Spiritual struggle

[Ranae of Cedar]

I am in a spiritual struggle. I know that God is there, (I also believe in the trinity) but I have a hard time letting go of the Goddess. I have been in Christianity before but it is so one sided..(I know from other posts here that I was never a true Christian) there are times that I need the feeling of a mother.. there are just certain things I would not go to a father for but a mother yes.. how do you do it? How do I know that this is right... I have relationships with my deities as you have with your God as a trinity.

 

[elopez]

I am in a spiritual struggle. I know that God is there, (I also believe in the trinity) but I have a hard time letting go of the Goddess. I have been in Christianity before but it is so one sided..(I know from other posts here that I was never a true Christian) there are times that I need the feeling of a mother.. there are just certain things I would not go to a father for but a mother yes.. how do you do it? How do I know that this is right... I have relationships with my deities as you have with your God as a trinity.

If we cannot come to God with our problems then I don't think we have really placed our trust in Him. Though God is normally portrayed throughout the Bible as masculine, there are those references that portray Him with motherly images and metaphors. Isiah 46:3 says, "Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, that have been borne by me from their birth, that have been carried from the womb." In Isiah 49:15 God asks: "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, these may forget, yet will not I forget thee." God promised in Isiah 66:13 that "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you."

So just because we think of God as more masculine than feminine does not mean that we couldn't think of God in motherly terms, for that concedes in thinking that God can limit the way He reveals Himself to humanity. As it was stated, God will be there for us just as a mother is for her son.

 

[oi_antz]

I am in a spiritual struggle. I know that God is there, (I also believe in the trinity) but I have a hard time letting go of the Goddess. I have been in Christianity before but it is so one sided..(I know from other posts here that I was never a true Christian) there are times that I need the feeling of a mother.. there are just certain things I would not go to a father for but a mother yes.. how do you do it? How do I know that this is right... I have relationships with my deities as you have with your God as a trinity.

You know, I really don't know who think you talk to when you pray to a deity and especially since you say that yours is different from mine I guess that means that you don't believe you are praying to the same God that Jesus prayed to. If you aren't sure this person is the Father of Jesus Christ then I wouldn't encourage you by saying that you are worshiping the right person. However, if what you mean is that you envisage the Father of Jesus Christ as your spiritual mother rather than father, that's probably something that He would put right if it was important to Him. We probably never can come to know God entirely, but we can grow in our understanding of who He is gradually. And when I say Him, really His loving nature can bear resemblance to the love I have seen in mothers, so I think this is more of a convention since the Bible refers to "Him" consistently, and it is also a matter of drawing a mental picture of the person we are speaking to. Also for me being a male and having only the prospect of being a father and not a mother, my perception of what a father and mother should be is naturally biased just as yours is too, so you can probably identify with God being a mother more easily while I can identify with Him being a father more easily, because He treats us so perfectly we couldn't do any better if we tried. And as we go through life we can adopt beliefs that are true and beliefs that are false, but either way they will contribute to our understanding of who God is. So I would encourage you to be confident that what really matters is whether your heart is respectful toward Him, don't go looking for approval from others for how you perceive God, nor get stuck in your ways defending who you think God is meant to be, because there will be no end to learning who He is, and when we describe Him we aren't describing someone who resembles a male human but rather someone we have never laid eyes upon but only come to know by spirit. Of course, Jesus is a male human, but having a human body does not dictate the gender of His Father's spirit. I've also read about the church being called the "bride" of Christ, and I must say it rests quite well with me even being a male to be described in that way, because it isn't the definition of the words that are important when I read, but the message they portray. Just get on with reading the Bible, get familiar with Jesus' life and teaching, that's most important that you have a good knowledge of the person who God chose and appointed to sow and reap the harvest of earth, and when you place your life in His hands then God will reveal Himself to you as He is and you will love Him as He is - God is perfect!

 

[Bear.Fr00t]

I am in a spiritual struggle. I know that God is there, (I also believe in the trinity) but I have a hard time letting go of the Goddess. I have been in Christianity before but it is so one sided..(I know from other posts here that I was never a true Christian) there are times that I need the feeling of a mother.. there are just certain things I would not go to a father for but a mother yes.. how do you do it? How do I know that this is right... I have relationships with my deities as you have with your God as a trinity.

What Goddess do you speak of? What is one sided about Christianity?

You ask "how do you do it", we don't do it ourselves it is the Spirit of God that reveals God to us. If you want to believe in the Christian God pray that he will reveal himself to you as the one true God and you won't be disappointed. Also, read the Bible, specifically the New Testament.

 

[synger]

God the Father has no gender. Unlike Christ who was born with a human, male body, the Father does not have a body. I know we often think of Him as male (and He has revealed Himself as "Father", which is male), but He is much more than merely male. It's one of those lovely mysteries of His revelation -- how He can be Father and yet not be limited to male-ness. (Isaiah 66:13 reveals Him as comforting His people like a mother, and Luke 15 shows how, like a woman who has lost a coin, He seeks for his children to repent of their sins and be forgiven through HIs grace).

Perhaps He revealed Himself as Father as a contrast to the many Pagan goddess-worshiping sects. Or because fathers in most cultures are the authority of the family. We don't know.

What we do know is that He has revealed Himself as Father, and also as a loving, comforting God. That can be a problem for those people who did not know a loving, comforting father in this life, and cannot see those aspects of God without being tainted by the hurt of their human relationship with their father or other male authorities.

Humans, male and female both, are sinful and can be downright hateful with children and young people. Those wounds and scars can affect how someone sees God.

