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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: P**d off with God
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Rossweisse
High Church Valkyrie
# 2349
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Posted
Posted by ChrisT: quote:
Non illegitimite carborundum
Ummm....mi scusi, Chris, but isn't that "Illegitimi non carborundum"? Or are there alternative versions?
Rossweisse // whose family motto it is (more or less)
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I'm not dead yet.
Posts: 15117 | From: Valhalla | Registered: Feb 2002
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ChrisT
One of the Good Guys™
# 62
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Posted
Hey,I don't know Rossweisse - I just copied it from somewhere! I was going to change it soon anyway.
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Firmly on dry land
Posts: 6489 | From: Here, there and everywhere | Registered: May 2001
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
I am not sure that this makes any sense.
My reading today was the crucifixion in Mark's gospel, well actually the death of Jesus (the crucifixion was yesterday). I read a commentator on Mark and he is clear that both the account in Mark is deeply ironic and that this is climax of the gospel.
O.K. The good news is God dying abandoned, helpless on a cross. Perhaps it is just my brain but I am aware of the smelly, dirty awfulness of what happened.
If here is one of God's great moments of self revelation then my brain spinning and I do not get it. Except nothing is quite where I delude myself it is.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Uriel
Shipmate
# 2248
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Posted
Thank you for you kind response OOT. I put my post up to try and offer some thoughts on a central theme in this thread - why doesn't God do something about the awful things in the world. I used personal experience to illustrate that I was aware of that feeling only too keenly, and so that my analytical conclusions about God's inability to act were seen in their context. Suffering does not happen in the abstract, only in the very real context of people's lives, and I thought it was important to ground my abstract thoughts in the circumstances which inspired them. I hope my thoughts about God's self-imposed limitation on interacting with the world help some people to see why God may not have directly acted in their situation.
quote:
ChrisT wrote:
The one thing that has struck me is that you both aren't letting go, you still believe in some good. You mention prayer and faith, despite the awful things you have been through.
While I have changed my views about God and his interaction with the world, I have not given up believing in God. I believe God exists because the very existence of this world implies a Creator - it's the most reasonable hypothesis to my mind. That doesn't say too much about the nature of God, however. I can see both pain and joy in the world, where there is darkness there can also be light. While I cannot believe in a God who performs magic tricks, arbitrarily conjuring up healing for some preferred people while passing over others, I can still see room in a world for a God of compassion who is concerned for our situation. This brings me to Jengie's post:
quote:
Jengie wrote:
O.K. The good news is God dying abandoned, helpless on a cross. Perhaps it is just my brain but I am aware of the smelly, dirty awfulness of what happened.
If here is one of God's great moments of self revelation then my brain spinning and I do not get it.
I don't see God as an all powerful medieval monarch sitting on a cloud, responding to an in-tray of prayer request for direct intervention in the world. I do see God involved in human brokenness, limiting his involvement in the world to getting his hands dirty and trying to inspire people to do likewise. The symbol of the cross is a sign that God is somehow in the experience of brokenness and rejection, an experience that many of us in this thread know only too well. The cry of 'My God, my God, why have you rejected me' is an experience that God understands and one that we shouldn't feel ashamed of.
So if you are on this thread because you are hurt by what someone has done to you, you are in good company. If the people hurting you are your church, remember that they are not living as the broken Christ who was open to the hurt and rejected. If your pain is due to natural causes, remember that God is not a magician changing the physical world to guarantee our comfort but a fellow pilgrim on the difficult road who knows those pains only too well. This understanding doesn't answer all the questions - but I have found it a step forward into a place that makes a bit more sense than the traditional Christian answers.
Cheers,
Uriel.
Posts: 687 | From: Somerset, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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ChrisT
One of the Good Guys™
# 62
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Uriel:
So if you are on this thread because you are hurt by what someone has done to you, you are in good company. If the people hurting you are your church, remember that they are not living as the broken Christ who was open to the hurt and rejected. If your pain is due to natural causes, remember that God is not a magician changing the physical world to guarantee our comfort but a fellow pilgrim on the difficult road who knows those pains only too well. This understanding doesn't answer all the questions - but I have found it a step forward into a place that makes a bit more sense than the traditional Christian answers.
I have to agree with this - I can't see any other way it could be when I look at things clearly. A 'fellow pilgrim'. Isn't that what Jesus said - he would be with us? Not to make things easy, or even any easier, but just that he would be there. It was like that in the close relationship I had as well. She was with me, most of the time I knew she didn't understand and certainly couldn't do anything to change the situation. But she was there, and that made all the difference. I suppose when you have a fellow pilgrim who is God there are plusses. He understands, even if he won't do anything about the situation. And he won't leave of his own free will, he is bound to me.
That sounds like a daily reading of some kind, and not at all p**d off. Apologies for disrupting this thread.
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Firmly on dry land
Posts: 6489 | From: Here, there and everywhere | Registered: May 2001
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Karin 3
Shipmate
# 3474
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ChrisT:
I have to agree with this - I can't see any other way it could be when I look at things clearly. A 'fellow pilgrim'. Isn't that what Jesus said - he would be with us? Not to make things easy, or even any easier, but just that he would be there. It was like that in the close relationship I had as well. She was with me, most of the time I knew she didn't understand and certainly couldn't do anything to change the situation. But she was there, and that made all the difference. I suppose when you have a fellow pilgrim who is God there are plusses. He understands, even if he won't do anything about the situation. And he won't leave of his own free will, he is bound to me.
