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One night I was awakened from my sleep by God with a request to be granted and the answer I gave is to dwell in His House. And right after I gave that answer many things were opened to me...
...Since that time I have endured much suffering and I know that God relates to me and sees me through all that, just as Jesus Christ endured the humility of suffering and the greatest humility in suffering Death. He was not abandoned to the grave as he was given to suffer all the poison and judgement mankind is under the influence of and overcame it...vulnerably pure, the lamb of God offering the intercession of grace and forgiveness. He is the way, the truth and the life and I have not overlooked when he said; take up your cross and follow me and that I would see much suffering in this world. And that God sees me through it all, even Death, just as He saw his Son who made Covenant with me through it all.
Moses was on the mountain for 40 days and within that time the Israelites decided that they had been abandoned and built a golden calf to worship while Moses had in his hands the 10 commandments written on stone by God. For the disciples it was 3 days for the great news to come to them and know they had not been abandoned.
To think that this world with good and evil mixed together inside all its inhabitants is all there is would only be a dead end road. Arron's staff that budded is also placed in the Ark of the Covenant, and the jar of manna that did not spoil, together with the tablets the 10 commandments are written on. It is God who fulfills His Covenant word, and the timing of that is when God circumcises the heart, and the heart of stone is no more, the opening of hearts and pure thoughtfulness even after going through the worst this world can inflict, as the lamb of God without spot endured and remains vulnerably pure as the blood of the Covenant testifies.
In the Garden of Eden I see the beauty of them being vulnerably pure, and it was Satan who came to corrupt that innocence. As you can see in the story of Job the Satan also came to destroy vulnerable purity of Job to pay the price in great loss, while Job did not know what was happening all around him, he did not curse God and overcame the onslaught the wicked one brought against him. God knew Job on a much deeper level than the Satan claimed to know. There is much more to it all than the goings on in this world where good and evil is mixed together inside all its inhabitants. Only God can separate good and evil in complete equity, both here and in the Spirit realm.
Now I need to go and scrub the tub and clean the bathroom to the best of my ability. My back is very sore from working 16 days straight doing hard labor under intense pressure, while in poor health. Because while I still can, it is my pleasure and privilege to get that taken care of.
Last edited by chief scum; 10-13-2022 at 09:37 AM..
I believe I am engaging in a conversation with someone I respect. I don't feel that respect is returned when my response is dismissed as knee jerk. It is ok to disagree. My questions arise from truly not understanding your point. If one expects prayer should be answered, and also answered in way that is desired, then why not all prayers?
Why should I think my prayers has some special quality or I am special? It is possible I am missing some nuance about Christianity and how prayer is viewed. If so you can explain that. I have always found the Lord's Prayer humble and simple.
In my view prayer is a request and it may or may not be answered the way I want it or when I want it. Often when I look back at my life I realize what I prayed for I did get. My prayer in this stage in my life is mostly about safety and welfare for all, and for courage to face whatever comes my way and be at peace. I don't expect any immediate answer.
Entire books have been written about what you ask in the bolded. They are basic, elementary questions that Christian children, and adults, grapple with, and I wrongly expected you to know that, and that's why I took your questions as condescending and snarky when it appears that was not your intent.
I think perhaps the second bolded sentence is the problem. Yes, exactly, as a non-Christian, you do not appear to understand the nuances we are taught about prayer in Christianity, and so I should have not held those expectations.
I will try to simplify this. In Christianity, we are taught to pray about everything. When we have needs (and again, folks in general, let's ditch the yulk yulk yulk God-is-not-a-genie crap, because nobody of intelligence thinks that) we are taught to ask. We are taught to pray for others, and often that takes the form of prayers for healing of friends and family and other loved ones. We are taught to pray not just for material needs like food and shelter, but for wisdom and faith and knowledge. There are hymns written about this, one I alluded to earlier:
What a friend we have in Jesus
All our sins and griefs to bear
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer
Oh, what peace we often forfeit
Oh, what needless pain we bear
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer
Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged
Take it to the Lord in prayer
Can we find a friend so faithful
Who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness
Take it to the Lord in prayer
This song, a Christian favorite, sums up this teaching, but for many of us, it's a crock. Yeah, we took it to the Lord in prayer only to be met with crickets in response. If you say this, you are met with the platitudes that God will do things in his own time, perhaps God has something better in "his plan for you", God's will, ours not to reason why, it's part of the greater good, etc. etc. etc.
