Piercing The Darkness

Advanced search

>Grim outlook for Democrats puts House up for grabs
<div class="hnews hentry item">
Colorado fire forced residents to make mad dash
<div class="hnews hentry item">
Floods leave tens of thousands homeless in Mexico
<div class="hnews hentry item">
UN reports over 500 rapes in eastern Congo
<div class="hnews hentry item">
WTC steel column installed at ground zero
<div class="hnews hentry item">
Report: Castro blasts Ahmadinejad as anti-Semitic
<div class="hnews hentry item">
Sect leader Jeffs fights extradition to Texas
<div class="hnews hentry item">
Iraq displays hundreds of recovered artifacts
<div class="hnews hentry item">
Boise State gains ground in AP Top 25
<div class="hnews hentry item">

[facedown]

I feel really miserable. Being a christian only drags me down.
I don't know what to do anymore. For me it simply doesn't "work".
In the bible I find no answers and I don't know which pastor to listen to for the truth.
I am so tired of this. It's really becoming unbearable.
There are moments where I think if God doesn't exist then it also doesn't matter, then at least he also can't
get angry at me and I don't have to fear him.
I am also angry at christians. In the past it has happened to me various times that a few pastors did like they wanted to help me and emailed a bit with me and then they let the contact die off. Most likely because I asked too many questions and then they simply dropped me like a hot potatoe.
And then I think to myself what if God is the same way? What if God told them to forsake me cause I'm not worth it or cause I'm a hopeless case?
I am really angry at those christians who let me down and at the same time I don't know how God thinks about this. Maybe God is totally on their side and me being angry at them makes God angry at me.
Do you see how crazy this is? This uncertainty and this fear of God can totally drive a person insane and I experience this mental torment most of the time.

I can only tell you that being a christian does not help me at all to deal with any of my problems it only makes everything worse cause I am looking for solutions and answers to my problems and I can find none and then I feel even more like crap.

I have read of cases where people became christians and then totally went down the drain cause they just couldn't deal with all the pressure anymore. I don't want to become a victim of christianity and a victim of pastors who tell me false things which drag me down even more. I simply don't know what the truth is about everything.
When a pastor tells me something I cannot tell if he is right or wrong. I just cannot tell it. I may think he is right and may try to follow his advice but his advice could also be totally wrong and I don't even know it.

You know what it comes down to? Being able to just "BE" a christian and be able to stay sane and safe and have your own little world which you can live in and this is something I don't have. I have no christians in real life to talk to, who are okay and not crazy, and I also have no identity as a christian. With identity I mean things such as stability and knowing what you believe. Every christian needs an identity. He has to know what he believes to be true, wether he's a presbyterian, a pentecostal or whatever. You simply have to decide which way you go. But I have none of that. For years and years I have only found questions and no answers to those questions and every time I think I finally found a preacher or teacher who is okay then it doesn't take long and then I'm wavering again and questioning wether this person is really ok or wether I should dismiss everything I heard from her.
I have begged God so often to just show me the truth and I still don't have it. I simply can't tell what is true and what is not true.

And this personal relationship thing with God which all christians talk about like it was the most normal thing on earth, I also don't have.
I ask myself what the heck do they even mean with personal relationship? Do they mean that they talk to God and never get an answer? Is this personal? No.
Then what the heck are they talking about?
I have never heard God.
And when I hear stuff like "Just ask God to reveal himself to you and he will do it" then it drives me insane!
Do they really think it's that easy? If God wants to reveal himself SO bad why doesn't he do it?
I have been to ministers to be prayed for and thought that God would do something and give them a word for me or whatever and nothing ever happened!
But in the end, if I don't make it, then it was all my fault of course. I simply wasn't sincere enough or didn't do enough or whatever.

I am so tired of everything. Simply to exist hurts.

[David]

Face, I'm praying for you!

...excuse me a moment...

Hey everybody, please lift Face up in prayer. The devil's working on him real hard. This brother is discouraged and is still not giving up and so the enemy is pressing the battle harder. We need to pray him through. Let's to it now!!

