freeinnocentspirit

I think the fundamental point here is that you can't waste the rest of your life being consumed by bitterness. I wasted a large part of my life chasing a career goal and when I got to the top. I had a severe asthma flare up and was laid off work as I was being admitted to the hospital. So I gave this company the best of my years and now I was tossed out as I human and sick. However I got nothing in terms of sick pay but I did find faith when I hit rock bottom. We can't turn back time but would you really change a thing? I think we are all guided to make the choices we do and this Is to lead us to a set place.

Fundamentally the wider back story to why seeing a family friend explore so many religious texts bothered me is due to the fact that I see a lot people out there pick and choose what they follow. I even met someone who recently declared themselves a part time Christian but their attitude and behaviour doesn't represent us well at all. I was at this relatives house and I kind of goes to show that it's never worth taking people at face value (and to also be wary of outside influences!)

I'm really searching for your opinion here actually do you think the study of other faiths is a negative impact of your own faith? I have found faith what two years ago and this was due to searching for truth. However I stumbled across a relatives book shelf at Christmas lunch yesterday and there was almost a religious shelf with all three holy books and more. In your own opinion Is this not a negative impact on your own faith?

This is actually brilliant advice - I have a work colleague who wears a cross and appears to do the bible study and attends church every weekend. However her everyday behaviour while at work is far from a person who follows any religion or Christianity at that. I use this teaching to address this issue - who am i to judge and leave them to it.

Firstly thank you all for your words of advice. I think I really need to strip all the issues apart and focus on what was just causing me to feel this way. I think living life as lets say as close to athesim for so long has just made me materialistic. I suppose my faith in God wasnt as strong as I thought. I think I really need to expand more in the quest for faith and the truth, I thought this dream job would be a happiness pill. Now a few months on I think that I am just seeking something much more...

The part I find strange is that I saw something bizarre on the train home. I was sat on a train while a couple in their mid to late thirities where all over each other while standing on the packed out underground train in London (this train is compact and small) . Then I while having my earphones blazing out with music looked up and away from my book (the couple were right in front of me and I noticed people glaring over at my direction thats what made me look up) and I saw everyone looking on with disapproving eyes! I think the whole issue is not just women but both genders, needing attention. I was intrigued to see this mature couple behave this way and i didnt join in with even paying attention. I love the verse about your eyes are the lamp of your body.. You can control what you look at. 22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy,[a] your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy,[b] your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! Matthew 6:22-23

I think its really important to maintain a work life balance. I was in your situation for a long time and its now that I have changed jobs I sit back and I think wow - I actually lost years out of my life due to over committing to a job. More importantly always include a positive source in your lifestyle. Working long hours can make you a little depressed at times.

I started off as a seeker to faith and understanding of what values I hold dear in my life. So that where I began to feel as though ok I am seeking two things God and a Job and literally in that order. However now that I have it there is this overwhelming feeling of a void in my life. I am trying so many routes to breaking out of this cold hearted mode its not working at all. I dont want to be like this during Christmas or New Years! (I have frowned at the Christmas decorations even!) I landed a job after a good year and a half out of work - you'd think I would be rejoicing and smiling. No not me.

I dont know what it is but I cant allow myself to be happy - now I have all reasons in the world to be happy. I prayed for this dream job and I got it and now I am still sort seeking that thrill moment. I understand that for every rough time I have had in my life I have drastically improved - I became Christian in this manner. However I am now negative and always gloomy. I cant even be happy when the blessings happen. To be honest I am just worried I am now really in the truest form becoming depressed. When I should be happy I cant even feel that emotion any more.

I am really curious because for the life of me I am now quite puzzled. I have had a rough year it all started in a sequence of events from Jan 2012 and is going on straight through to October. Now in November I should be happy - my family issues have calmed down and after months and months of interviews I have finally landed a good job. However I have had my prayers answered and I got the job I dreamed of and I can some how still not be happy for some reason. I am some what preconditioned to being miserable and I am now worrying that this could be the sign of something more severe than just a rough year? How have you all been able to snap out of a depressive state?

