in a few weeks which really boosted my esteem for a bit so I started working out and dieting hardcore."
I'm glad you had that experience. It seems like you learned alot during that time. And I know that there are things you can't unlearn, but God doesn't want us to unlearn anything, I believe. If anything, my human mind can only say we are never supposed to stop learning, regardless of how helpful it seems at the time. I don't think God puts us on trial every day for what we know or don't know. He would make a supercomputer from the year 70 million look like an abacus. How much can He expect us to comprehend at one time? I think everything we learn serves a purpose. I know how to write, and how to read. Am I a writer? No. Am I a professor? No. Am I a wicked awesome bass player? YES. Could I be all three? Sure, I guess!
Maybe my true calling is to write books about psychological warfare in Latin with my feet while singing the Illyiad backwards in Greek and playing YYZ by Rush to a laser light show detailing the history of Canadian involvement in the Normandy invasions.
I'm serious, thats the best idea I've had in months. But I do have a feeling God has a little bit of a better idea of what I can do. I hope He leads me to it in His own time.
"I was getting a little frustrated because a huge part of my motivation for losing all that weight was because I figured that was a huge part of me not being able to get past friendship with them."
Oh man, I have had no luck since my last relationship. I feel as if I am the creepiest guy this side of Sherlock Holmes.
"The only explanation I could come up with was maybe there is something going on with my personality."
It took me a long time to realize what I was doing wrong, but I have never been able to fix it. I'm not easy to understand, thats for sure. Its not that I blame women, God, or anyone for that. I just can't be as open and fun, and interesting as I should be. I know that I'm a good person underneath it all, with a lot of love to give. One day, maybe eight thousand years later for all I know, I'll meet someone who would want to be with me. I can actually be very patient if I put my mind to it. Its not easy though. The thing to realize though is that all those seemingly happy couples, or jerks with pretty girlfriends is that their feelings are temporary, and even if they are smart, nice people, they can still be closed minded and not all that attractive under the surface.
"I started researching very deeply into social interactions with people, the psychology and looking at how healthy relationships develop for friendships or relationships. How the brain interprets things depending on how you view yourself and others."
Heh, one of my favourite topics to study. I have found though that a big portion of social interactions is influenced by what society deems as good, normal, acceptable, attractive, funny, etc. The more I studied social psychology, the more I realized that myself and everyone else like me is being boxed in by what "they" want us to think and feel and act like. Who are "they"? I don't know personally. I just call it money for short.
" Anyway, I started applying this stuff to my life and started helping others with their relationships and even got a decent relationship of my own started. I started making new friends and my relationship with customers at work improved. I started to become very outgoing and a generally happy person."
I'm glad that you experienced such improvement in how you applied your knowledge! Thats an important thing about knowledge and wisdom (notice I seperate the two), is that it has to be applied in order to have results. I've studied the retrograde motion of Mars and Venus that lead Nicolas Copernicus to establish the Heliosentric universe theory. I applied his knowledge to learning how to understand ecliptical orbit, apparent and true luminosity, and tidally locked planets like Mercury. But I have never been able to apply my knowledge of Erikksons hierarchy of needs!
Ironic, no?
"I figured out a lot of those superficial things matter very very little when it comes to relationships with people or feeling happy in general."
Exactly right. We were created with the intent to rely only on God for our needs. When we turned away from Him though (I'm talking Adam and Eve here) we started a downhill rolling snowball of despair. Every generation had new ways of trying to be happy, and trying to make ourselves better.
Those things are out of our control, and God has the keys to those locks. Jesus came to bring us ALL back to Him, so that He could open them. Original sin is hard to comprehend, but its ramifications are far reaching. (Thats not to say I ascribe to the olde tyme belief that even children are perverse heaps of filth. They used to talk to the faithful so nicely back then. I believe that we are all inherently good because as God's creations, we wouldn't have been designed to be evil. That makes no sense.)
