Re: Acceptance and growth
- From: Bob Crowley <bobcrowley@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:17:15 GMT
On Mar 17, 10:19=A0am, jjsarg...@xxxxxx wrote:
Since Bob Crowley wrote a reasonable response
to my posting, I owe him one. =A0He's a decent
fellow, and if I ever make it to Australia (whatever
part of it he lives in), I'll look him up. =A0(This should
also answer the brief posting from Doodle.)
If you do get here, let me know one way or the other, and I'll give
you the address. I think you'll be disillusioned by my "ordinariness"
however. But that's hypothetical for the moment.
On Mar 6, 8:45=3DA0pm, Bob Crowley <bobcrow...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'm curious why Jeffrey J Sargent is adamant he has not received
mercy, acceptance or forgiveness from God? =3DA0Has God told you so
Himself?
In effect, yes. =A0My life got into a tailspin because in the same
year I both lost my job (as I see it, for prophesying against
a dehumanizing company) and, a few months later, had it
brought home to me very painfully that I was a sinner --
a discovery I believe many Christians never really make,
they just parrot the doctrine. =A0Signs of forgiveness would
have included God's putting my life back together, treating
me as if He cared, helping me find new work, bringing
people into my life who could help heal my emotional
and spiritual wounds. =A0None of this happened. =A0I landed up
living with my aging mother (with whom I had personality
clashes that may be inevitable given the generation and
gender gaps), while (at first) begging for a sign from God
to tell me where to go to get a real job and a better life
(after all, God is the one with all the inside contacts, and
Biblically, He owns all the companies anyway so should
be able to pull strings to get me a job). =A0But now I'm in
even more of a mess, because my mother died somewhat
unexpectedly a few weeks ago (another reason, indeed
the principal one, I didn't post for a while) and my life
still isn't settled, but rather more unsettled.
You aren't the first to lose a job fairly or unfairly and you won't be
the last. As a way of shared experience, I lost a job about twelve
years ago, partly through my own fault but what was most galling about
the experience was that I also believe there was a bit of a conspiracy
against me, including some "Christians", to get me out anyway. You
may not believe me but fairly early on in my Christian life (I was
probably about 30) I had a "vision" in which somebody said "Mr.
Missenden will come to you with a job offer. I want you to take it.
If you stay where you are, in a few years there'll be a conspiracy
against you and you'll lose your job".
A couple of days later, the pastor, the above "Mr Missenden" came to
me with a possible job offer, administration working with the disabled
it seems, and said, "There won't be much money in it, but I think if
you stay where you are there'll be a conspiracy against you in a few
years, and you'll lose your job".
I didn't take the job, and a few years later I lost the one I had. I
suspect a certain pastor in the Presbyterian church of having a hand
in this (I happened to cross paths with a Catholic psychiatrist later,
and he informed me he'd treated eight Presbyterian pastors for stress
related breakdown. In every single case, they named the same pastor
whom I believed to be involved in my job loss as being part of the
cause. He's a Pharisee, pure and simple, a legalist to the core, and
can only expect a Pharisee's reward when he dies.
However Rev. Missenden also said, years later, "I think you'd have had
trouble down the track anyway even if you had taken the disability
job, as I think you'll become Catholic. It's mainly a Protestant
outfit." So....
Down the track I did become Catholic. Old Rev. Missenden had a pretty
fair idea of what was going to happen. The point is that you
sometimes are going to get "friendly fire" from other Christians, and
even plain "unfriendly fire" at times.
God has given me no help and no direction and no
love, and I know better than to go to the churches to
look for love; churches offer only religion, not love,
and this is especially true of the right-wingers who
think they're the truest Christians!
Right wingers can be arrogant,and quite un-Christian when it comes to
judgementalism.
