Hi all,
This is my first post on this forum. I apologize beforehand as this will be a lengthy post, but my thanks go out to anyone and everyone who takes the time to read through it.
I guess I'll start with my background - my mother is agnostic, and my father is a straight-edge atheist. I was raised in a lifestyle absent of religion, with the belief that everything that happens to me is a direct result of my own hard work. That is, I should never have to pray for food because we worked hard to put that food on the table, or that I should never have to pray for good grades because if I study then I will get good grades. Religion never really occured to me as something that I really needed in my life.
Fast forward to college - I had my first experience with Christianity thanks to my friends, as they dragged me out to join a student fellowship. Surprisingly, I enjoyed it because the atmosphere was very relaxing, and many if not most of my newfound friends here at college were also a part of this fellowship. It was awkward at first, but I got to know the pastor in charge of the fellowship - he was a nice guy, if a bit conservative, but he made me feel comfortable. I got comfortable enough that I would actually sing praise and pray along with my friends, even though it felt empty and even silly sometimes. But, it was fun, and I enjoyed it, because in someway it made my heart and soul feel at ease. At times, we would also argue about the existence of a God - us being engineers, these debates were very scientific, and the battles always ended in stalemate. I have come to the conclusion that believing in God is simply a leap of blind faith. You either believe it, or you don't. There's no way to prove or disprove the existence of a higher being. All this happened my freshman year.
My sophomore year, my classes took over my life, and I kind of stopped attending the Friday night large groups and the Sunday services as well. I would go intermittently, but never on a consistent basis. Remember that up until this point, attending the fellowship was really more of a social/relaxing sort of thing than something I felt I needed in my life. My junior year, one of my closest friends passed away in a car accident. He was a recent Christian convert (maybe 'saved' as of only a year or two earlier), but prior to his departure he left a disturbingly "happy" entry on his weblog:
"Really appreciate the little things in life... just chilling on weekends with friends... getting a random email or a phone call... a smile while walking to class... playing on the guitar... talking to mom and dad... hitting up your lil sister randomly while shes out at the mall with her friends... just these little things... makes life so much more precious. Thank you Lord... Thank you for the memories... the good laughs... thank you for each day and the even better times to come... Thank you for the cross Lord. .... =)"
It's almost as if he knew his time had come. When he left, I had broken down pretty badly.. I almost wanted to drop out of school for that semester because my grades had slipped terribly and I wasn't in the greatest emotional state. I started going to church again and going to service to seek comfort in God, but again my classes caught up to me and after a couple of months I learned to cope with my friend's death and knew I had to move on, because that's how he would have wanted it. I had seeked Him out, but to no avail. Again, I came back to relying on myself.
I have since graduated, and have a job. I have a long term girlfriend who is actually Catholic (Mass is quite a different experience than the fellowship services I attended in the past). I am thinking she may be "the one" and as such there are things I am slightly worried about. Her parents are rather lax and don't mind that she marries somebody non-Catholic, but after speaking with her I know my girlfriend would want our kids to go to church. I am not at all against this - I believe that religion is a great asset to society in terms of moral and ethical values - the problem here is that I don't want to simply go to church just to be there.
Through my college years with the fellowship I have often prayed in hopes of a response from up above, but I've never gotten anything back but echoes of my own prayers. It's been a 6-7 year journey, and it's starting to get rather frustrating. I think the biggest hurdle I have is simply believing. I'm not an atheist... I just don't know what to believe in. At the same time, I'm a very emotionally stable person. I don't get stressed easily, I've never felt lost (with my life or otherwise), or overwhlemed (except when my friend passed away), nor have I ever really felt like I needed to completely rely on somebody else. I feel like, by myself, I am capable of getting through life, and as I type this I feel like I could die without ever knowing Christ, and I'd be okay with it. But I don't want to, because I want to be able to share this love for Christ and God with my potential wife, and with my potential kids as well.
One of the hardest things is how Christianity dumps my world upside down. I grew up believing everything around me was a result of my own actions. Now to believe that all of this was planned, and ordained by some higher power... seems almost ludicrous to me. And it's not that I don't want to believe... but I just can't bring myself to believe. My first and most impactable 18 years of my life was religion-less - to suddenly have that come into my life and show me otherwise, is just ridiculously hard.
When people tell me "you should just believe, and continue going to church" it doesn't do much for me. I know the story, I know how it works, I've gone to church and I've prayed, but I'm not getting any sort of sign or response that shows me that I need Him in my life. In fact, now that I think about it, the only reason I'm even concerned about this is because I'm doing it for my girlfriend, and my future kids. Is that wrong?
I've been told this journey could take forever - possibly even up to the day I die. I don't want that to happen, and I don't think I could continue going to church for that long unless I something inside me snaps soon.
Am I approaching this in the wrong way, or is there something else I've missed entirely?
Again, I apologize for this ridiculously lengthy post, but I needed to vent somewhere, and hopefully you guys can give me some new insight.
