Guide To The Bible
Guide To The Bible
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so angry
- Thread starter X-Ray
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u think i dont want to leave! im in a pit and am still falling. my greatest fear is to come home and finally lose the will to continue. youd be suprised at how many ways ive come up with to finally end it in the cleanest way possible, or the easiest, or the most painless. im in fear of my life. i am browsing the internet and decide on the fly to ask for help at a christian forum, hoping to find support, or at least answers. instead, i get goody-too shoes christian comments and more questions instead of more answers. i appreciate the help, and i know that youll probably get angry about me talking about my "crap", but my life is crumbling. i want to KILL myself, i have NO friends, i believe im going to a deep level of hell, i HATE everyone and everything on this planet, ive been and am still getting harassed by invisible forces of EVIL, wallowing in torment and hopelessness. im sorry. thank you for trying, but i think ill just deal with my "crap" on my own, which is what ive been doing for years. ive come to realize that all i will ever be is alone. goodbye
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Guide To The Bible
Guide To The Bible
- Jan 23, 2017
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Feelings change and death of course might leave you feeling worse than you do now.
God made each of us for a specific reason.
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Hopes
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You asked some rather hard questions but I will do my best to answer. Well as I have been told, God allows suffering to perfect Christians and also as a way to keep us humble. I thought in your situation, because your an agnostic, it might be to bring you closer to Him. Your never closer to God than when you are suffering, He is the great Comforter.
I did want to let you know that your not alone. There are a lot of good people here that have been in your situation. Myself I have bipolar disorder so I get depression and mania. I think I hate the mania worse than the depression but in truth, they both suck. Also you don't have to be without a friend. I will be your friend and I am sure others will too.
You mentioned you are tormented by evil beings. Just tell them in the name of Jesus Christ be gone. They will scatter but they will come back again and again and you will have to keep doing this periodically. Anyway I hope I answered your questions and hope you come back again.
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I'm sorry brother for the misunderstanding here. I didn't mean to say you were crap, but that the bad life you suffer is crap, and to get rid of that! I've been suicidally depressed too many times myself not to know what crappy reality that is.
The good news I try to impart is that we can be stronger than such crappy life and can get away from it. When Jesus showed me that I didn't have to take my crappy life along for eternity I was glad to get rid of it and didn't for a moment think I was crap, didn't you read my poem at the bottom of that post about our worth in Jesus, how could you possibly misconstrue my words the way you have done?
I love you to get rid of your bad life and find true God back again including your good life. If my words haven't helped you I hope other peoples words will and I will refrain from answering your questions. Who I talked about your life being crap I only echoed your own words not for a moment did I mean to imply you are crap.
I'm sorry I upset you like this and sincerely hope you find your good life back and get rid of that crappy life you now suffer.
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- May 2, 2010
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Doubt, confusion, fear and anger are not strangers to me. I cannot answer all of your questions the way you'd like, if any, since from time to time I can struggle with them too. But one thing I found was this: the more I doubted and feared, the more I was sure my faith will be lost, eventually my faith got stronger because of it. Perhaps because I was (and still am) honestly searching and in the end I always had to go to God. I had no other choice, people couldn't help me. It's like being completely naked and helpless, and admitting it to yourself and God as well, and hoping for guidance. I think that was a good lesson for me to learn - to actually go to God as naked as you can. To actually feel that helplessness and understand the limits of our understanding and knowledge. We don't know everything, I know very little.
Every time I had that struggle, I was reminded of the nature of faith. I came to understand better what faith really is. It's a step in the dark. You have something to guide you, but you can't really see it clearly or even understand it at times, but you take that step. You want to have faith. Wanting to have faith for me is equally important than feeling like I have it. Sometimes I feel like I don't have it, but I still pray for guidance and grace. I wouldn't pray if I didn't have any faith. Much like hope, like Paul said, we don't hope for something we have or see, we hope for something we don't have or can't see yet. I'm not suggesting that having faith should be terrible and empty, oh no, but it's good to remember these things when in crisis.
About the questions, I just don't know. I don't know why we exist, I don't know why a lot of things happened or didn't happen. And I let many of those questions go, fully knowing that many of those questions are something that people have thought about for ages, and they still didn't exactly know. That is a struggle I can't win. I can believe something, but I can't solve a riddle like that and turn it into knowledge for everyone to see. So I abandoned these huge questions, and left them for God. He knows, I don't.
