Thing 238 that I find difficult about my faith...

[mahogany]

I hate all kinds of suffering - particularly my own. I fear it. I dread it. I avoid it where ever possible. I cannot bear the thought of my loved ones suffering either. I've had my ups and downs and hurts, but really, I've lead a fairly suffering free life, and my some of my worst suffering was largely self-inflicted, or was a result of the consequences of poor judgment and my straying from the right path. I don't know if suffering can be measured, but if it could, I think my overall suffering compared to what some people have to endure is miniscule. I know this, and yet I whinge about my hardships. If I really, deep down, accepted the redemptive power of suffering, would I not then have the courage accept my life's trials and tribulations with more grace? Shouldn't I trust that I will not be given more than I can bear?

I find it really difficult to really say, and believe, "Not my will, but yours be done." That is a level of spiritual enlightenment, that I do not know if I will ever attain. Why is it that I am so focused on this life here on earth?

I've been reading about last weeks gospel - particularly the spot where Jesus says, "Anyone who comes to me without hating father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, cannot be my disciple," to try to get my mind around the whole thing, and figure out what I'm really supposed to take away from this, and what hatred of self in the biblical sense really means.

The reality is that I am stuck. I don't understand it, and I don't feel like I can do it. I am ashamed of myself. I at least be mentally prepared to give everything up to follow God, but I'm not ready. I'm not mentally or emotionally there, and the thought that I might never be ready to be a true disciple of Jesus makes me so sad.

Comments

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

I'm coming at this from the standpoint of being vaguely agnostic but still living in what I believe is a Christian lifestyle.
If you believe Jesus is the son of God and accept him as your savior, you're a disciple. It's a great idea to be a Christian -- to live in a way that reflects the teachings of Jesus -- but it is impossible for anyone to actually do that: we just get as close as we can, right?
If you're capable of identifying the areas where you have trouble doing this, and thinking about them, you're ahead of a lot of people.

[mahogany.livejournal.com]

If you believe Jesus is the son of God and accept him as your savior, you're a disciple. It's a great idea to be a Christian -- to live in a way that reflects the teachings of Jesus -- but it is impossible for anyone to actually do that: we just get as close as we can, right?

Yes, we do. However, the more I try to work on my spiritual life, the more I realize how immature I am in that aspect of my life. If I am in fact a disciple, then I'm a pretty crappy one. Judas was a disciple of Jesus too, heck, he was even an apostle, and we all know how that ended. I would love to believe that I am not like Judas (I hope, I'm not, although we probably all are sometimes like Judas), but more like Thomas, or Simon Peter. There is a long way for me to go, but I still have hope. I say this, not in a self deprecating way, but in a sincere realization of where I am, and in looking at people around me whom I admire, who are further along, and finally having some idea of where I want to go.

[nightynight.livejournal.com]

Our pastor said that the word hate there strongly emphasizes that while we may have things in our life that are all very important, there is nothing more important than our relationship to God, and recommended thinking about whether we were willing to bear the weight the judgment of society or the judgment even coming from our family because of the fact we are Christians. It was a good one, because I had no idea what to make of that gospel.

Don't forget this part! "love your neighbour as yourself". notice we are being asked in this tiny passage to love ourselves, too. you are God's creation and you are perfect in his sight.

[mahogany.livejournal.com]

we may have things in our life that are all very important, there is nothing more important than our relationship to God, and recommended thinking about whether we were willing to bear the weight the judgment of society or the judgment even coming from our family because of the fact we are Christians

And the question that I must ask myself is, "Am I?" The truth is that I'm still selective about speaking my mind because the reality is that most of my friends IRL are not Christian, and I fear their judgment. I've lost friends because of my beliefs, and I fear losing more (which is part of my dislike of suffering, I suppose). I am getting better at this, but I still have a long way to go.

[nightynight.livejournal.com]

Me too. One of the things I have been doing recently is systematically working my way around my friendships and basically notifying them that I am a Christian again. Also with new friendships just saying look I'm Lutheran fyi. What I find interesting about this at the moment is fewer people than I expect are prone to drop me and it's more that they're interested in how it happened. So I get to testify to my faith? which is seriously interesting. I just did this last night and the conversation was 100% just "yeah, I can see how you got there. huh. that's cool." Cool, as in, thanks for telling me this, I would not actually know you fully had you not. People in many ways go out of their way in fact now to ask about my church and this matter.

Except of course in the Incredibly Liberal and Accepting Place that is the University. sigh.

I think I have lost more friends as a result of getting married than I have re: letting God back into my life. Seriously. Not because of Scott but because being married is different than being alone and my social choices are different. Maybe I'm not living my faith out loud. As you know it's incredibly irritating at a university. It helps a lot that the lutheran university chaplain and two faculty members are also members of my church and my pastor connected me with them when I explained that I was feeling frustrated by the judgment of others, a literal intelligence-judgment, when I say "I'm Lutheran." YES I am aware that Martin Luther was an anti-semite YES I am aware that Hitler used Luther's words to justify the holocaust YES I am aware the Lutheran history includes persecution of anabaptists. No, I'm not a person who hates Jewish people because I am Lutheran. Do these people honestly think I am a half-wit, intellectually? Sheesh.

