Patience
Let us dance with the wind and sing with the birds
Thank you for sharing! I will try to look through those sometime soon.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I can see where you are coming from, though personally I really have a hard time being around people who think of themselves as leaders or part of some sort of hierarchy. I know there are people who definitely have more knowledge and skills in certain fields and such, but at the end of the day, they are all humans and will all grow old and end up in the grave just like everyone else. I don't think the world needs more leaders or followers, they need people who can love and care and understand what human needs really are instead of putting labels and status on everything, just gives way too much room for detaching from humanly needs. I don't have anything against other people sharing a gospel with others, as long as it is just that, sharing. I have been around far too many who lash out, condemn, threaten, and verbally stab at those who they think are "lost sinners" over salvation and doctrines, while in the same breath they claim to be witnessing for God. If bullying, manipulating and being verbally abusive is witnessing for their God, then I want nothing to do with it.
I also have been around those who do studies and try to proselytize more people into their specific denomination, and even though it didn't feel harsh the way they were doing it, it also never felt right to me, though it was so hard to put my finger on why for so long, I finally realized that they had so many underlying motives, and though they weren't as harsh and abrasive as most I had interacted with, it felt like a more of deceptive way, trying to make people think they would be "special" and "saints", and using a lot of questions to force out responses, but then not allowing you to think too much outside of those questions, felt more like brainwashing than encouraging to think for oneself. When I finally realized this, it was my final turn-off to the studies I was going to. Whenever I would try to prod or question the doctrines that they were teaching, they would push it aside and change the topic back to what they wanted to talk about over and over again, it felt like they were treating me like a child who couldn't understand anything without them having to reword it a certain way in their own words, and if I had questions they just patted my childish head (figuratively) and look at me like I would never understand anything without their express guidance from God; it was very infuriating. They had a lot of people who they were baptizing into their denomination too, which I think it is because they used these tactics. Having been raised in a dysfunctional family and finally starting to realize it and come out of it, going to that church and studies felt like I was going to end up in the same nightmare all over again if I stayed much longer.
Anyway, I apologize for going into so much details there. I have still been feeling very frustrated over these things. :/ I guess I do have to agree with you there. I am sure there are right ways of sharing and such, though I rarely have experienced this from others in real life.
Thank you for sharing these things. I appreciate what you said there "No one should be someone else's version of themselves." It is what has been driving me up the wall the most I think, so what you said there really touched me.No one should be someone else's version of themselves. We all have to be who we are in our own heart. God does not force us to worship him....we have to choose that of our own free will because we love him and appreciate the gift of life we have been given. Understanding how everything fits into the big picture was the big clincher for me. No church ever taught me that. I had endless questions that they could never answer. I didn't understand how or why God would keep us in the dark about so much. But it wasn't him....it was how the churches were interpreting scripture. Nothing made sense.
I never understood the reasons why God allowed things to go so horribly wrong here on earth....and for so long. Was it all just a training ground for heaven?
I never understood the meaning of the Lord's Prayer even though I recited it 'parrot fashion' every week.
I never understood why death felt so wrong if it was the gateway to a better life with the Lord. Grieving makes no sense if that is the case, yet we all do it.
I never understood why Jesus had to be born as a human child and then die a sacrificial death if he was God? Who can kill God?
I don't know where your breaking point came, but I came to abhor the blatant hypocrisy I saw all the time, especially when it came to political issues. If Jesus told us to be no part of this world, then we are all the churches in it up to their necks?
Jesus said to love our enemies, yet the churches always supported the military, even blessing the weapons that would be used to kill innocent ones. Christendom has a lot of blood on her hands. (Isaiah 1:15)
Ahh, I see where you are coming from now, I guess that the questions that you were meaning and referring about are the deep personal questions and issues of the heart? I understand where you are coming from now in this (I think), thank you for clarifying. I guess that these types of questions cannot really be answered by other people or book smarts, they are things that need to be understood in the heart.
Yeah, I definitely find the blatant hypocrisy and smug attitudes of many quite frustrating. After thinking this over a bit, I think that my breaking point happened after this last year. Last year I was ready to give up hope of ever having my faith come back, had been struggling so much for years and kept hoping for help at the time, when suddenly I happened to drop into a church on a whim and had a study that really impressioned me deeply. After this, it suddenly became easier to read scriptures again and I was very eager to study and interact with these people, so I got pretty involved. Well, fast forward some months, and I start finding out the true colors of all these people and their underlying beliefs and where they came from. Pretty much a cult I guess. They were really sweet and nice, but something never felt right, until I realized it and that completely snapped me. Like I mentioned above to @whirlingmerc, with the studies I went to with them every week, the way they conducted the studies made me feel like they were treating me like a child who wouldn't be able to understand anything on my own, they had to put everything in their own words as if I couldn't understand otherwise, while at the same time they claimed that their studies were encouraging people to think for themselves, but then they never would discuss any questions or things that bothered me, but would push them aside, and only keep it in the direction they wanted it to go. The people there also seem to almost relish talking about how bad the world has become and such, they would go on and on about it. What was the point of all this? I kept asking myself, why go on and on about something like that; it would't change how bad the world was, it wouldn't help those who are struggling with sin, what was the point? Then I realized that they were doing it for their ego boosts. They have a major case of superiority-complex in that congregation. Anyway, that was sort of my final straw with trying to go to churches. I think because I was so desperate at the time they reeled me in hook line and sinker, and I turned a blind eye to it because I really wanted to have a place to belong to. I have been in and out of many different churches since I was 14 about, and every time it always has ended up in some way or another similar to this. I have nothing against practicing Christians who are sincere. I actually really admire those people, though they are rare. I just feel like I have had enough of all this for a while.
Anyway, thank you so much for the time you put into responding.
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