...ok, I'm back...

Love you brother. I appreciate you and your friendship. Please continue to hang in there.

David

[pippin]

Aww...Face.  At this point I don't know if I'd be telling you things you've already heard or not.  But I will say you've been one of the coolest, most honest people I know and God will honor the effort you put into understanding Him.  I know it's not always apparent, but dude, you've certainly brought joy to my life and you've always been a good friend. 

I'll pray for you and I hope things straighten out for you and the way seems more clear.

[roadrunner]

I'm praying for you, Face. I've been there.

There is one thing I would say, and it's this: you are seeking the truth, which is a very good thing. But in the process, you run around trying to find answers from people, and it's become a frantic process. Just stop. Breathe. Psalms says, 'Be still, and know that I am God.' How can God speak to you when you are so busy running around listening to everyone else? He is waiting for you to stop all the activity so He can get a word in.

In the meantime, while you are being still and not running around trying to find answers from all these preachers and other Christians, if I were you, I would be establishing the basics of what I believed....is there a God, and if so, who is He, what is His character, and how does He relate to humans? A very good author on that is Francis A. Schaeffer. I would get some of his books...."The God who is there" and "He is there and he is not silent". Once you are convinced of the basics, then you can build from there.

Please, please, Face, stop listening to all these preachers and read the Bible yourself. There are so many false teachers out there, that the only real cure for all that is just to read what it says. These teachers have caused you to fear the very One who loves you, the very One who loves you so much he knows how many hairs you have on your head.

[dean.allen.jones]

Hi Face. Ok this is going to sound really strange coming from one fo the boards agnostic/aeithists but :

Don't lose heart, dont lose faith.

THis may sound hypocritical at first from a nonChristain, but I understand where you're coming from. You get angrey by he behavoiur of Christans. I get angrey, or more often simply disparie at the behavoiur of aithiets/agnotics. In my case there are quick to badmouth those with a faith and atack them 'becuase thats wht they do to us' even when they don't. It sounds to me that you have had some truly terible luck, and you ae suffereing as you feel like you don't have a church to belong to. It is possible that these pastors to fail to maintain contact are simply overwhelmed with thier responsicbilties. It is also possible they don't want to be too pushy and drive you away with thier answers. You're obvously an inteligant chap and I belive they may well fear giving you THEIR answers to your questions becuase they feel they simply wont be good enough for you, as well rounded and thought out and as water tight as the answers you would probly give in thier place.

Maybe, for you Faith isn't about receiving answers to the qustions in your life. It's about working out the answers to the questions in your life with people who won't judge you, nor ridicule you but to come along with you on a juorney into your Faith. And i feel that you have that here, that  here on this board you have freinds as well versed in the Bible as you who also look beyond what others simply take on face value. 

I think your request for a prayer here is a great first start. ultimatly deneying somthing that's been a large part of your life is not going to help you, instead look at it and think that perhaps the answers you are so desperate to recive from those you deem with 'authority' on biblical maters really need to come from you and your freinds and your  own thoughts and study into your Faith.
Take care mate
*HUG*
Dean

[David]

There was a line in Iron Dragons where Brother Galthorn, a priest, compares himself with the dragon slayer Master Davian. Galthorn provides information about faith with faith being something you can't see but at the end of the day Davian provides a dead dragon, something you can see.

I'm not saying this about you Face, but far too many Christians are in to form. They are into experiences. Faith is more about becoming an accomplished musician. It needs to be daily practice. There will be days when you wonder why you ever chose the instrument you did. However, there will be recitals, performances and one day it will occur to you that playing your instrument is almost as easy as breathing. Yet, there will be new pieces to learn. Chords to figure out, rhythms to learn. The conductor will demand perfection and you will learn to play nice with the others around you. The Christian faith should be more like an orchestra under a single conductor with the world watching.

Far too often the Church appears more like a combination of bands with competing styles all trying to be heard over the other and it leaves a terrible taste in the mouth of the audience. That's what Dean refers to. That's what you are experiencing. That's what too many denominations, churches, scholars and Christians are like and I hate that it leads others in the faith, like you, to stumble and turns away those who seek after God  and I'm far from innocent in this regard...but I'm trying to do better...we all should.