This is my first post on this forum. I apologize beforehand as this will be a lengthy post, but my thanks go out to anyone and everyone who takes the time to read through it.
I guess I'll start with my background - my mother is agnostic, and my father is a straight-edge atheist. I was raised in a lifestyle absent of religion, with the belief that everything that happens to me is a direct result of my own hard work. That is, I should never have to pray for food because we worked hard to put that food on the table, or that I should never have to pray for good grades because if I study then I will get good grades. Religion never really occured to me as something that I really needed in my life.
Fast forward to college - I had my first experience with Christianity thanks to my friends, as they dragged me out to join a student fellowship. Surprisingly, I enjoyed it because the atmosphere was very relaxing, and many if not most of my newfound friends here at college were also a part of this fellowship. It was awkward at first, but I got to know the pastor in charge of the fellowship - he was a nice guy, if a bit conservative, but he made me feel comfortable. I got comfortable enough that I would actually sing praise and pray along with my friends, even though it felt empty and even silly sometimes. But, it was fun, and I enjoyed it, because in someway it made my heart and soul feel at ease. At times, we would also argue about the existence of a God - us being engineers, these debates were very scientific, and the battles always ended in stalemate. I have come to the conclusion that believing in God is simply a leap of blind faith. You either believe it, or you don't. There's no way to prove or disprove the existence of a higher being. All this happened my freshman year.
My sophomore year, my classes took over my life, and I kind of stopped attending the Friday night large groups and the Sunday services as well. I would go intermittently, but never on a consistent basis. Remember that up until this point, attending the fellowship was really more of a social/relaxing sort of thing than something I felt I needed in my life. My junior year, one of my closest friends passed away in a car accident. He was a recent Christian convert (maybe 'saved' as of only a year or two earlier), but prior to his departure he left a disturbingly "happy" entry on his weblog:
"Really appreciate the little things in life... just chilling on weekends with friends... getting a random email or a phone call... a smile while walking to class... playing on the guitar... talking to mom and dad... hitting up your lil sister randomly while shes out at the mall with her friends... just these little things... makes life so much more precious. Thank you Lord... Thank you for the memories... the good laughs... thank you for each day and the even better times to come... Thank you for the cross Lord. .... =)"
It's almost as if he knew his time had come. When he left, I had broken down pretty badly.. I almost wanted to drop out of school for that semester because my grades had slipped terribly and I wasn't in the greatest emotional state. I started going to church again and going to service to seek comfort in God, but again my classes caught up to me and after a couple of months I learned to cope with my friend's death and knew I had to move on, because that's how he would have wanted it. I had seeked Him out, but to no avail. Again, I came back to relying on myself.
I have since graduated, and have a job. I have a long term girlfriend who is actually Catholic (Mass is quite a different experience than the fellowship services I attended in the past). I am thinking she may be "the one" and as such there are things I am slightly worried about. Her parents are rather lax and don't mind that she marries somebody non-Catholic, but after speaking with her I know my girlfriend would want our kids to go to church. I am not at all against this - I believe that religion is a great asset to society in terms of moral and ethical values - the problem here is that I don't want to simply go to church just to be there.
Through my college years with the fellowship I have often prayed in hopes of a response from up above, but I've never gotten anything back but echoes of my own prayers. It's been a 6-7 year journey, and it's starting to get rather frustrating. I think the biggest hurdle I have is simply believing. I'm not an atheist... I just don't know what to believe in. At the same time, I'm a very emotionally stable person. I don't get stressed easily, I've never felt lost (with my life or otherwise), or overwhlemed (except when my friend passed away), nor have I ever really felt like I needed to completely rely on somebody else. I feel like, by myself, I am capable of getting through life, and as I type this I feel like I could die without ever knowing Christ, and I'd be okay with it. But I don't want to, because I want to be able to share this love for Christ and God with my potential wife, and with my potential kids as well.
One of the hardest things is how Christianity dumps my world upside down. I grew up believing everything around me was a result of my own actions. Now to believe that all of this was planned, and ordained by some higher power... seems almost ludicrous to me. And it's not that I don't want to believe... but I just can't bring myself to believe. My first and most impactable 18 years of my life was religion-less - to suddenly have that come into my life and show me otherwise, is just ridiculously hard.
When people tell me "you should just believe, and continue going to church" it doesn't do much for me. I know the story, I know how it works, I've gone to church and I've prayed, but I'm not getting any sort of sign or response that shows me that I need Him in my life. In fact, now that I think about it, the only reason I'm even concerned about this is because I'm doing it for my girlfriend, and my future kids. Is that wrong?
I've been told this journey could take forever - possibly even up to the day I die. I don't want that to happen, and I don't think I could continue going to church for that long unless I something inside me snaps soon.
Am I approaching this in the wrong way, or is there something else I've missed entirely?
Again, I apologize for this ridiculously lengthy post, but I needed to vent somewhere, and hopefully you guys can give me some new insight.