That sounds like a daily reading of some kind, and not at all p**d off. Apologies for disrupting this thread.[/QB]
Yes Chris. That's how I see it, too. However good or bad my life is, Jesus is there with me through thick and thin. He will never leave me nor forsake me: the friend who sticks closer than a brother etc. Perhaps I'd better not go on, don't want to make you feel unwell. ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Or as Martyn Joseph puts it:
quote:
This is an Undiscovered Love
Gives new meaning to the word
Pulls apart the preposition
Makes these efforts look absurd
It’s an Undiscovered Love
That draws me close tonight
Takes away the fear of darkness
And throws it to the light
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Inspiration to live more generously, ethically and sustainably
Posts: 417 | From: South East England | Registered: Oct 2002
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Ophelia's Opera Therapist
Shipmate
# 4081
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Posted
quote:
(Posted by Uriel)So if you are on this thread because you are hurt by what someone has done to you, you are in good company. If the people hurting you are your church, remember that they are not living as the broken Christ who was open to the hurt and rejected.
Sorry to state the obvious but I am on this thread because I am p**d off with God. As I said before I can more easily forgive the church.
I guess my complaint is that God seems very far from walking beside me, as a fellow pilgrim or whatever. I feel like I've asked and cried to him to be there but he is refusing.
Or if he is there it's like he's asleep, like Jesus in the boat on the sea of Galilee. And there's a big storm brewing. But if I wake Jesus up, the one guy who can sort it out, he'll just have a go at me asking why am I so afraid and have I no faith? I don't like that Jesus.
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Though the bleak sky is burdened I'll pray anyway,
And though irony's drained me I'll now try sincere,
And whoever it was that brought me here
Will have to take me home. Martyn Joseph
Posts: 979 | From: Birmingham, UK | Registered: Feb 2003
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
I have been of this thread because I was so moved by Uriel's and ChrisT's posts that I didn't know what to add.
But your quote above, OOT, leads me to express a little theory of mine. Stories like the one you are talking about make me wonder if part of the purpose of the Incarnation was for God the Son to learn what human beings were all about ("They cry at funerals, they get all freaked out by little storms, what's wrong with them?") When Jesus was about to die, he focused his comments on the quality of love the disciples were to have for each other, and how that would reveal them to be his disciples. In my mind that was God's conclusion, after wandering among us, as to what would sustain us.
In any case, I have loved reading this thread. It's like a lump of clay that hasn't been finished yet, but is beginning to take form. I think we are on to something, but I haven't figured out what yet.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Uriel
Shipmate
# 2248
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Posted
quote:
OOTwrote:
I guess my complaint is that God seems very far from walking beside me, as a fellow pilgrim or whatever. I feel like I've asked and cried to him to be there but he is refusing.
I know what you're feeling, and most platitudes do nothing to help. There are times when I've shouted at God for making the world in 6 days - why couldn't he have spent longer and done a better job? Spent a bit longer making people more empathic, or making biological systems more reliable? Road tested humanity and then taken out the bit in our brains that pre-disposes towards conflict.
But, the point about feeling far from God and totally deserted is something that Jesus experienced on the cross. The cry of desolation 'My God, my God, why have you deserted me' is one that Jesus shares with us. Maybe that as well as accusing God of being a sadist for putting us into this awful world, we can also accuse him of masochism for coming into it and sharing it with us, but at least he has shared it with us.
Cheers,
Uriel.
Posts: 687 | From: Somerset, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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NickA
Shipmate
# 3387
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Posted
Chris - you come accross as having heard and tried to believe in all the good words of God about love and forgiveness, but God hasn't just said "I forgive your sin", if so man would still be in sin. What man needs and what God has made available is power over sin, something better, a new heart and mind which we only have within us once we have received the Holy Spirit. It's a completely new Life, signified by a "new tongue" (Acts 2v4, 33, 39, 10:44-46 etc).
If you have not received this you should be p**d off with the religious groups that have told you otherwise and go straight to God for what he says you need.
Posts: 51 | From: SUSPENDED | Registered: Oct 2002
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Uriel
Shipmate
# 2248
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Posted
quote:
Uriel wrote:
most platitudes do nothing to help
and then...
quote:
NickA wrote:
God hasn't just said "I forgive your sin", if so man would still be in sin. What man needs and what God has made available is power over sin, something better, a new heart and mind which we only have within us once we have received the Holy Spirit. It's a completely new Life
Nick, while there are some situations where religious rhetoric about new life in God and the power of the Spirit to make things new are helpful, there are some where they are hollow platitudes. There have been many on this thread experiencing the latter situation, being in a place where despite their openness to the Spirit they still remain in a cold and dark place.
I know your words were given with the best of intentions, but they strike me as an attempt to squeeze life into an one-size-fits-all theological worldview, rather than making theology true to the reality of individual situations. Many people are hacked off with God because the theological worldview of an all-benevolent, helpful, healing God who makes everything better, who breaks into this world with power and good will is one that does not ring true with their situation. The sort of anger expressed on this thread is caused by this false conception of God which raises expectations and then leaves people stranded.
quote:
NickA wrote:
If you have not received this you should be p**d off with the religious groups that have told you otherwise and go straight to God for what he says you need.
The anger I have had at God was not due to my not asking to help. My anger was due to asking for God's help when my wife was in the early stages of a suspected miscarriage. When I prayed there was still scope for the pregnancy to continue to term - the miscarriage was only suspected. But, following my prayer, the miscarriage went from suspected to inevitable, with the associated physical pain and emotional trauma. This had been my time of deepest need, and my prayer was the most honest, serious and open that I had ever prayed. For the sake of my unborn child I petitioned for God's healing power to come into this situation. God remained silent.
So it was that I became angry at the God of power who breaks into our world with new life, mending the broken and healing the sick. After my experience I was unable to believe in such a God. But at least I still have the God at the centre of Christianity, the human-god who acts as a person in this world, a God of brokenness, pain, crucifixion and abandonment.