Hang in there.
 

[facedown]

hello everybody!
thank you all very much for your responses. 

i wish this was just a phase but it's not. for me it has never been different.
when everything is going well then it is much easier to just deal with the fact that you don't understand the
bible and don't hear God and don't know how God really is. these are things which are frustrating but as long as life is ok you can deal with it. but once you start having real needs where you actually needed God there is no more way suppressing those thoughts. now you have to face it and can't get around it.
most days are a complete emotional rollercoaster. it's schizophrenic. i am trying to figure out how God is and get despaired cause I don't know what the truth is and then the next second i might doubt wether God even exists after all or if I am even saved. this totally burns me out! besides all my other problems being a christian is the thing which frustrates me the most and this is just terrible.
i really do not know if there is a way to be a christian and stay in all of this for a long time and actually keep my sanity. on the long run i dont think a person can tolerate so much stress and stay sane. these should be my best years while i am still relatively young and what do i do? i suffer almost every day and i suffer the most about things which actually should make life better. nobody becomes a christian cause he needs more suffering in his life, right?
i just cannot ever see myself as a "successful christian". and with successful i mean a christian who understands the bible, who really can get in contact with God and experience God somehow and understand how he really is and is also able to receive help from God for problems which nobody else can solve.
ii have been on the same spot ever since and not made any progress. i have tried listening to God or speaking in tongues and it doesn't work.
there is nothing in the bible which isn't debatable and which is really absolutely clear. this drives me crazy.
i am always torn between all opinions and cannot determine what the truth is.
i really can't imagine that there are many christians who experience the same anguish which i do. there are other christians who are sick or struggle with other things but i can't imagine that many christians out there experience the same exhausting mind games like i do.
sometimes i really feel like scratching my skin. if only there was a happy end and these experiences could be used for something good? 
but like i said it has been this way for years with no change at all. i am so empty i dont even know what to pray anymore. i mean if i prayed for change years ago and it only gets worse then why should i pray the same ol prayers now?
and the christian friend who i email with always tells me that i can change it and that i don't have to suffer and that i just have to attack one problem at a time. but i cannot attack any of these problems.
i cannot make myself suddenly understand the bible and only have clarity and i can't heal my sicknesses and i also can't just get out of the other problems i placed myself in through bad choices.

[Today]

• Does Will Smith abuse his... by facedown [Today at 05:53:28 AM]
• Beck's real agenda by David [September 06, 2010, 11:13:59 PM]
• Hawking says God was not ... by David [September 04, 2010, 11:50:36 PM]
• Calvinism is unbiblical by DanielH [September 04, 2010, 10:07:21 PM]
• Is the christian right be... by facedown [September 04, 2010, 07:18:24 PM]
• VMA 2009 ritual analysis by facedown [September 04, 2010, 07:08:46 PM]
• Good videos about NLP and... by facedown [September 03, 2010, 05:22:51 PM]
• Are the biblical books in... by facedown [September 02, 2010, 06:02:52 PM]
• Need your prayers by facedown [September 02, 2010, 05:37:14 PM]
• Your brain on Christianit... by David [September 01, 2010, 11:32:28 AM]
• Pastor says armed militia... by David [August 30, 2010, 04:40:08 PM]
• The Gospel According to G... by David [August 30, 2010, 10:56:48 AM]
• U.S. Navy swastika build... by David [August 29, 2010, 10:50:33 AM]
• What is the Bible about? by DennisS [August 28, 2010, 09:57:46 AM]
• For DanielH by Bluehorse [August 21, 2010, 10:29:15 PM]

Members

• Total Members: 89
• Latest: catmancurtis

Stats

• Total Posts: 11463
• Total Topics: 1005
• Online Today: 6
• Online Ever: 111
• (August 25, 2009, 01:43:41 PM)

Users Online

• Users: 0
• Guests: 8
• Total: 8