As for no help and no direction, one of the tests of faith is when God
leaves you in what might be called a "dark night of the soul". For
Christians with a deep mystical slant, this may mean something
different, but for a Christian in the world, a "dark night of the
soul" can simply be His perceived absence. As CS Lewis wrote
somewhere, it's the sort of situation where you stand at the door
knocking, in desperate need of encouragement, and the only sound you
hear is the door being double and triple bolted on the other side.
In today's affluent society we don't hear much of suffering, but one
of Christ's promises is that we'll suffer. If Christians don't
suffer, what's the difference between them and their equally affluent
atheist neighbour? Practically nothing.
=3DA0Or is that your own negative perception? =3DA0Has somebody else
said it? =3DA0If so, what makes you sure they're right?
No, no one else told me this; it's a perception
based on the way any sane person would
interpret the facts. =A0If someone treats you as
if they don't care about you at all, it is reasonable
to believe that that someone doesn't care --
especially if that someone is God, who, being
all-powerful, could treat me well if He wanted to.
It follows that He doesn't want to.
True, but when Paul was having his back slashed by the thirty nine
lashes, do you think he felt God's overwhelming assurance. How about
Christ's desolation? "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?"
Easter time, too.
Or is it the complete and utter lack of God's presence which you feel,
and which you're seeking, in part by posting on this site?
This is pretty much answered above.
I'd be interested to know why you are so sure you're unforgiven.
Because I think you're wrong. =3DA0I think you've been forgiven, but
because there seems to be no Damascus experience in your case,
you think you've been ignored.
Well, when I first became a Christian as a callow teenager,
there was a very small "Damascus experience", where things
seemed to fall into place. =A0But since then, after putting myself
on the line for Him (and being, in a small way, martyred by
losing my job), then confessing the sins I abruptly and
agonizingly discovered in myself, and still finding no help,
no comfort, no love from Him, I cannot but conclude that
He's kicked me in the face and thrown me out!
I found life pretty easy until I was about fifteen, and then one night
I had an experience where somebody seemed to say He was going to
humiliate me. When I asked the speaker how long this was supposed to
last, He said "Oh, about thirty years. What happens after that is up
to you". Life abruptly went from good to bad, and I suppose life
didn't turn around for about that period of time, and even now I
struggle in areas of "career" and "study".
[story of discouraging pastor here]
No pastor in my life has matched the discouragement
which that pastor inflicted on you. =A0But sometimes one
will get that from Christian books. =A0Back when I thought
I might have a reasonable chance of getting married
someday (rather than requiring a small miracle to bring
that about), I read some Christian books on marriage.
They could be summed up, "Whoever is reading this
book should do all the work in the marriage and expect
no reward." =A0Most other Christian teaching in books,
etc. is similar. =A0(Some books start out talking about
grace and hope, but end up putting the burden back
on the reader and leaving him worse off than before.)
Now I find that everybody in the world is out to get
money from me, to pay either my mother's bills or
my own. =A0But God doesn't give me any clue where
to go to get money coming in. =A0(My mother's savings
are not all that big, and the only thing that would
give her house a chance of selling in this market
is that it's in a fairly convenient location.)
Suggest you go to a Christian singles group, but don't get too carried
away or too agressive. That's how (blush) I met my (second) wife.
After all in a singles group you're both looking for the same thing.
Some people do very well just from advertising, but be careful.
So Christianity and the world, supposedly diametrical
enemies, work exactly the same: Everybody gets some
but me!
I think you're being tested. You're probably pretty tough, although
you may not think so. Tough stuff requires tough testing.
However that doesn't mean God hadn't forgiven me. =3DA0In fact, I
sometimes find it hard to forgive God. =3DA0I think I could justly claim=
t,that compared to the lives of some other Christians I've seen, God has
been pretty unfair to me in some ways. =3DA0Even the old pastor said tha=
saying "All He's done is humiliate you all your life! =3DA0What have you=
done to deserve all this?"
I can identify with all of this (except the first sentence).