A believer may indeed accept those excuses as part of their beliefs...but only for so long. When everyone you pray for to be healed dies anyway, when you get evicted from your home because no help came, when you've pleaded for deliverance from an abuser or someone causing you harm, when you've accepted the tragedy that comes upon your loved ones and have given up praying for healing but you can't even get an answer to a prayer for comfort and peace...it's hard to keep believing that anyone is listening.
As mordant pointed out, these unanswered prayers are not for lost keys or a new dress. They are for the release from pain of those we love, they are for deliverance from darkness and despair, they are for HELP of some kind, from any source--and when there is no response, the platitudes and "reasons" for the silence sound hollow and empty, and the belief fades into the darkness.
Oh, and that's when someone comes along with a bright smile on their face and says, "You should read the Book of Job!" And you want to push them off the bridge.
Entire books have been written about what you ask in the bolded. They are basic, elementary questions that Christian children, and adults, grapple with, and I wrongly expected you to know that, and that's why I took your questions as condescending and snarky when it appears that was not your intent.
I think perhaps the second bolded sentence is the problem. Yes, exactly, as a non-Christian, you do not appear to understand the nuances we are taught about prayer in Christianity, and so I should have not held those expectations.
I will try to simplify this. In Christianity, we are taught to pray about everything. When we have needs (and again, folks in general, let's ditch the yulk yulk yulk God-is-not-a-genie crap, because nobody of intelligence thinks that) we are taught to ask. We are taught to pray for others, and often that takes the form of prayers for healing of friends and family and other loved ones. We are taught to pray not just for material needs like food and shelter, but for wisdom and faith and knowledge. There are hymns written about this, one I alluded to earlier:
What a friend we have in Jesus
All our sins and griefs to bear
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer
Oh, what peace we often forfeit
Oh, what needless pain we bear
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer
Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged
Take it to the Lord in prayer
Can we find a friend so faithful
Who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness
Take it to the Lord in prayer
This song, a Christian favorite, sums up this teaching, but for many of us, it's a crock. Yeah, we took it to the Lord in prayer only to be met with crickets in response. If you say this, you are met with the platitudes that God will do things in his own time, perhaps God has something better in "his plan for you", God's will, ours not to reason why, it's part of the greater good, etc. etc. etc.
A believer may indeed accept those excuses as part of their beliefs...but only for so long. When everyone you pray for to be healed dies anyway, when you get evicted from your home because no help came, when you've pleaded for deliverance from an abuser or someone causing you harm, when you've accepted the tragedy that comes upon your loved ones and have given up praying for healing but you can't even get an answer to a prayer for comfort and peace...it's hard to keep believing that anyone is listening.
As mordant pointed out, these unanswered prayers are not for lost keys or a new dress. They are for the release from pain of those we love, they are for deliverance from darkness and despair, they are for HELP of some kind, from any source--and when there is no response, the platitudes and "reasons" for the silence sound hollow and empty, and the belief fades into the darkness.
That's what this thread is about.
Do you remember that Jesus Christ prayed with great intensity that this cup of great suffering would pass from him, and the response was silence. He knew what he had to face and why. And he then said in obedience; Not my will, but thine will be done. And he faced what he had to face and God saw him through it all, even the greatest humility of Death.
That song is a bit off in the totality of it all.
I also think of Joseph and what he endured, and when he forgave his brothers for what they had done to him, he said; What you meant for evil, God meant for good. He remained vulnerably pure through all he endured with a heart that sought God through it all. And brought healing and shared life saving food with his family as a result.
Entire books have been written about what you ask in the bolded. They are basic, elementary questions that Christian children, and adults, grapple with, and I wrongly expected you to know that, and that's why I took your questions as condescending and snarky when it appears that was not your intent.
I think perhaps the second bolded sentence is the problem. Yes, exactly, as a non-Christian, you do not appear to understand the nuances we are taught about prayer in Christianity, and so I should have not held those expectations.
I will try to simplify this. In Christianity, we are taught to pray about everything. When we have needs (and again, folks in general, let's ditch the yulk yulk yulk God-is-not-a-genie crap, because nobody of intelligence thinks that) we are taught to ask. We are taught to pray for others, and often that takes the form of prayers for healing of friends and family and other loved ones. We are taught to pray not just for material needs like food and shelter, but for wisdom and faith and knowledge. There are hymns written about this, one I alluded to earlier:
What a friend we have in Jesus
All our sins and griefs to bear
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer
Oh, what peace we often forfeit
Oh, what needless pain we bear
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer
Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged
Take it to the Lord in prayer
Can we find a friend so faithful
Who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness
Take it to the Lord in prayer
This song, a Christian favorite, sums up this teaching, but for many of us, it's a crock. Yeah, we took it to the Lord in prayer only to be met with crickets in response. If you say this, you are met with the platitudes that God will do things in his own time, perhaps God has something better in "his plan for you", God's will, ours not to reason why, it's part of the greater good, etc. etc. etc.