Cheers,
Uriel
Posts: 687 | From: Somerset, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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ChrisT
One of the Good Guys™
# 62
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by NickA:
Chris - you come accross as having heard and tried to believe in all the good words of God about love and forgiveness, but God hasn't just said "I forgive your sin", if so man would still be in sin. What man needs and what God has made available is power over sin, something better, a new heart and mind which we only have within us once we have received the Holy Spirit. It's a completely new Life, signified by a "new tongue" (Acts 2v4, 33, 39, 10:44-46 etc).
If you have not received this you should be p**d off with the religious groups that have told you otherwise and go straight to God for what he says you need.
The point of this whole thread, NickA, is not to complain that God hasn't shown himself. It's not to say 'why haven't I been forgiven'. It's not even to rant at religious groups, although that is sorely needed. The point is to ask, if this God we have is so powerful and almighty that he can create the whole universe, why hasn't he done anything about the awful situations we have found ourselves going through.
Power over sin, a new heart and a new mind are all great while the going is good. When circumstances stack up against you, you can quote every verse in the Bible, stand on every promise supposely therein, pray without ceasing. But after a time, just occasionally, you could do with some diving intervention. It's that lack of any action from God, as well as his people, that I have issue with.
And your perceived insistance on 'tongues' as a sign of true salvation will gain you little respect on these boards, I'm afraid. People want something more real, more tangible, more life-changing than an outbreak of Charismania. I have spoken in tongues for years, seen people healed, led worship, felt amazing 'moves of the Spirit'. But essentially it boils down to this - God hasn't done the one thing I needed him no. Not just wanted, not just desired, needed. All those years of faithful service have proved to be fruitless. That is where my anger and dissolusionment lies.
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Firmly on dry land
Posts: 6489 | From: Here, there and everywhere | Registered: May 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
Nick - you are hereby awarded the prize for the most useless post on any Purgatory thread since the last time someone used it for UBB practice.
You won't mind if I tell you to bugger off, will you?
This 'pissed off with God'-ness is not some stage we are going through before we receive this marvellous gift of the Spirit - it is for some of us a stage that is happening far further down our lives. I can look back on those crazy days of being "in the Spirit". And yet they faded like snow in the Spring. You go through a period of pretending it's still there. Then you acknowledge it isn't, and set about trying to regain it. But heaven remains closed; God's phone is off the hook and He never replies to any messages you leave Him.
Then you get pissed off. But not as pissed off as when some well-meaning berk tries to sell you the product that proved inadequate in the first place.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Um, Nick, prayer doesn't always fix things. Nor does "being filled with the Spirit".
Maybe you haven't experienced that yet.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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nouwen
Shipmate
# 3103
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Posted
What is a healthy approach to Christian anger? Anger is a message, a revelation. Looking at and understanding the conflict we experience is a key step in illuminating the situation we find ourseleves in.....
If we are attemtping to hear God's word, we must listen to anger as carefully as we listen to joy, peace, fear and fatigue" [Kathleen Fisher].
I for one get tired of being press-ganged into public repenting sessions about about anger. In my church we have some complete t**t [could that be twit, could that be twat??], who stands up and leads the church to repent for the things they have been angry about. Like docile lemmings they jump out of reality and mumble the words whilst ditching their brains. As for me, I sit in my pew and silently think "God, I'm really pissed off with you". Strange thing is that rather than being turned away, I find myself standing at the foot of the cross and being whole-heartedly welcomed in.
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Speaking the truth is not the same as being negative.
Posts: 477 | From: Oxford | Registered: Jul 2002
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ChrisT
One of the Good Guys™
# 62
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by nouwen:
As for me, I sit in my pew and silently think "God, I'm really pissed off with you". Strange thing is that rather than being turned away, I find myself standing at the foot of the cross and being whole-heartedly welcomed in.
Fantastic Nouwen, this is just what I am finding. Jesus didn't primarily welcome the well-off, the happy, the healed, the content or complete to him when he was here. And he doesn't do that now. God can have all of me - and most of me is a boiling mix of anger, resentment, bitterness, depression, dissolusionment, pain and hurt at the moment - or he can leave me.
One thing that really makes me mad is the effect that all this has. So whoop-do if these tough times are meant to be 'doing me good'. That's sick enough. But when the situation is hurting others - completely innocent others - it is made many times worse.
As Sarkycow said in another thread 'Oh that you would tear open the heavens and come down'.
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Firmly on dry land
Posts: 6489 | From: Here, there and everywhere | Registered: May 2001
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nouwen
Shipmate
# 3103
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Posted
In recent weeks all I've been able to do is stand before the cross and ask "can I come before you whilst carrying such anger". If the answer is no, where on earth can I go?
However the answer has always been "yes, come and tell me about it".
If I can't scream, and shout at God as he hangs there screaming and shouting at our mutual Father than I become little less than a vagrant with out a home. Thank God that I hear Christ shouting the same, and it's in listening to this that I find myself amongst familiar company.
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Speaking the truth is not the same as being negative.
Posts: 477 | From: Oxford | Registered: Jul 2002
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KenWritez
Shipmate
# 3238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by NickA:
Chris - you come accross as having heard and tried to believe in all the good words of God about love and forgiveness, but God hasn't just said "I forgive your sin", if so man would still be in sin. What man needs and what God has made available is power over sin, something better, a new heart and mind which we only have within us once we have received the Holy Spirit. It's a completely new Life, signified by a "new tongue" (Acts 2v4, 33, 39, 10:44-46 etc).
If you have not received this you should be p**d off with the religious groups that have told you otherwise and go straight to God for what he says you need.
Welcome to Purg, Nick, I'm glad you posted. Please pardon while some people hand you your head. You sound like a new believer, so I will assume that and give you some slack.