I don't take the whole Bible literally. I believe it is a spiritual book. I can't know what some translations and exclusions/inclusions of books mean in the bigger picture, there is a human element to these things. But I do believe a lot of things about Jesus Christ, and how we should love each other, and how we should have humility, and how there is hope in the end. About churches, denominations, I don't carry a flag. In my profile it says I'm lutheran, because I was baptized to a lutheran church as an infant, but I'd rather it read just a simple "christian". I can't change it for some reason. Anyway, seems like much of your struggle comes about churches and denominations, about different people telling you different things. Many of them probably tell you to just flick a switch as if that changes everything, and many - including I - can often be hypocrites. Jesus often reprimanded religious people, which was fascinating for me.
We have a religion - many religions - about Him, and many of us do the exact same things He told us not to do back then. When we create rules and institutions, we start to serve rules and institutions. When we start getting lost and understanding how miserable we can get, it's easy for us to start to worship our sins too, as if they have more power than Christ. Then we start taking burden after burden for ourselves, and we try to solve everything ourselves. That will only make us more miserable and bitter, and then we start to come up with more rules, more demands for ourselves and everyone else, and there is no God, no love, no hope in any of it after a while. Because when the fruits are those of despair, we are not free. If we believe we are loved and Christ carries our failings and sins for us, we start to get free. Then we can breathe, then we can be glad, and then it becomes easier to love others as well - because we believe that we were loved first, not because we deserved it, but because we couldn't and still can't. It is often when I have laid down my burdens and misery in front of Christ. Often in doubt, even, but like a child. We are allowed to be like children. We don't have to know everything. We don't have to solve a giant puzzle or riddle, we don't have to do magic tricks.
There are scriptures in the Bible to which I always lean on. My favorite one is this:
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
What else do I need but rest for my soul, what else does anyone need? Sometimes I'm too troubled and I need to remind myself of what my faith is based on. It's not based on an infallible solution to what everything really means, it's based on "I don't know. Help me God, forgive me, guide me, and let me know You and Your Son. Let me know you enough, and let me love better. Let love win". It's based on somehow seeing glimpses of love and grace that seem unfathomable to me, but at the same time something I need. Not only for myself, but for many others too. It's like a wondrous thing I'm trying to stumble towards, failing many times in the process, but having faith in God who is love and who will make everything better in the end, and who will answer the questions I have in time. I do not care how many people are yelling at me from the side of that road. I don't care how many accuse me of being wrong. If I am, I didn't mean to, and God knows it. I will search until I die. I will never be "there" in this life. But there is a blessing to it: if I'm honest with myself, I can't judge other people who are searching in their own way. I can't make myself God, I can't think too much of myself.
Sorry if you feel like I didn't answer much, perhaps I didn't. Please do not harm yourself. Get any professional help you can. I've been very down in my life. I've been very close to suicide, and I've lost much of what I had, or at least thought I had. But I'm here now, with more peace than ever. Do not let fear control your life. I know it's very easy to say, but I also know that you can get out of that state of mind. And if you can't, God can. I pray for that to happen. God bless you.
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orangeness365
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There is a passage in the Bible about how it is not the hearers of the Teachings that are righteous, but the doers of the commandments, including those that have never heard the commandments but practice them anyways, have the Law written on their hearts.