And yet, God is not a human father... He is perfect. He is... *thinking*... Mr. Cleaver and Mr. Cunningham and Eddy's Father and Bill Cosby all rolled into one... and even better! Wise and strong and comforting and willing to listen -- and yes, sometimes stern and disciplining when it's needed.

His love is so vast that we cannot understand it. But at its core is this -- that we were separated from Him by our sin, and that He came to die on the cross to forgive us those sins and to reconcile us to Himself.

He has already paid that price. He has already forgiven you your sins. You are His beloved child. That happened two thousand years ago!

Now, He can help you learn to love and trust Him as He has revealed Himself to us... as a loving and yet still holy and righteous Father.

 

[solarwave]

Well God isn't really male or female.

I suppose if you have to you could think the Holy Spirit was female, but I don't know how others feel about that.

Matthew 23:37 and Luke 13:34, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing."

 

[Jpark]

I am in a spiritual struggle. I know that God is there, (I also believe in the trinity) but I have a hard time letting go of the Goddess. I have been in Christianity before but it is so one sided..(I know from other posts here that I was never a true Christian) there are times that I need the feeling of a mother.. there are just certain things I would not go to a father for but a mother yes.. how do you do it? How do I know that this is right... I have relationships with my deities as you have with your God as a trinity.

God fills the role of a mother as well as a father:

Job 38:29

However, He transcends gender, having no gender. He only refers to Himself as a He as respect to Adam.

 

[razeontherock]

I have relationships with my deities

I'm just chiming in here to express concern. I know the hearts of at least most of those that have responded already, and am confident they've given you good advice already. I'm just adding to the chorus that if these are truly "different deities" you have relationships with, they will need to be severed, and in no uncertain terms, before you will receive anything of G-d in this lifetime. the only exception to this would be if that's something you truly can't do, but are committed to doing. Then He has a way of stepping in to do what we cannot

I'll also point out it's possible these "other deities" are either projections of your own mind, or even aspects of the G-d of the Bible? It would be difficult for us to tell from here, but in sorting out such issues yourself, we might be able to assist, primarily via helping you think through your own thoughts as we act like a sounding board ...

Blessings to you Here's to enduring through this confusing time, and then enduring to the end!

 

[Ranae of Cedar]

What Goddess do you speak of? What is one sided about Christianity?

I have a Goddess that I work with. I can see where your god is genderless, but you can see both father and motherly aspects.

You ask "how do you do it", we don't do it ourselves it is the Spirit of God that reveals God to us. If you want to believe in the Christian God pray that he will reveal himself to you as the one true God and you won't be disappointed. Also, read the Bible, specifically the New Testament.

I grew up as a Catholic and was not a Christian. Got into Christianity again at the age of 24 and was told that I would never have the Holy Spirit in me because I was a women. Then again I tried and never felt so empty and lonely after 4 very long years.

 

[razeontherock]

I grew up as a Catholic and was not a Christian. Got into Christianity again at the age of 24 and was told that I would never have the Holy Spirit in me because I was a woman. Then again I tried and never felt so empty and lonely after 4 very long years.

Hopefully others have already pointed out how horribly wrong this is? Women get the Holy Spirit, and as a matter of practice you usually receive it easier and faster than we men do.

You need some good solid teaching!

 

[CryptoLutheran]

I grew up as a Catholic and was not a Christian. Got into Christianity again at the age of 24 and was told that I would never have the Holy Spirit in me because I was a women. Then again I tried and never felt so empty and lonely after 4 very long years.

Just for the record, Catholics are Christian. The Christian religion is split into several branches, there are different ways to describe that branching, but the simplest places Christianity into Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, with Oriental Orthodoxy and the Assyrian Church of the East also being included.

But that's all a tangent.

As far as being told you can't have the Holy Spirit in you because you're female, that is by far one of the kookiest ideas I've encountered even among the outermost fringes of Christian fundamentalism.

No mainstream Christian church (Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Orthodox, Lutheran, Presbyterian, or "Non-Denominational") teaches such nonsense. According to the historic Christian faith everyone redeemed in Christ has the Holy Spirit living inside of them.

Furthermore, I'd like to address the larger issue presented, and that's with the need for divine maternity.

It's unfortunate that far too often God, as understood in Christianity, is presented as being wholly masculine, or worse "male". God has no gender, we believe that the Son or Logos of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, united Himself to human nature and in His humanity is male; but as far as God in His Divine nature He is not male.

Outside of the Bible itself, which does use feminine language to describe God at times, many Christians have used strong feminine and motherly language to describe God.

An example of the former is the idea of God's compassion, the Hebrew word for compassion is literally womb. God's compassion is His motherly care and love. For Christians we have generally identified Holy Wisdom as being God's Logos, that is Christ; Wisdom is consistently identified as feminine in the Old Testament.

An example of the latter would be the writings of Julian of Norwich, where one can find such statements as the following,

"To motherhood as properties belong natural love, wisdom and knowledge - and this is God. For though it is true that our bodily bringing forth is very little, low, and simple compared to our spiritual bringing forth, yet it is he who does the mothering in the creatures by whom it is done.[SIZE=-1]"

There's a lot of opposition against motherly and feminine language ascribed to God these days, largely in reaction against Feminism. However, there is a long tradition of motherly and feminine language about God that goes straight back to the Bible itself. God is as much our Mother as He is our Father and Brother.

-CryptoLutheran
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[razeontherock]

yeah, good teaching like that! I'll also point out that when we were originally "made in God's image," (what a loaded statement!) we were made "male and female."

So a man cannot be said to be made in God's image, w/o being united to a female to be completed. Kinda puts the kabosh on the idea of mysogeny in the Bible, doesn't it?

 

[FreeinChrist]

MOD HAT

Closing this for staff review - clean up​