First off, go back and re-read Nouwen's and Uriel's most excellent posts. Then go re-read Karl's. Karl's post is a perfect example of many Shipmate's reactions to what they see as insufferable arrogance. (Although you got off very lightly, as Erin hasn't been 'round to chew on you yet.)
I, of course, am the paragon of genteel remonstrance, so I shan't tug my cuffs and then ham-slap you into bloody unconsciousness, but rather, tenderly lead you into the timeless paths of wisdom, her silver threads to gather and golden spindles to weave.
Your post reminds me starkly of a mindset I possessed for years in the beginnings of my Christian experience. There's no cure except time and grace if you're open to it. What you said is true but the expression of it is not at all as black and white, nor is it as simple, as your post paints.
I have been a Christian now for over 25 years. Yes, I speak in tongues, have prayed for people's healing and deliverances, seen miracles and felt the hand of God, yadda yadda yadda. It all fades to shit when compared to actually loving the people around me, accepting them unconditionally, telling them the truth in love, laying down my life for them in lots of little ways, and being emotionally available to them.
Look, any spiritually-pointed moron can rattle off tongues or a prophecy/word of knowledge; it's not that hard to do. The REAL work of being a Christian is love. Love is the axle around which the Gospel revolves. No love = no Gospel.
Love is...no, let's do what love is not.
Love is NOT trying to "fix" people who believe differently than you so they fit into your box of dogmas:
+ "What? You practice infant baptism? Here. let me show you The Truth...."
+ "What do you mean, you support/oppose women's ordination? Here's what God's word says on the subject...."
You get the idea.
I should shut up and let the gracious and refreshing ChristinaMarie say what I am too clumsy to craft. But, I like the sight of my own words just enough to plunge ahead anyway. So, onward....
While I've celebrated the presence of God in my life, I've also seen--in my life and in the lives of others--what looks like the terrible absence of God. God seems to show up like a party crasher when things are going well, but let hard times come around, and He's scarpered off.
This seems to happen more often than not. While there have been times I and others go through difficulties and He's there for us in a manner we can perceive, this is the exception, not the rule.
Sin? Man, it's my roomate, it rides around on my finger like a wedding ring, ready for action at a moment's notice. I can hate, lust, overeat, gossip, be prideful, lie, rage, be drunk, murder, any sin imaginable, all in a moment. People who say they have no sin, or do not sin, have no understanding of the term nor the reality.
Yes, I sin, I sin like a Chicago ward voter votes: Early and often. This is why I need God's grace and why every day I ask Him to forgive me my sins.
This is why Jesus came; to pay the price I could not for my sins, because I cannot stop sinning. He didn't have to do this, He was doing fine in Heaven, but somehow he had a thing for us, this buggered lot of humanity known collectively as mankind, and so for whatever reason, He showed up as both God and man, lived as a man, showed us God in human form, and allowed himself to be killed by us for the privilege. But the joke was on us; in so doing His death paid for our sins, but it did not immunize us from them. Sin is still a daily, hourly reality in every single Christian's life and no one gets an exemption from it.
As for tongues? It's a nice gift but it's not salvation nor is it a gold star from God signifying His big smile on such. What happens to those people who are saved but do not speak in tongues? Are they lesser Christians? More deserving of a sort of spiritual steerage since they don't speak in tongues? I don't think so.
To cheerfully contradict Karl, I invite you to hang around the Ship, see what's going on in the different threads, jump in when you like, but please, please remember: Everyone will have different experiences from you so no one will always agree with you. There's no shortage of Shipmates who post quite dogmatically ("X is wrong!" "No, it's right!") and I'm well in the lead of the pack, but I've experienced the powerful effects of kindness from some Shipmates firsthand (RuthW, Moo, Ham&Eggs, Belisarius, Erin, Presleytarian, Clare, Scot, and Motherboard come to mind and I know there've been many others who've escaped my tiny tiny brain for the moment), so if you extend to others the grace you want for yourself, you won't piss off so many people and you'll find a warm welcome for yourself here.
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"The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be a shepherd." --Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction
My blog: http://oxygenofgrace.blogspot.com
Posts: 11102 | From: Left coast of Wonderland, by the rabbit hole | Registered: Aug 2002
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KenWritez
Shipmate
# 3238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by nouwen:
In recent weeks all I've been able to do is stand before the cross and ask "can I come before you whilst carrying such anger". If the answer is no, where on earth can I go?
However the answer has always been "yes, come and tell me about it".
If I can't scream, and shout at God as he hangs there screaming and shouting at our mutual Father than I become little less than a vagrant with out a home. Thank God that I hear Christ shouting the same, and it's in listening to this that I find myself amongst familiar company.
Nouwen: ![[Not worthy!]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
EXCELLENT POST! ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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"The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be a shepherd." --Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction
My blog: http://oxygenofgrace.blogspot.com
Posts: 11102 | From: Left coast of Wonderland, by the rabbit hole | Registered: Aug 2002
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
kenwritez
You next-to-most-recent post.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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ChrisT
One of the Good Guys™
# 62
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Posted
So it seems that some people have been there, done that and still come through the other side OK. Maybe with scars, maybe with hangups. But they are still breathing, and still believing.
Thanks for your spot-on posts Nouwen and Kenwritez
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Firmly on dry land
Posts: 6489 | From: Here, there and everywhere | Registered: May 2001
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
Uriel quote quote:
My current hypothesis is that God has established immutable scientific laws to govern the physical interactions of the universe, and that the sort of universe we live in necessarily needs such laws to permit its everyday functioning. God has therefore self-limited himself not to violate those laws on occasion for to do so would bring in a contradiction - we can't have immutable scientific laws that are also occasionally unstable. So if you pray for rain and it rains, it isn't because God heard you and caused rain to fall, it's just that you got lucky with your timing and the physical laws controlling the weather made it rain anyway.
