Jesus Is My Guru

[zpotus]

There are certain moments/events in life we know are from God. Certain dreams, for example, that are so clear and so real that they leave no doubt as to their meaning, and we live them out and look back and think, "Wow." And for me, there are certain books (in an endless list of books I've read and books I'm reading) that I know for a fact have

Comments

[chaeri]

thanks for this! its always encouraging to me to read about someone else's positive journey and learning. sometimes my own faith is so weak that it taks all the faith i have to say "ok, God can work in someone's life. i just have to take it on faith that he can in mine." its sort of a secondhand light...i can't light my own candle, so i need someone else's light.

[zpotus]

I'm glad you found a little encouragement in the random musings of my mind! Try not to be too hard on yourself.

One of my favorite parts of the author's story was about how she was so bad at meditating (I totally felt her pain). All she heard was her own head fighting with itself and she thought, this cannot be the point! I'm supposed to be listening to God! And a friend of hers reminded her that, really, she has NO IDEA what's really going on when she prays/meditates etc. That it's the act that matters, not the result, b/c God might be doing things that don't have a visible result, but have a spiritual result none-the-less.

So don't be discouraged that you don't *see* God working in your life. The power is in the belief. God lit your candle a long time ago, and you acknowledged that it was God who lit it, based on a faith you obviously have more of than you give yourself credit for. And if you have that, then the results are there whether you can see them or not. Promise;)

[chaeri]

thanks :) its just that right now i am in a phase of questioning and the answers i am getting tend to make me seem questionable if not down right heretical to other christians and is very different from what i grew up with. yes, if i stop and think i can see God working :)

[zpotus]

"...i am in a phase of questioning and the answers i am getting tend to make me seem questionable if not down right heretical to other christians..."

I lived in that place for 3 years! Some people called it Charlotte, NC. I called it "misery." ;) The answers I got from God always had me one step away from excommunication, if you know what I mean. But hang in there. God (BIG GOD!) will speak any language necessary to let you know He loves you where YOU are, not where THEY are:) And in the end, HIs love (not their approval) is all that matters.

[chaeri]

glad you you understand! yes, God's love is all that is necessary and i know that intellectually it just hurts when my own husband says things like "you are different than you were..." in a concerned tone.

[zpotus]

Oh man... I am really sorry to hear you're going through that kind of thing. I won't insult you by attempting to sympathize because I'm not married and can only imagine, but I will send cyber-hugs and real-life prayers!! Breathe, pray, listen, love, breathe, repeat [indefinitely]...

[chaeri]

thanks! we did have a good conversation last night - definitely not the last on the subject but it was encouraging.

[zcatcurious]

(This could so be overstepping the bounds, but I am going to say it anyway, because I would rather be wrong in the direction of being intrusively over-helpful than in the direction of being unintrusively under-helpful. If it is overstepping, feel free to tell me to get lost.)

it just hurts when my own husband says things like "you are different than you were..." in a concerned tone.

I understand and appreciate the value of sharing such things as this with others, but you also very definitely need to talk about this with (and not just 'to') your husband, as soon as possible and as well as possible.

Quite simply, your relationship with a person is contained within how you and that person relate to one another. The easiest way for a relationship to become strained is for the idea of the relationship in one person's head to drift far away from the idea of the relationship in the other's by a sheer lack of the transference of thoughts through the wonderful medium of speech, i.e. for the two people to stop actually relatingRelating, of

[chaeri]

*nod

[zcatcurious]

It sounds as though you two are doing all of the right things: talking, loving, being patient. I suspect that, if he loves you as much as it sounds like he does, he will eventually come to the situation in which he realises that that (loving you) is what matters, and that it does not necessarily entail agreeing with you upon everything.

My Beloved and I manage very well out of two phrases in particular: "Yes, dear, by which I mean, 'No, dear'", and "I love you anyway". Mind you, we also spend a lot of time laughing at each other and at ourselves, which probably helps....

from one heretic to another

[zcatcurious]

You are not alone, and this is true in a number of ways.

First and foremost is the fact that God is always with you, and howsoever unusual your ideas might be, no worthwhile God is ever going to punish you for not happening to believe the 'correct' one of a number of competing and equally unprovable claims. That sort of behaviour belongs exclusively to tyrants.

Second, Jesus himself seemed thoroughly heretical to his contemporaries, so much so that they considered killing him to be a 'reasonable' response. Unorthodox belief is not equivalent to wrong belief.

Third, you are far from being the only person in this position. There are many other people in the world, and several in this group, who hold viewpoints which are decidedly unorthodox, and who are nonetheless Christians.

What really matters is that you continue to try to do what is right, and to discover what is right, and you can trust in God being good enough to honour that.

Re: from one heretic to another

[chaeri]

thank you for that! it was very encouraging. as i said in another part of the thread, its just difficult when people close to me act like i have three heads or something for some of the things i say - husband included.

he and i are working on that though - we had a good talk last night about it. i told him that i needed to know that he loved me as a person no matter what i said and that i didn't expect him to agree or even think it valid but to respect my right to believe it. i promised to try to do that for him and apologized for not doing so in other discussions.

far from the last talk on this subject but it was encouraging :)

he did tell me he loved me as person and would try to find a way to accept what i believe. good enough for me.