Certainly I've been humiliated a lot (especially, but not
exclusively, in dealings with women). =A0And an old
high-school friend of mine, now a reasonably successful
pastor, has emailed me a couple of photos of his
fine-looking happy family. =A0I warned him that he's in
the same situation as Job was before Satan got after
him -- with God's full approval, be it noted.
I'd lay off the moralising if I were you. If he is going to be
subject to a "Job" experience that will be only if God decides to do
so, and not because you're feeling resentful. This sort of pre-
emptive and unnecessary action may be a part of your difficulty, and
to that extent self-inflicted.
He also commented. "Maybe God wants you to forgive Him. =3DA0He's had to=
eforgive you for a few things". =3DA0Maybe God wants a two way exchange
sometimes. =3DA0Maybe He gets a bit tired of being the only one doing th=
psforgiving, particularly when He wants to call us His friends. =3DA0Perha=
Forgiveness from the point of view of the forgiver is an emotionalHe wants a quid pro quo occasionally, a barney between mates.
1) Uh.... =A0If God is sinless, He doesn't need forgiving.
Assuming that to be true, the contrapositive of it,
which actually obtains, is logically also true:
Since God needs forgiving, He's not sinless.
experience. God may not need forgiveness in the sense that He is
supreme, but He can be very hurtful, and to be quite truthful,
unfair. He's actually unfair to a lot of people in this life.
Therefore it pleases God, and makes Him feel like He's got a friend,
when one of His people is prepared to forgive His "unfairness".
In my own case I waver, between forgiveness and bitterness.
2) He's in the position of power, the One Whom
Jesus described with relish as having the power
to cast body and soul into hell. =A0If He wants to
be friends, He'd better act friendly, and He
doesn't. =A0He needs to demonstrate love in a
way that an American (or an Australian) born
in the 20th century will recognize as love --
not by a means that only a 1st-century religious
fanatic (Saul of Tarsus/Paul) could call love only
by frantic theologizing (Romans 5:8 for instance).
Then look at Christ rather than Paul. And as you read Paul, you find
that as his writings reflect increased experience as a Christian, he
seems to soften. He was after all a Pharisee to begin with, and a
martyr to finish. Even Paul would have taken time to mellow.
3) Speaking of Romans, rather than saying that
all the bad things described in Romans 8:35ff.
cannot separate us from the love of God, is it
not more sensible to say that they disprove it?
Rather than saying "He that spared not his own
Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall
he not with him also freely give us all things?"
(Romans 8:32), does it not make more sense
and accord more with real-life experience to
say, "He that spared not his own Son, how
much less will He spare us"?
I don't think we know what it cost God to give up His Son. What Paul
was saying was that if God was prepared to suffer such intense
emotional and spiritual pain as He experienced in letting Christ be
crucified, then He must be prepared to give us a place in heaven. Or
He would not have demanded such a high price of Christ or Himself.
On the other hand, it would be most unwise to reject Christ on the
same grounds. Holding God in that contempt would then mean He would
hold us in equal contempt. I had the experience of my father suddenly
appearing in my room the night he died. After discussion and mutual
recriminations, he screamed terribly and disappeared. He'd made his
choice.
I'm just wondering if your faith isn't being tested rather severely.
I Corinthians 10:13 says God won't let us be
tempted (really "tested", if I correctly understand
the Strong's concordance entry at
http://cf.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?Strongs=3D3DG3985
[or 3986]) beyond what we are able, but will
provide a way out. =A0Didn't work that way.
Obviously, if God exists at all, He *has*
allowed me to be tested beyond what I was
able to bear and provided no way out.
You're still here, and you haven't given up, or you wouldn't be
arguing the case on this site. Your faith is still there - what you
are really saying is that you've suffered, and continue to suffer,
immense discouragement and disillusionment.
So, why are you so sure you haven't been forgiven?
What else can I reasonably conclude?
I'll say it again. I think you're fairly tough, and you're being
harshly tested.
Bob Crowley
.
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