Uriel has expressed almost exactly what I believe and like him, I came to this belief after praying for the healing of my child and being denied. Maybe it's because people who pray for their children do it with an intensity and unselfishness unlike any other prayers they ever ask. We know we've given those prayers all the sincerity and faith we have so we can only conclude that our loving God, who has heard our heartfelt pleas and seen our pain, simply doesn't interfere with the natural laws he has set in motion.
God gives me comfort and courage to face my problems, he gives doctors the goodness and knowledge to search for cures and I hope someday he will give my son a happier life, if not here then in "heaven." I still hope and pray for healing, and after ten years of things being really, really bad, they have gotten a lot better but are still fairly awful.
I just know that being angry at God is not really very helpful or logical. It would mean that while thousands were dying of starvation and disease, I didn't get angry or have doubts until my personal request was refused. Although I get angry over many things, I'm not angry at God. He has sustained me.
That's just my personal belief at the moment; I really think this question is a mystery we won't know the full answer to until "farther along."
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
![[Waterworks]](graemlins/bawling.gif)
God Bless Phil!
That box is getting closer to coming out...
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Nanny Ogg
Ship's cushion
# 1176
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Posted
It's been a long time since I posted on this thread - mainly as I felt I had nothing to contribute which would not sound like a platitude or trite in any way.
After a period of arguing with God and being really p****d off with God things came to a head one night (see Moving onwards and feel free to ignore)
It would have been complacent to leave things there but although things have moved forward, I still get the "why me?" and "what have I done wrong to deserve this?" and this past week has been a real struggle mainly due to the fact that I am feeling very tired, ill and depressed.
Things have changed - I do now feel God's presence with me, but I do wish circumstances were different. I also see the power of prayer but I wish there wasn't so much to ask for prayer for (if you understand).
I am holding on to promises that people have sent me in recent weeks/months - they're what are keeping hanging on at times.
Maybe God is trying to teach me something about faith - I don't know. I just wish that there was a gentler and more loving way of doing so.
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Buy me a beer and I'm you friend forever
Posts: 4137 | From: Away with the fairies | Registered: Aug 2001
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alexliamw
Shipmate
# 2875
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Posted
I've never had the whole 'God is really annoying me at the moment' thing. Which is perhaps a blessing. I do find it somewhat hard to understand. I can't relate to people who talk about 'not liking God at the moment'.
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- Alex.
Over a year sinced I joined and I'm still under 200 posts....:-S
The church website I run
Posts: 196 | From: London | Registered: May 2002
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alexliamw
Shipmate
# 2875
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Posted
Sorry to double-post, but wanted to add: I think I just deal with things in a different way, by seeking refuge as opposed to 'arguing with God'.
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- Alex.
Over a year sinced I joined and I'm still under 200 posts....:-S
The church website I run
Posts: 196 | From: London | Registered: May 2002
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Ophelia's Opera Therapist
Shipmate
# 4081
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Posted
Hi Alex
Where do you seek refuge? And do you find it? Because if you do you are doing better than me. I think part of the arguing with God thing is the expectation of a personal relationship with God and the idea that some communication is better than none - as many people have said, God can take it.
Nanny Ogg, it was your mention of this thread on your moving on one that helped me find it in the first place. Welcome back. I see what you mean about wishing there were fewer things in need of prayer. Sometimes it all seems like an impossible mountain of need, both personal and in the world in general. I either get very upset and frustrated or I just shut down the recognition of it and go and live in la la denial land. I wish I thought God cared about my disaffection and lostness. But if he did, would he not do something about it? And if anyone wants to say he came and died on a cross for my lostness we'll have to take the issue up in hell.
OOT
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Though the bleak sky is burdened I'll pray anyway,
And though irony's drained me I'll now try sincere,
And whoever it was that brought me here
Will have to take me home. Martyn Joseph
Posts: 979 | From: Birmingham, UK | Registered: Feb 2003
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ChrisT
One of the Good Guys™
# 62
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by alexliamw:
I've never had the whole 'God is really annoying me at the moment' thing. Which is perhaps a blessing. I do find it somewhat hard to understand. I can't relate to people who talk about 'not liking God at the moment'.
Alex, give it time. It will happen.
And OOT, I kind of see what you mean - it's that damn Heavenly catch 22 situation. He wants to help us, and for us to be happy, but the only way he can do that is by pulling back and letting us fail miserably and get hurt deeply. Like Nanny says, I wish there was an easier way. Either that or is it possible to see the outcome - to see the final goal, so maybe I can put this into perspective?
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Firmly on dry land
Posts: 6489 | From: Here, there and everywhere | Registered: May 2001
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie:
My reading today was the crucifixion in Mark's gospel...... <snip> I read a commentator on Mark and he is clear that both the account in Mark is deeply ironic and that this is climax of the gospel.
O.K. The good news is God dying abandoned, helpless on a cross. Perhaps it is just my brain but I am aware of the smelly, dirty awfulness of what happened.
If here is one of God's great moments of self revelation then my brain spinning and I do not get it. Except nothing is quite where I delude myself it is.
Jengie
It's true that Mark's gospel has often been labelled as a Passion Narrative with a brief introduction, it majors so much on Christ's passion.
It's pretty certain the original version ended with the Marys and some other women discovering the empty tomb, as per chapter 16:1-8, being told by an angel that they shouldn't be alarmed, and then running away 'for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.'
Then come the 'two' endings, neither of which need to be discussed for the purposes of this thread.