A believer may indeed accept those excuses as part of their beliefs...but only for so long. When everyone you pray for to be healed dies anyway, when you get evicted from your home because no help came, when you've pleaded for deliverance from an abuser or someone causing you harm, when you've accepted the tragedy that comes upon your loved ones and have given up praying for healing but you can't even get an answer to a prayer for comfort and peace...it's hard to keep believing that anyone is listening.
As mordant pointed out, these unanswered prayers are not for lost keys or a new dress. They are for the release from pain of those we love, they are for deliverance from darkness and despair, they are for HELP of some kind, from any source--and when there is no response, the platitudes and "reasons" for the silence sound hollow and empty, and the belief fades into the darkness.
Oh, and that's when someone comes along with a bright smile on their face and says, "You should read the Book of Job!" And you want to push them off the bridge.
That's what this thread is about.
MQ, thank you for taking the effort to write the post.
It seems to me i did not miss too much. I see from Chief Scum’s response, as well as other Christians posting here, that I was not that far off the mark however. Jesus died nailed to the cross, crying out to God why he was forsaken. I believe there are different interpretations to this, but what i take from it is we don’t always know the answer as to why we suffer. Both Hindus and Buddhists believe suffering exists, like a thing, and life on earth is suffering. Each has a solution to the suffering, an explanation of sort in karma, but neither says you can avoid it.
The hymn that you shared, the way I see it, says something similar as well: prayer helps to bear the suffering, like taking our problems to a friend who feels our pain, but it does not seem to promise any immediate solutions, just as a friend cannot. Cosmic laws work in their own way. Solutions still rests with us.
I apologize if my response makes you want to push me off the bridge. I am running so fast now you cant catch me
MQ, thank you for taking the effort to write the post.
It seems to me i did not miss too much. I see from Chief Scum’s response, as well as other Christians posting here, that I was not that far off the mark however. Jesus died nailed to the cross, crying out to God why he was forsaken. I believe there are different interpretations to this, but what i take from it is we don’t always know the answer as to why we suffer. Both Hindus and Buddhists believe suffering exists, like a thing, and life on earth is suffering. Each has a solution to the suffering, an explanation of sort in karma, but neither says you can avoid it.
The hymn that you shared, the way I see it, says something similar as well: prayer helps to bear the suffering, like taking our problems to a friend who feels our pain, but it does not seem to promise any immediate solutions, just as a friend cannot. Cosmic laws work in their own way. Solutions still rests with us.
I apologize if my response makes you want to push me off the bridge. I am running so fast now you cant catch me
You're in luck. I am taking a long weekend with my daughter in a lovely city with walking tours and good restaurants and won't be chasing anyone for a few days!
As I said in an earlier thread, I am now past that point of groveling and begging for God's attention. If God exists and wants to speak with me, God knows where I can be found.
There is also the idea that perhaps the religion of Christianity is simply not the path I am supposed to pursue any longer.
You're in luck. I am taking a long weekend with my daughter in a lovely city with walking tours and good restaurants and won't be chasing anyone for a few days!
As I said in an earlier thread, I am now past that point of groveling and begging for God's attention. If God exists and wants to speak with me, God knows where I can be found.
There is also the idea that perhaps the religion of Christianity is simply not the path I am supposed to pursue any longer.
That's sort of my take on this whole thing.
The christians tell us he's all-powerful. So he could appear to me...and the whole world...anytime he wanted to. Even for 73, my vision is great, my hearing is good, and as you say...he should know where I am. But instead of communicating with me, his inaction pushed me toward Buddhism and atheism. Oh wait...maybe he does exist...and maybe he was telling me that Buddhism is the right answer. Hmmmm.
MQ, thank you for taking the effort to write the post.