Here's one thing. I have a new colleague and we went for lunch and before we ate she sort of embarassed-uncomfortable said one moment please and then she prayed before she ate. I said to her, listen I'm your sister in this regard, and I thought, I have some responsibility to speak my faith out loud routinely because she was so uncomfortable and she is just entering her professional life and look how scared she was and it's so darn unnecessary but look at her courage, what's my excuse?

I have lost friends though, that is true, but I have gained so much more that I can't even begin to describe it. It's like when I quit drinking and all my friends who were worried about their own drinking started quietly coming out of the drinking-closet with me.

I definitely deliberately avoided a fight a friend was about to pick with me over the song 'Everything's Alright' from the Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack over the whole matter of prostitutes in Jesus' life. It is ridiculous to me to read this sentence let alone having lived that moment. I just could not enter into a theological-sociocultural argument on this, because I didn't actually feel spiritually prepared to *defend* the fact that women figure prominently in the life of Christ and that THIS IS NOT EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN! What!? Seriously what on earth? I don't know what God would have asked me to do but I felt like, that other person's views on Christianity are so twisted around by the academy that I can't even talk about Mary Magdalene with this feminist I admire because SHE can't get past...what? The fact that Mary Magdalene is more than a plot device to me?

If they only knew, these folks, how God saved me this year, He saved my life, He saved my MARRIAGE. He saved me in my calling to be a mother. His love protects me in a million little ways all the time. I am so grateful, and I'm in a place where I'm pretty sure my career needs to point in the direction of a faith-based post-secondary work environment. Not to avoid being in the world, but in terms of service, if in this environment I'm not allowed to integrate God's instructions then I have to do the same thing I did with the baby and go to my backyard and lean back and say to the sky again "lay it on me, whatever I am supposed to do, I am ready".

.

[daisan.livejournal.com]

The way I read that passage, God is so good, so pure, so loving, so perfect, that there is nothing in this life that can compare to him. He doesn't want us to go around despising the life he gave us: it's a gift we should treasure. Nor does he want us to reject the people He has put in our lives: He says whatsoever we do for the least of these, we have done for Him. Clearly, we are called to love and serve our fellow man.

But everything must be in its proper place. God alone is to be worshiped and obeyed. When His will conflicts with a relationship we have on earth, we must put God first. I personally don't think that means that we always reject the relationship, but rather that our comfort and our hope is in God, and that we don't rely on others to fill us with the love we need from Him.

That being said, I struggle with this SO MUCH. It is very very difficult for me to put God above my marriage because I depend on Dan's love. I have all sorts of Daddy issues, as you know, and I really think that there has been a hole in my heart that Dan filled, and I can't imagine being without that love to form me as a person. The idea that I should rely entirely on God just doesn't mesh with the reality of what I need in life. If I didn't have Dan...I just would not be happy.

So I struggle. I feel very immature in my faith in this respect as well. I don't want to fall apart whenever we have a fight. I want to rely on God's love as my anchor and not on this fleeting, imperfect and worldly relationship. Yet I know in my heart that it's Dan who fills me, and when he isn't doing enough to make me feel loved, I lose all my sense of self-worth.

It's very tough to be a Christian. At the core, I think, has to be a sense that this life and this world is not what really matters. In heaven all our earthly bonds will be gone, and we will simply be souls in the presence of Christ. If that's not what we want...if we want our relationships with other people more than we want God, then we can't truly experience heaven. I see that passage as more of a mindset than a lifestyle. I mean, while we're on earth, it's all about our relationships isn't it? That's the human condition: relating to other humans and caring for the Earth and its creatures.

Dramatic hyperbole?

[toezontheground.livejournal.com]

Hi, you may remember me in a previous incarnation :) ...

"Anyone who comes to me without hating father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, cannot be my disciple,"

Mmmmm. Given that Jesus didn't really much seem to be into hate, my guess would be that this is dramatic hyperbole to emphasise the essential need for the primacy of the commitment to the truth of "God".

I don't call myself a Christian, and my focus on matters spiritual has waned in recent years, but talking with a visiting friend recently, I wondered how much that has to do with not having around me people I love who care about matters spiritual...which casts an interesting light on the quote too.

[joie-fatale.livejournal.com]

Not to put words in God's mouth, but part of the suffering is not merely we reap what we sow, but because Satan is the world's first and biggest jerk, he will throw obsticles in our way to discourage us. which means when suffering happens and you know you've been doing waht God wants you to, then know you helped extinguis satan's plan.

On the whole giving it all up for God, well, I am not sure I could mentally prep myself for that. It is one thing I pray for--that i could be able to do so if God asked me too--but with reluctance. I feel like life right now is too good to be true. but i want God to speak audibly like he did to Moses and them with HIS voice, not another person's...that's stubborn of me. anyway, i don't think this means you should feel ashamed, the important part is that you follow god's will and ask him for help. which i know is easier said than done, but he will help you so that his will WILL be done in his timing!