To be left terrified and amazed as the women were, not really understanding, it would seem, what had happened to Christ, must have seemed very like not Good News. The confusion over the endings of Mark's gospel perhaps indicate something of the confusion of that time itself. The joy of Christ's resurrection and reappearance must have come later; but just at that moment what they felt was fear. They didn't, at the time, feel reassured by the angel's message.
There's something undeniably real and authentic about the messiness of the way in which Mark handles this crucial event - remembering that his work would have been used to teach the story of Christ to the earliest members of the new Church.
No explanations, no trumpetings of joy and 'hallelujahs'; just fear, terror, confusion, disbelief, and even for a while stunned silence ('and they said nothing to anyone...'). Their minds just couldn't get round it. And then an interesting, no doubt authentic, but rather botched up attempt at rounding things up, nice and neatly at the end. Again, perhaps indicating the rawness of the event and the disarray and uncertainty in which it left Christ's followers.
I'm glad, Jengie, that Mark's Good News is included, even though it seems well disguised as 'Good News?' sometimes; because it means that even in the hallowed and sanctified regions of Holy Writ - even when referring to the pivotal event of our faith - things can be messy, confusing and unsatisfying. Just like my life.
It's not much consolation at times, I suppose, but if even Jesus' friends were too scared, anxious and traumatized to hear clearly the message of 'he has been raised', then maybe there is hope for me, even in the midst of my darkest moments.
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Irish dogs needing homes! http://www.dogactionwelfaregroup.ie/ Greyhounds and Lurchers are shipped over to England for rehoming too!
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Either that or is it possible to see the outcome - to see the final goal, so maybe I can put this into perspective?
I keep telling God I want to see the blueprint, but he won't show it to me.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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KenWritez
Shipmate
# 3238
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Posted
Alex: Welcome to the Ship, I hope you enjoy your time here and grow as a result. There are loads of excellent people onboard.
At this moment, and perhaps for a long time prior, I'm fundamentally pissed off at God.
I'm angry that He seems to be utterly random in his involvement in my life. What if, every time you went to someone who said they loved you, and asked him or her for a hug and an "I love you," and that person flipped a coin to decide whether or not to respond? Too many times when I pray, I feel I'm dropping a coin in the Slot Machine o' God and pulling that Lever of Prayer, hoping against loads of previous experience for those spiritual triple cherries banging up all in a row, ding! ding! ding!, which means God's gonna answer my prayer.
"'Round and 'round Ken's prayer goes, will God show up? Nobody knows!"
I am torn between head and heart. With my head, I know He is God: Perfect, sinless, holy, full of love for mankind in general and me in specific as evidenced by Him sending Jesus to die for me on the cross and by the times He has shown up for me.
Yet with my heart I feel the pain of severe loneliness, also the pain of medical conditions, lack of friendships, alienation, loss, unfulfilled hopes, dreams that died, cynicism, disgust at myself, self-hatred, even hopelessness at ever changing my conditions.
Where is God in all of that misery? Do I get to point to all the shit in my life and demand an accounting from Him for it?
Assuming I do (hey, it worked for Job, at least initially), this next question must follow: "Where am I?" IOTW, neither God nor I live in a moral or spiritual vacuum. Where is the dividing line between my appropriate responsibility for my own actions and attitudes, and God taking responsibility for those of His doing?
Sometimes I feel like a prisoner clattering his tin cup back and forth across the bars, yelling for release, attention, anything, yet I wonder if the only lock on my door is my own fist?
And yet...and yet...and yet I can't be honest with myself if I ignore G.K. Chesterton's question of the problem of pleasure. If I blame God for all the shit, am I arrogant enough to take credit for all the pleasure? After all, my life is not some relentless string of broken glass chewing. There are very good bits every now and then, most times even every day, altho I may have to search diligently for them.
- Listening to Stevie Ray Vaughn's cover of "Voodoo Child."
- Ironing a white, long-sleeved dress shirt.
- Opening a PM from someone telling me they like my writing.
- Sitting on the back porch of a cabin in the central California mountains on a clear spring afternoon and just looking, looking, looking at the view out across the valley to the Coastal Range.
- Working on a bit of calligraphy.
- Practicing magic.
- Talking with my Sweet Potato in the kitchen as I cook.
- Reading a great post from a Shipmate whose thinking and wordsmithing abilities I respect--and always envy--you know who you are.
- Watching the first animated Charlie Brown Christmas special, identifying with Charlie so much, listening to Linus quote the Anunciation (correct term?) from the book of Luke, and listening to Vince Guraldi's incredible jazz of "Linus and Lucy."
- That invisible light bulb suddenly clicking "on" over someone's head when I'm teaching them something.
I am also galled by the realization my perceptions are not always accurate. Lots of times I've been positive such-and-such was true, when, sad to say, it was not. (Remember that cute girl when I was in junior high that I thought liked me? BZZZT! Wrong. Draw a line from this episode through the remainder of my life.)
Shit! If I can't trust my perceptions, what can I do? I don't know what else to do, divorcing God isn't something I can do in good conscience (no judgment on anyone else who does), except continue as I have, to expect more from God than I seem to see, to keep on climbing in His face and grabbing Him by the lapels and yelling, "WTF?!"
I yell because I care.
I care because I see God as the only true, reliable answer for this fallen world and her people. I care because God said, in His book and through about a billion pastors, preachers and teachers, that He really did care about us as a human race and as individuals, and because He said He is trustworthy and true and perfect.
I care because I know I am fallen from grace, returned to it only by Jesus' death and redemption of me from my own sins I cannot pay for, that given my own inclination, I'll crawl back to a comfortable death in a heartbeat.
I yell at God because I need Him and I don't understand why He does things as He does. Why this, why that? Sometimes I'm so tempted to throw up my hands and say, "I should have my head examined for believing any of this crap."
