Adstar. Good comments. Thanks.
I wonder when you say you thought you had a “calling”, did you think you had a SPECIAL calling?
Yes.
Something beyond what i have described? Did you think you would be a great prophet or tele-evangelist, ...
To have some sort of role in global missions, a role mostly on the at-home side in financial support, helping missionaries on furlough, etc. Looking back, I wonder if this developed in my own mind as a Plan B after spending two summers on the mission field, believing so strongly, yet finding myself so ineffective in sharing the gospel. Anyhow, that was around 20 years ago and I spent a good bit of time, effort, and money and that in those 20 years living out that what-I-believed-to-be calling.
"I am going to be something really special belief" above and beyond the common Christians around me?
Don't really know about others.
But i am not much of a singer and i cannot play a guitar and i wonder why you have added that into your comment. Was your faith all about rapturous experiences in the here and now?
An excellent question. I think this post was in part in response to what I felt to be "you just have book knowledge of Christianity" polemic. "Rapturous experience" feels a bit patronizing in the other direction then.
When you get down to it, I suppose my faith wasn't that different from the faith of many devout, sincere, believing others. A bit of insecurity, a whole lot of hope, a bunch of human need, a wonderful story of divine love and acceptance, an ancient text, and a lot of exposure/indoctrination to the faith through friends and family. In my own answer to the OP, in the foundation of my decades of faith, I think the answer would be found in a complex inter-play of those contributing factors.
Or about being saved from the eternal lake of fire?
Not so much. Wasn't so much a fear of lake of fire thing. Yes, the whole "is hell real?" question was something that I had to work through toward the end of my seeking/discovery/deconversion process, but it wasn't something that really held me personally "in" the faith.
Besides, at it's core, that issue feels like such a self-centered thing. "It's not about God. It's not about my love for him. It's about me. And saving my eternal skin." Just seems oriented toward self and pragmatism's outlook.
A place where you deserved to go but for the love of God through the atonement of the messiah Jesus?
In losing my faith, I've had a number of people go down this discussion path with me. I always wonder, how do they know. I mean really, at the core, honest to self, no need to post to this guy on the Internet, I mean just answering such a questions to self, how do they have enough confidence to be sufficiently certain or even complacent in their own walk and own fate. I remember when I, as a believer, would feel a bit over confident and quick to condemn others, I'd read stuff like this.
Jas 2:8 You will be doing the right thing if you obey the law of the Kingdom, which is found in the scripture, "Love your neighbor as you love yourself."
Jas 2:9 But if you treat people according to their outward appearance, you are guilty of sin, and the Law condemns you as a lawbreaker.
Jas 2:10 Whoever breaks one commandment is guilty of breaking them all.
1Jn 2:3 If we obey God's commands, then we are sure that we know him.
1Jn 2:4 If we say that we know him, but do not obey his commands, we are liars and there is no truth in us.
1Jn 2:5 But if we obey his word, we are the ones whose love for God has really been made perfect. This is how we can be sure that we are in union with God:
1Jn 2:6 if we say that we remain in union with God, we should live just as Jesus Christ did.
Mat 7:21 "Not everyone who calls me 'Lord, Lord' will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only those who do what my Father in heaven wants them to do.
Mat 7:22 When the Judgment Day comes, many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord! In your name we spoke God's message, by your name we drove out many demons and performed many miracles!'
Mat 7:23 Then I will say to them, 'I never knew you. Get away from me, you wicked people!'
I remember meditating on verses like these. Made it harder for me to have the cocky, "oh, you're going to hell" attitude. Just didn't seem to have a whole lot of sincerity or fear and trembling for that matter.
No. God had already found me and i know that i was saved by the Messiah Jesus. What’s the point of seeking something that you already have?
I think that might be a difference between you and me.
I never once read the beatitudes and confidently (arrogantly?) thought I "had it."
Am I meek? Merciful? Pure in heart? Am I truly a peacemaker? I mean do I really bring an incredible, profound peace to every situtation in which I am in?
As I look back, I don't think I ever "had it." I think that's why I continued "seeking" answers.
I've had a few give me the, "oh you were never saved" line. Hurts, really.
As I silently sit there and wonder, have their really read these passages and meditated on them? Searched their own hearts? No, I don't mean a superficial thing about quick covering up and pushing back fears and insecurities. I mean really searched and compared themselves to who they really could be.
I suspect that in the end the Word was not enough for you, I suspect you wanted to PROVE God by another avenue of enquiry and of course you where unable to prove God or the Gospel by the other avenue. Why?
The word was not enough.
Seek and seek and read and research? If the Word of God was not enough then how can the words of men lead you anywhere?
Err, the bible is the words of men.
Mine says "Copyright 1996 by Zondervan Corporation, copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society." Why would one think it's other than the words of man?
So the Word of God did not make Him real to you?
No. Things like Numbers 31 most definitely didn't make Him real. I could pick many, many other passages too. If one reads the bible for cherry picked, greeting card, inspirational poster verses and does one's best to stick to Psalms, Proverbs, and parts of the NT, that's one thing. But reading the whole thing for what it says, in the light of modern morality, contemporary science, and a bit of the bible scholar's techniques in textual criticism, that's a different matter. So no, it most definitely didn't make him real.
Maybe much of your faith was based on something other than the Word of God? What was it?
I tried to describe a bit above. But I wonder how that is different from how most get their faith. From everything I've read, people mostly get their faith through cultural exposure.
Even your chosen name Fundi Mentalist is really an offensive statement of mockery, is it not?
If I mock anyone, it is myself.
Does it not insinuate that those who are devout in their belief in the Word are Mental ie crazy?
I don't have the credentials to diagnose.
I would ask you this. Do you know what i feels like to have someone ask a question like the above who is such a clear cut hypocrite of the highest order?
Yes, I do. I have had people in my life who I love dearly, who are not so much wrestling with the beatitudes, not so much trying to have a life defined by the fruit of the spirit, not so much full of compassion, arrogantly tell me I'm going to hell. And to "go to hell" while I sit there shell shocked.
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Your "knowledge" is what is it about whatever you think it is about. But your knowledge is faulty. You have built your knowledge upon a faulty foundation one that could never support the type of building you wanted. Change your heart and seek to have your motivations changed.
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I don't see how you've established the case to claim my knowledge is faulty. And I don't see why I should "change my heart" for claims concerning YHWH any differently than I shold "change my heart" for the claims concerning Allah or Shiva, any differently than how I should for magic crystals for that matter. I think one could "open their heart" to nearly any superstition and get a warm, fuzzy feeling. Happens all the time in the real world for all I can tell based upon believers across Christian and non-Christian belief systems.
Are you familiar with what's called "special pleading?" I really don't want to get tossed to and fro here, by winds and cunning craftiness.