LOL, the post is too long. Have to add a second one
Upvote
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Deusmaximaerror
Newbie
- Mar 8, 2012
- 200
- 34
- Country
- Canada
- Gender
- Male
- Faith
- Un. Church of CA
- Marital Status
- Single
"It started to logically destroy everything that helped support my faith in the past and it completely turned my reality upside down."
I've read alot of the Bible, many books, and many, many, many chapters. But some of the words that God imparted to people to pass on to us are so simple, yet so complex in deeper meaning that they literally were passed over by my reading speed. There is so much meaning in the Bible that it defies being understood when read all at once. Even two verses put together can bring up a dozen different points about the same subject if looked at in different ways.
In short, what I'm trying to say is that the Bible seems to be around to make faith firmer and make doubt crumble. Of course, I am no expert on the subject of theology and biblical quotation.
"Every little thing I learned started to only show me the bad in people and it would only strengthen the thing that destroyed the rest of my faith"
Well, what I know about MG42s and Sarin gas tells me the human race are idiots. But looking at things more subtle, like art, and listening to music, and watching the river from my balcony, and taking a weevil that got in my place outside in a little tupper ware rather than eradicating it helps me see the good things in nature, which is from God, and we are through nature, which is from God. I can only see good when I look at that.
Yes. Satan exists. Yes, hes an exceedingly cunning, ridiculously intelligent, and incredibly adept at destroying things. Never once though have I heard of him making something. Ever. At all. If all that one can do is destroy and not create, his empire will crumble. It happened to the Gauls. It happened to the Golden Horde of Genghis Khan. it happened to the Japanese Empire of the 20th century. It happened to Napoleon (If I remember correctly, Napoleon just stole things from Egypt and had them shipped back to France). It happened to Hitler (The Atlantic seawall and the Panzer MK IV don't count as making something, lol). Destroyers destroy themselves, or they see the world burn with them. I think its pretty sad how low I've gotten, but then I just think back to those stirling individuals and kingdoms, etc and I think "what a waste of blood, time, and effort!". That applies to the way I think about myself too!
" I didn't have anyone I could go to because no one I knew understood what was going on in my head and I really didn't want them to understand either because what I was going through was something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy."
Now you do know someone who knows what its been like. I've lived it for 2 years straight. In the words of James Labrie from Dream Theatre in the song "build me up, break me down":
"No one is free from sin. The first to cast the stone. Fighting the fear within; I won't be left alone. You build me up, you break me down, until I'm falling to pieces. The price I pay, to live this way (!!!), and the fantasy stays alive. I can't live up, I can't let down and leave you falling to pieces. I crash and burn, I never learn (!!!). I'm your 'More than Obsession'"
Deep stuff that starts with s.
God bless dude!
I've read alot of the Bible, many books, and many, many, many chapters. But some of the words that God imparted to people to pass on to us are so simple, yet so complex in deeper meaning that they literally were passed over by my reading speed. There is so much meaning in the Bible that it defies being understood when read all at once. Even two verses put together can bring up a dozen different points about the same subject if looked at in different ways.
In short, what I'm trying to say is that the Bible seems to be around to make faith firmer and make doubt crumble. Of course, I am no expert on the subject of theology and biblical quotation.
"Every little thing I learned started to only show me the bad in people and it would only strengthen the thing that destroyed the rest of my faith"
Well, what I know about MG42s and Sarin gas tells me the human race are idiots. But looking at things more subtle, like art, and listening to music, and watching the river from my balcony, and taking a weevil that got in my place outside in a little tupper ware rather than eradicating it helps me see the good things in nature, which is from God, and we are through nature, which is from God. I can only see good when I look at that.