And yet...and yet...and yet I find I cannot ignore God! I see His shadow everywhere! I cannot run from Him nor wipe Him from my mind! WTF is going on?! "Hey, God! Either kiss me or kill me, but stop fucking with me!"
For now, this sums it up for me: "We see through a glass darkly."
Yeah; no shit, Sherlock.
![[Help]](graemlins/help.gif) ![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif)
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"The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be a shepherd." --Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction
My blog: http://oxygenofgrace.blogspot.com
Posts: 11102 | From: Left coast of Wonderland, by the rabbit hole | Registered: Aug 2002
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alexliamw
Shipmate
# 2875
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Posted
Sorry to resurrect the thread but I'd forgotten about it and wanted to respond...
quote:
Originally posted by OutOfTherapy:
Hi Alex
Where do you seek refuge? And do you find it?
I seek refuge in God. I have enough people in life to get angry at without God as well - I hope that God is a break from all that.
quote:
Originally posted by ChrisT:
Alex, give it time. It will happen.
I'm not sure I want it to!
quote:
Originally posted by kenwritez:
Alex: Welcome to the Ship, I hope you enjoy your time here and grow as a result. There are loads of excellent people onboard.
Actually, I've been a member for coming up to a year, as you can see from my joined date below, I just don't post very often. But thanks anyway ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
[fixed UBB for quotes]
[ 19. April 2003, 19:53: Message edited by: Alan Cresswell ]
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- Alex.
Over a year sinced I joined and I'm still under 200 posts....:-S
The church website I run
Posts: 196 | From: London | Registered: May 2002
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Ophelia's Opera Therapist
Shipmate
# 4081
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Posted
Alex
Thanks for replying but I don't really think I'm getting what you mean. How do you find refuge in God? What comfort does he offer you? Do you think he's more than just a figment of your imagination - and can you prove it?
I'm just a bit fed up of waiting for God to deliver any sort of refuge... I'd love to go to some safe peaceful place with God but I feel utterly shut out. Maybe it's hard for you to understand how anyone can be pissed off with God. But read the thread in hell, 'Calling God to Hell' to get some insight into the darkness people are experiencing. *If* you can offer some genuine light I think people might appreciate it - but just a 'I'm fine' isn't very helpful.
OOT
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Though the bleak sky is burdened I'll pray anyway,
And though irony's drained me I'll now try sincere,
And whoever it was that brought me here
Will have to take me home. Martyn Joseph
Posts: 979 | From: Birmingham, UK | Registered: Feb 2003
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by OutOfTherapy:
But read the thread in hell, 'Calling God to Hell' to get some insight into the darkness people are experiencing. *If* you can offer some genuine light I think people might appreciate it - but just a 'I'm fine' isn't very helpful.
OOT
Just a thought, Alex:
Definitely read the Calling God to Hell thread. But it isn't really a debating thread--it's a venting thread.
If you have insights to offer, would probably be best to offer them here, or to start a new thread.
People have tried offering insights down on the hell thread but...well, those of us who are venting usually don't find it helpful.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Zeke
Ship's Inquirer
# 3271
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Posted
I have a friend who doesn't ever go to church, and I was trying to convince him to darken the door at least on Easter, but he said he doesn't want to go to church because he never gets anything he prays for. I didn't know what to say, and you'd think a preacher's kid would have the quick answer to that one without even thinking about it. But I know the things he wants, and they are very nice things. He wants a girlfriend. He wants his mother to have less pain from her arthritis. He wants things to be better in his country (he is Venezuelan). What could I tell him? I finally said that maybe the girlfriend he wants would be at church. I was not pleased with that answer, and neither was he. I just offered to pray for him myself, and he was touchingly grateful, believing that maybe God would listen to me more than him.
This makes me very angry with God. My son never goes to church and no longer considers himself a Christian for similar reasons. God hasn't provided for his needs, no matter how hard he works. People expect me to have answers because I am the one who is involved in a church and claims to be a Christian. I have ongoing health considerations as well, and other things I don't even want to discuss, and when I pray I feel like I am talking into a dead phone!
I'm not asking for a Ferrari and a mansion in the country with servants and a pad for my helicopter. I am not asking for trips around the world, fame, beauty. All I need is some basic stuff, for myself and for friends and family. I know you aren't supposed to think of God as some kind of vending machine, but prayers are supposed to do SOMETHING, aren't they?
Does anybody have anything helpful to say? Because I am completely out of answers.
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No longer the Bishop of Durham
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If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be without it? --Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 5259 | From: Deep in the American desert | Registered: Sep 2002
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Zeke--
Nope, sorry. Nothing to offer but a hug. I'm similarly situated.
Anything that God has been purported to do over the years seems extremely erratic.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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shuggie
Shipmate
# 3141
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Posted
I've been visiting this site long enough to know the regulars don't suffer glady those who seek to offer easy answers to hard questions. What I'm about to say may seem like a trite platitude, but it's not, it comes from my own personal experience. However I'll risk being misunderstood for the possibility of helping someone.
My advice for those who feel pissed off at God:
Don't give up
Told you it would sound trite didn't I? But I'm passionate about this. You see 5 years ago I did give up. I deliberately turned my back on God and walked away. Not because I stopped believing, but because it just didn't seem to work. I felt disappointed and let down by God. I felt emotionally and spiritually worn out. It's not so much I lost my faith as it just drained away.
But as little as I felt I had, as distant as my relationship with God felt, I still had to make a conscious decision to end it.
And the thing is that now, a few years later, my life is more stable and my thoughts turn to God and faith occasionally, and I regret that decision. Because I feel like I can't go back. I feel like I crossed a line in myself somehow and it's hard to go back. Christians I talk to tend to give me the trite answers too. They don't understand why it's hard for me to go back, and I can't seem to articulate it, but you may as well ask a man with broken legs to climb Everest.