Romans 2:12-16
12For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. 13For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. 14For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them 16on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
I don't claim that I know exactly what you're feeling. I've been feeling suicidal for the past four years though, and been afraid during that whole time that I'm going to hell when I die, regardless of whether I do or don't commit suicide. I've been praying for God to kill me every day. My family tells me that going to Heaven is as simple as whether you want to be with God or don't. Some people really hate God, and don't want to be with Him, so he allows them to be without Him, and that is hell. If you want to be with God, then you go to be with Him in Heaven. That is probably why the first commandment is to love God. I'm still struggling with worrying about it still, because when I read the New Testament about Jesus' teachings, I know that it is impossible for me to follow everything, and that going to Heaven can't be something that I earn, and that scares me. I know that it is by God's grace that anyone goes to Heaven, but it's hard to accept, because there are passages that say that we will be forgiven as we forgive and shown mercy as we show mercy. I fell away from the faith a long time ago for about a year because I struggled with the thought that, if God is good, how can there be suffering? I think the answer is that we fell away from God in the Garden of Eden, and every single one of us exhibit a sin nature, not just Adam and Eve. Also, suffering is encouraged on behalf of Christ, because it will earn treasures in Heaven. 2 Corinthians 4:17. 1 Peter 1:6-7. Suffering for Christ is something to actually rejoice for in the Bible, although I don't think my misery has been on behalf of anything other than my own stupidity. Suffering is also supposed to eventually produce hope Romans 5:3-5. I think that for the passage about those that have fallen away that can't come back, I think that that only happens after death, for those that permanently choose that they do not want God. While you still have breath, you can choose God. I'm sorry for your suffering. It is still incredibly painful.
Also, I don't know what you mean by being tormented by evil invisible spirits, if you mean that you hear voices, I used to hear them to. You might want to try medication for them to go away. you might be talking about something completely different, but I just thought I'd let you know that for some people that are tormented by voices, the medication can make the voices go away, or at least be dampened.
Romans 2:12-16
12For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. 13For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. 14For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them 16on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
I don't claim that I know exactly what you're feeling. I've been feeling suicidal for the past four years though, and been afraid during that whole time that I'm going to hell when I die, regardless of whether I do or don't commit suicide. I've been praying for God to kill me every day. My family tells me that going to Heaven is as simple as whether you want to be with God or don't. Some people really hate God, and don't want to be with Him, so he allows them to be without Him, and that is hell. If you want to be with God, then you go to be with Him in Heaven. That is probably why the first commandment is to love God. I'm still struggling with worrying about it still, because when I read the New Testament about Jesus' teachings, I know that it is impossible for me to follow everything, and that going to Heaven can't be something that I earn, and that scares me. I know that it is by God's grace that anyone goes to Heaven, but it's hard to accept, because there are passages that say that we will be forgiven as we forgive and shown mercy as we show mercy. I fell away from the faith a long time ago for about a year because I struggled with the thought that, if God is good, how can there be suffering? I think the answer is that we fell away from God in the Garden of Eden, and every single one of us exhibit a sin nature, not just Adam and Eve. Also, suffering is encouraged on behalf of Christ, because it will earn treasures in Heaven. 2 Corinthians 4:17. 1 Peter 1:6-7. Suffering for Christ is something to actually rejoice for in the Bible, although I don't think my misery has been on behalf of anything other than my own stupidity. Suffering is also supposed to eventually produce hope Romans 5:3-5. I think that for the passage about those that have fallen away that can't come back, I think that that only happens after death, for those that permanently choose that they do not want God. While you still have breath, you can choose God. I'm sorry for your suffering. It is still incredibly painful.
Also, I don't know what you mean by being tormented by evil invisible spirits, if you mean that you hear voices, I used to hear them to. You might want to try medication for them to go away. you might be talking about something completely different, but I just thought I'd let you know that for some people that are tormented by voices, the medication can make the voices go away, or at least be dampened.
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orangeness365
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I'm sorry I didn't check sooner and see your reply before you edited it. I'm glad to see you are still alive, despite how much suffering that causes for you.
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Chaplain David
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Hi,
My name is David and I'm one of the CF Chaplains. Please feel free to write me privately or in the Ask a Chaplain Forum. The link is below.
I'm convinced that your reason for being is to help others. You already have experience that could assist others feeling the same as you. You are holding on and even trying to do better IMO.
Please write if you'd like. I don't go into threads much because I'm working in other areas but I'll keep an eye out for this one.
God bless you Xray.
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LoyalToGod
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Chaplain David
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Here in one of the recovery forums we want to respond to a person more gently and in a non confrontational manner. People come here who are hurting or having extreme difficulty so to both help the person and also make it a place of caring for all we don't respond as we might in one of the forums outside of recovery.
If you would like to debate or confront someone about their views then that is best done in a subforum outside of recovery. If you would like to help, encourage and support folks that are having difficulty or hurting, then a kind word or gentle advice can be given here. We want Recovery to be a safe place for all who come here.
If you have questions about anything I've written above please contact me privately. I pray the very best for you and yours.
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