Yes. Satan exists. Yes, hes an exceedingly cunning, ridiculously intelligent, and incredibly adept at destroying things. Never once though have I heard of him making something. Ever. At all. If all that one can do is destroy and not create, his empire will crumble. It happened to the Gauls. It happened to the Golden Horde of Genghis Khan. it happened to the Japanese Empire of the 20th century. It happened to Napoleon (If I remember correctly, Napoleon just stole things from Egypt and had them shipped back to France). It happened to Hitler (The Atlantic seawall and the Panzer MK IV don't count as making something, lol). Destroyers destroy themselves, or they see the world burn with them. I think its pretty sad how low I've gotten, but then I just think back to those stirling individuals and kingdoms, etc and I think "what a waste of blood, time, and effort!". That applies to the way I think about myself too!
" I didn't have anyone I could go to because no one I knew understood what was going on in my head and I really didn't want them to understand either because what I was going through was something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy."
Now you do know someone who knows what its been like. I've lived it for 2 years straight. In the words of James Labrie from Dream Theatre in the song "build me up, break me down":
"No one is free from sin. The first to cast the stone. Fighting the fear within; I won't be left alone. You build me up, you break me down, until I'm falling to pieces. The price I pay, to live this way (!!!), and the fantasy stays alive. I can't live up, I can't let down and leave you falling to pieces. I crash and burn, I never learn (!!!). I'm your 'More than Obsession'"
Deep stuff that starts with s.
God bless dude!
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Wow man, I seriously can't thank you enough for writing all of that. I'd point out specific parts that stood out to me but I'd have to copy and paste the whole thing. I could feel strange calmness come over me while reading all that almost like an intense pressure was lifted. Its really hard to describe.
I can obviously tell you have a deep understanding of where I'm coming from(especially with the social psychology part of it). That alone is more than I could of asked for posting all that today. But because you get where I'm coming from and you're ability to still hold faith, it gives me hope to keep pushing through what ever it is I'm going through.
Man, its a shame we don't know each other in real life because you seem like you'd be a chill guy to hang with.
Edit: o.o seems it thought I was cursing in my post.
I can obviously tell you have a deep understanding of where I'm coming from(especially with the social psychology part of it). That alone is more than I could of asked for posting all that today. But because you get where I'm coming from and you're ability to still hold faith, it gives me hope to keep pushing through what ever it is I'm going through.
Man, its a shame we don't know each other in real life because you seem like you'd be a chill guy to hang with.
Edit: o.o seems it thought I was cursing in my post.
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joey_downunder
big sister
That's OK. You obviously needed to get it out.Bahh....
Thanks for taking the time to read through all that. (even though I was a bit too late in deleting it)
When you're ready I can start giving you the links for that type of info.
It's great knowing that you're helped. It's even greater seeing that you've got a young man in similar circumstances who turned up just a few days ago. I think you are helping him that way as well. You sure didn't come here "just by chance".
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Deusmaximaerror
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- Mar 8, 2012
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- Un. Church of CA
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- Single
I'm glad I could help. Thats just the first step though! I'm tired now. That took a lot of focus to write, and I feel good just about writing it in the first place, it helped me get some polyprocessing done. (Thats just what I call my style of thinking, thinking about more than one thing at once fluidly. Don't ask, its an autism thing) I only truly learn when I polyprocess, otherwise it goes in one ear (or eye) and out the other. I was able to draw comparisons there I wouldn't have been able to do yesterday.
Yes, lol. I'm pretty easy to get along with, actually. And, I get the feeling at one point we'll run into eachother. When everyone is finally in heaven, just look for the guy walking around yelling "I TOLD YOU! You can't fight EVIL with a MACARONI DUCK!" Hehe, I'll probably do that for a few hundred years at least just to see peoples faces.
Yes, lol. I'm pretty easy to get along with, actually. And, I get the feeling at one point we'll run into eachother. When everyone is finally in heaven, just look for the guy walking around yelling "I TOLD YOU! You can't fight EVIL with a MACARONI DUCK!" Hehe, I'll probably do that for a few hundred years at least just to see peoples faces.
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