If I could go back and make a different decision, I would. Because as hard as it was not to give up then, this is harder.
So I say, be angry with God, be pissed off with him, rail at him if you have to - I'm sure you can't shock him, and he won't reject you for it - just do without completely giving up.
Your fellow Christians almost certainly won't be as accepting - they're human after all. Many won't understand. Many will be angry at you because they need you to maintain the pretence of what a 'good Christian' should be, otherwise they themselves feel threatened. Do your best to ignore them. If you're lucky, then like me you'll find out who your real friends are. There are 2 or 3 people who are left who I still talk to, who I can be completely honest with. They've seen the real me and whether or not they understand they don't judge and they listen. Those are the special relationships - hold on to those if you can.
Sorry this is starting to sound preachy. Please believe that I'm not saying this because I think it's all easy. And I'm definitely not saying it because I think I have personally got life figured out. I'm saying it because it's my experience and hopefully it may help someone.
Posts: 367 | Registered: Aug 2002
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Hi Shuggie! Thanks for your post. IMHO, you did fine. When you're in pain, there's a big difference between being told "you're wrong for feeling what you do" and "don't give up".
I hope you find what you need, Shuggie. ![[Love]](graemlins/lovedrops.gif)
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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alexliamw
Shipmate
# 2875
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Posted
Sorry for being brief in my previous post. It was reviving an old thread and I spose I kinda doubted anyone was going to read it anyway.
I seek refuge in God because, in the middle of a world where so much can go wrong, God can be a comfort. You need someone to talk to - and prayer can be very therapeutic - God has no hidden agenda. Rather than blaming what goes wrong in our lives on God, we could just be talking to God about whats going wrong and praying for guidance. This might be easier said than done, but I've never understood the point in blaming God, when we know so little about how everything works, and I've thought that the point was to try and gain some sort of comfort. If a friendship with someone broke down, rather than getting angry with God for it breaking down, you take comfort in the fact that God will always be your friend, there for you.
I'm not saying that getting angry with God is wrong, bad or crazy, simply that I find it difficult to relate to. Sure, if things go desperately wrong, it might shake someone's faith or give them doubt, but hopefully instead of getting angry with God they could draw some comfort from the fact that he's always there to talk to.
Some people may look down on this and say "you're deluding yourself" or "if you don't have conflict with God, you can't have a real relationship with Him" but I'm sorry, its the way it is for me at the moment. And I have to say I'm fairly happy with it.
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- Alex.
Over a year sinced I joined and I'm still under 200 posts....:-S
The church website I run
Posts: 196 | From: London | Registered: May 2002
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
I remember a few years ago I was upset about something (I don't remember what, anymore) and I wanted to just burst, and ... well, for lack of a better description, it seemed to me that Jesus just let me pummel him, the way a very small child might when crying and very upset, and it was very comforting to me -- like He was saying, "It's okay! I can take it! Let it out! Let it out at Me!"
I still feel sort of safe and secure when I remember that.
David
had forgotten about it till he re-read this thread
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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Ophelia's Opera Therapist
Shipmate
# 4081
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Posted
Thanks Golden Key for clarifying what I meant about giving any advice - I did wonder about mentioning the Calling God to Hell thread as I know platitudes are not well received. Part of me wanted to challenge anyone to come up with any helpful 'light', but I know that I may well be one of those who sneer at the most well-meant advice.
That said I haven't got a reason to complain at any of the recent posters here. I appreciate the honesty and concern shown in even taking time to reply.
Part of me still jumps to comfort and encourage others, wanting to say it's not too late and even if you do completely give up on God I think there would be a way back, difficult though it may well be. But as someone who has done some serious drifting lately I guess I just don't know anymore.
I echo the posters above - I haven't been asking for riches, mansions or a painfree life. When I was last talking to God about myself it was simply along basic lines of knowing him, finding some sort of peace, having some sort of relationship with him. Desperate heart-cries.
I really cannot fathom why God would not answer those sorts of prayers - the sort I thought he always wanted. I guess even puzzling over it is completely exhausting. If God is my parent then I'm waiting for Social Services to intervene. Another absent father with a busy lifestyle and too little time for his kids. I'm coming round to a resignation with it I guess, but I don't like it.
OOT
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Though the bleak sky is burdened I'll pray anyway,
And though irony's drained me I'll now try sincere,
And whoever it was that brought me here
Will have to take me home. Martyn Joseph
Posts: 979 | From: Birmingham, UK | Registered: Feb 2003
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ChrisT
One of the Good Guys™
# 62
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by OutOfTherapy:
If God is my parent then I'm waiting for Social Services to intervene. Another absent father with a busy lifestyle and too little time for his kids. I'm coming round to a resignation with it I guess, but I don't like it.
This is pretty much where I am now. Where I've been for months in fact. It's not really a question of giving up, as I realised that I cannot refuse to believe in God ad therefore part of my life at least will always be bound up in him. But I feel I'm failing to hang on to something. That thing could well be my fundie upbringing, in which case good riddance to it. But if it's something deeper and more important than that I want to know what it is and what I do to keep it.
Still, I have stopped asking for some things. Not greedy or bad things of course, as some one mentioned above 'heart cries'. I've stopped asking because it's obvious that I'm not going to get it. And before anyone says I shouldn't give up, tell me where God guarantees to give us everything we ask for. Then I'll tell you a place where God has lied to me.
It's like the what Henry Ford said: 'You can have any colour as long as it's black'. God is saying 'I'll give you anything you want, as long as it's what I've decided beforehand to give you'.
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Firmly on dry land
Posts: 6489 | From: Here, there and everywhere | Registered: May 2001
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