It seems to me i did not miss too much. I see from Chief Scum’s response, as well as other Christians posting here, that I was not that far off the mark however. Jesus died nailed to the cross, crying out to God why he was forsaken. I believe there are different interpretations to this, but what i take from it is we don’t always know the answer as to why we suffer. Both Hindus and Buddhists believe suffering exists, like a thing, and life on earth is suffering. Each has a solution to the suffering, an explanation of sort in karma, but neither says you can avoid it.
The hymn that you shared, the way I see it, says something similar as well: prayer helps to bear the suffering, like taking our problems to a friend who feels our pain, but it does not seem to promise any immediate solutions, just as a friend cannot. Cosmic laws work in their own way. Solutions still rests with us.
I apologize if my response makes you want to push me off the bridge. I am running so fast now you cant catch me
Many of the religious indoctrinators speak of and teach the bolded in your post as a statement about God, when it is a question and a cry for help that is answered in the same Psalm in verse 22:24 For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; He has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help...
...God did not forsake Jesus Christ, God delivered him from Death and raised him from the dead.
Those indoctrinators teach that God turned his face from His son and forsook him and add to their claim even further. When the Psalm clearly says that God did not hide His face from him.
When they say God forsook His son, they preach of him being bastardized and that is a big problem. I wouldn't want someone who preaches that to say any prayer for me. It is the complete opposite of what I know to be true.
Jesus Christ knew the answer to the crying out question, as he also said in his dying breath; Father into your hands I commit my spirit. And the answer God gave to the crying out question is for our benefit, and in agreement with what it says in the book of Hebrews that God will never leave me or forsake me. To follow the teachings of the religious indoctrinators who speak of God as forsaking His son, that word in the book of Hebrews has no place for them.
(Arguing within the bounds of Christian theology here, even though I don't buy it anymore -- a position I often find myself in)
Don't forget that Jesus knew that his 'sacrifice' on the cross was a temporary, if difficult one. He knew what the outcome was to be. Even if he somehow didn't know, he was at the right hand of god in heaven in pretty short order. Also he was born to do what he did, and part of the reason for him doing that was so that we wouldn't have to suffer nearly so much. The power of sin and the dominion of darkness was supposedly broken for his children. So all this business about Jesus' suffering and sacrifice and the pain of bearing god's judgment on our behalf only goes so far as a way to pooh-pooh the suffering of others. Or as Paul once put it, "our light and fleeting afflictions" are no big deal in the light of eternity. Well ... that's fine I guess as far as it goes* but the fact remains that god's people are supposed to be protected, enlightened, comforted, and their cries for help heard, and some other things as well. And they are not. You can equivocate, deflect, explain and excuse it all you want, but the fact remains.
Understand, and I hate to flog this but I suspect there's a strong tendency to keep forgetting it, so one more time for the gipper: I am not angry or resentful at god or the church. At the time of my losses I might have been a little frustrated or hurt but that was only a relatively minor proximal cause of my apostasy, and insufficient to maintain it. My faith in god to have my back in any meaningful way per his promises, was simply an abstraction that leaked way too much, which I can therefore no longer buy into. I have other reasons for remaining as I am, not least that I am far more at peace this way.
Many of the religious indoctrinators speak of and teach the bolded in your post as a statement about God, when it is a question and a cry for help that is answered in the same Psalm in verse 22:24 For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; He has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help...
...God did not forsake Jesus Christ, God delivered him from Death and raised him from the dead.
Those indoctrinators teach that God turned his face from His son and forsook him and add to their claim even further. When the Psalm clearly says that God did not hide His face from him.
When they say God forsook His son, they preach of him being bastardized and that is a big problem. I wouldn't want someone who preaches that to say any prayer for me. It is the complete opposite of what I know to be true.
Jesus Christ knew the answer to the crying out question, as he also said in his dying breath; Father into your hands I commit my spirit. And the answer God gave to the crying out question is for our benefit, and in agreement with what it says in the book of Hebrews that God will never leave me or forsake me. To follow the teachings of the religious indoctrinators who speak of God as forsaking His son, that word in the book of Hebrews has no place for them.
You're in luck. I am taking a long weekend with my daughter in a lovely city with walking tours and good restaurants and won't be chasing anyone for a few days!
As I said in an earlier thread, I am now past that point of groveling and begging for God's attention. If God exists and wants to speak with me, God knows where I can be found.
There is also the idea that perhaps the religion of Christianity is simply not the path I am supposed to pursue any longer.
Have a great time with your daughter, MQ. Daughters are the best. Wishing you lovely days of color and sunshine. We too are off to see our son and his wife, and their dog. Lots of good birding where he is.
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