venting

[findingmyplace2019]

I have found myself recently angry, sad and acting out in behaviors I don’t approve of. To be honest, I feel lost. I don’t know who I truly am or what I believe in. I have no certainty in my life and it scares me. I harbor so many lies, and I am on the verge of breaking. I have always believed in God- I am an occasional church-goer, occasional scripture reader, occasional prayer warrior… but I have never fully invested myself into my faith, which is something I need to work on. Where do I start? I understand and pick apart verses of scripture but I never have truly taken the time to understand WHY and HOW and what I need to do to live more like Jesus. I think it all starts with a deeper understanding of Christianity as a whole. One of my favorite verses is Matthew 19:26, with God all things are possible. I never truly stopped to find the deeper meaning in that verse until today. God is capable of doing any and everything, but that does not mean the same for us. What it means is with God by your side you are able overcome anything. It does not guarantee our success or our intended end result, but what comes is His vision for our life and who am I to say that’s wrong? God is never wrong- He has a way of showing us how capable we are by guiding us through the dark days because in the end He has a plan that was even better than what we initially hoped for. I tend to get down on myself a lot and feel insecure, or not as successful as my peers. I feel that sometimes I question why God is doing this to me when I need to be thinking “God is helping me achieve something so much bigger and He loves me so much, He is only doing what is best for me”. That mindset will help me to see life from a whole different view and appreciate the little things. I reflect on the good things in my life and realize none of them would have happened if I wouldn’t have gone through a previous hardship. Its living proof of God working his magic and what happens in my life happens for a reason, I just need to fully give my trust to Him to let Him work out the details! Even the days I feel the loneliest, I know I am never alone as He is always with me- showering me with love and protection and hope and that is something to be grateful of. No matter how badly I betray Him, He always is there with welcoming arms to forgive me and some days I don’t feel worthy of a love that giving. I guess it is just hard to remember these feelings when I am angry or sad about something. Sometimes it is so much easier to blame and mope around than it is to sit back and wait.

 

[Jonaitis]

There are many people who invest their whole lives for something that fades away, something temporal and short-lived, and then they die. But, that person who invests everything for Christ and his heavenly kingdom invests far more than this world and this life can ever offer, and they will enjoy that throughout eternity. How we spend our time now is important, should it be for vanity or for Christ? Just sharing my thoughts.

 

[Ohj1n37]

I guess it is just hard to remember these feelings when I am angry or sad about something.

I struggle with this too. It reminds me of the quote from the batman movies, Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves back up. I believe we as humans go through trials like these so that God can build character in us that will last for eternity.

I have two things you and others who read this might find interesting.

What is the meaning of life? We humans search for it like we are the center of the universe. I believe that is why we have trouble finding it. When we look to our creator our purpose becomes glaringly obvious. Here is a silly analogy. If a printer had a mind and wanted to know the meaning of its existence how could it easily find it? I would assume the best course of action would be ask its creator. The human would tell them, "You were made to print ink onto paper." In a similar way we can ask God by looking at His written word. The Bible says all God's commands and the words of the prophets can be summarized as love God first and love each other. The point being we are very complex emotional beings because that is the purpose we were built for. We are made to be God's people, God's children. We were made to be loved by God, to love God, and to love each other forever. This is why I believe we go through the emotional minefield that is life. In our weakness God's strength is perfected. In God's awesomeness He gave himself the purpose of taking care of us. I believe He saw that the only thing that could fill His eternity with meaning was love.

The second story took place at a get together with my relatives. We were celebrating multiple birthdays and my adult cousin asked his mother if she was paying for his food. She told him, "Yes, you may get what you want." He then proceeded to order many things off the menu. My other cousin began to laugh at him because she believed he was just mooching off his parents. I told the cousin that was laughing, "You do realize we are celebrating his birthday too?" She became very embarrassed and to that the cousin that was getting laughed at replied, "That's right I turned my social media birthday notification off to see who my real friends are." I feel that this is what God does sometimes by putting us through trials. Maybe he is testing us seeing if we really do love him. Do we love God or do we just love the blessings He gives us? This is similar to the book of Job.

Combining the principles of both these stories I believe we can understand why we go through trials and hardships. God has made us emotionally complex beings so that we can be loved by God, love God, and love others. We have free will because without it we wouldn't really have the capacity to share love. Love has to be chosen and can not be forced. It appears that we may go through trials in life, so that God can determine if we really do love Him or not. Without getting too abstract I believe God knows all that is in our heart and what we will do, but we do not and it is possible that God does not think it would be right to judge us for something we have not yet done.

Long story short God made humans with a set purpose. We are made to be loved by Him, to love Him, and to love each other. To achieve this God has created the system that we call life and life is often difficult, but the end result is more than worth it.

 

[1watchman]

I have found myself recently angry, sad and acting out in behaviors I don’t approve of. To be honest, I feel lost. I don’t know who I truly am or what I believe in. I have no certainty in my life and it scares me. I harbor so many lies, and I am on the verge of breaking. I have always believed in God- I am an occasional church-goer, occasional scripture reader, occasional prayer warrior… but I have never fully invested myself into my faith, which is something I need to work on. Where do I start? I understand and pick apart verses of scripture but I never have truly taken the time to understand WHY and HOW and what I need to do to live more like Jesus. I think it all starts with a deeper understanding of Christianity as a whole. One of my favorite verses is Matthew 19:26, with God all things are possible. I never truly stopped to find the deeper meaning in that verse until today. God is capable of doing any and everything, but that does not mean the same for us. What it means is with God by your side you are able overcome anything. It does not guarantee our success or our intended end result, but what comes is His vision for our life and who am I to say that’s wrong? God is never wrong- He has a way of showing us how capable we are by guiding us through the dark days because in the end He has a plan that was even better than what we initially hoped for. I tend to get down on myself a lot and feel insecure, or not as successful as my peers. I feel that sometimes I question why God is doing this to me when I need to be thinking “God is helping me achieve something so much bigger and He loves me so much, He is only doing what is best for me”. That mindset will help me to see life from a whole different view and appreciate the little things. I reflect on the good things in my life and realize none of them would have happened if I wouldn’t have gone through a previous hardship. Its living proof of God working his magic and what happens in my life happens for a reason, I just need to fully give my trust to Him to let Him work out the details! Even the days I feel the loneliest, I know I am never alone as He is always with me- showering me with love and protection and hope and that is something to be grateful of. No matter how badly I betray Him, He always is there with welcoming arms to forgive me and some days I don’t feel worthy of a love that giving. I guess it is just hard to remember these feelings when I am angry or sad about something. Sometimes it is so much easier to blame and mope around than it is to sit back and wait.

The simple fact is that we are all lost by birth and nature ---as we inherited a sinful (selfish) nature from the fall of man as in Genesis 1 & 2. Mostly, mankind struggles with finding a way to please self, but we are given hope and blessing and eternal life in the Person of the Lord Jesus --the Christ of God. Read John 1; John 3; John 14 to get an overview of what God has provided for us (read all of the four Gospels about Jesus Christ, which speaks of blessings on God's terms).
A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP with the Lord Jesus is what God has given mankind for peace (not just a religion), but many souls who also allow there is a god, DO NOT KNOW the Creator and His gift of life in His "...beloved Son". I came to the Lord Jesus over 60 years ago, and found God's blessings and a happy life in walking with Him as my Savior. He will help a faithful one to think God's thoughts if we want it. It will also work for anyone if they seek Him. Look up always and meditate on God's Word, friend.