See if I was asked this question what 3 years ago I would think whats the harm does it matter. Its all harmless fun. But now I think of things in a different light. This is all based on my own experience. I think a lot of my childhood spiritual knowledge (if you want to call it that) was totally wrong. I was taught about all faiths in school, which is good. But also at home I was also some what following all faiths. So as an adult I had not true - this is what we follow this is your foundation and build from it. Instead I had what all the make believe things get treated in the same category as religion. I think the whole concept of a Dad dressing up as Santa in itself is a lie!

With kids in all aspects its so important to stay consistent. I grew up in a multi faith family its the generation above me that had a lot of mixed faith marriages and my generation now has elements of everything. This is now a constant issue at family gatherings - I end up celebrating everything of most faiths. Im answering the question from the other perspective that of the child. Keep their knowledge firm and solid, don't cloud their minds with everything.

No bad thing is good, but we rejoice when adversity comes our way. Tribulation produces patience. Patience, hope. That next day I found out that my young son of 9 had cancer.. Not just any cancer, but the stuff that is rare and not very curable. It was just 9 days after that, I got a call from Chicago Memorial Hospital for Children and was told my son would not live through the night, at best next morning. Now that is a bad and evil thing. No good is found in that. Some unlearned Christians call it "God's greater purpose" or something stupid like that. Brothermike, This is what I meant by determining what the scale of Bad is. I think we could all spend hours trying to figure a range from what is bad and when a bad things turn evil. My process of finding faith in God all came from a process of find all my own flaws that caused my own problems. I was literally my own worst enemy. We need to know about more the bad things that are posed in the initial question. I am by no means trivializing anyone else's hard times or suffering - I sympathize with your experience of a child with cancer, completely. What I want to clarify is that at a certain point of my life I would classify small hurdles in life as bad and then blame God for that (not accept any responsibility myself for my actions!) and then shift towards being more of an agnostic person and forever lost. I think its a part of certain environments that people grow up in what you adapt to, my aunt would say at every difficulty that life presents 'oh god's testing you' and that would make me mad as a teenager and think 'I dont need to be tested on!'. Now as an adult when she repeats that phrase I have the knowledge to now quiz her and say 'oh really, where and in which holy scripture?' I think Jean74 has summed it up well. God always provides.

I absolutely agree OldShep I think that I spent the best part of my adult life blaming god for everything then I got sick wound up in hospital and on a ventilator and as I was recovering I had everything else fall apart. My contract ended and then gradually my whole workaholic lifestyle ended. I was moaning to a friend in the ward on day after a horrible lung function test, I just blurted out 'god hates me look how bad my whole life is now' and she turned back and said - i bet you didnt thank him when it was wonderful. I spent a large part of my life pointing the finger at others and when that run out it was God hates me! Now I realized that I really was my own worst enemy and had the friends from hell. Took the wrong advice from the wrong people and above all I have a multi faith family so everything was viewed as a punishment from god. I do think its possible to be almost trained through negativity to blame everything on god. I just neglected my own health while over working and got really sick. It was all my own fault this time and I had to accept the full responsibility. But going back to the original question, if all that didnt happen I dont think i ever would have found faith and become a Christian. Bad things can be good too - just depends on the scale of what the Bad thing is!

In my opinion I used to spend a long time dwelling on this one topic. I would over think this one topic and each and everything that happened to me and it made me negative and made my mind just close off on a spirituality level. However you need to clarify what your own level of bad is? For each person 'Bad' can be anything. For all the bad things in my life I honestly think its all happened to me because I was on a predestined path - were a chain of events have resulted in me lets say going through a lot of crap (or broken down) to get to this point in my life. Bad experience is good if you can take something out of it and use it for the greater good! - what doesnt kill you only makes you stronger!

I was letting those people in my life rent space in my head and they were not even paying rent, the Lord helped me kick them out. I learned; that it really was not about them, it was about ME..... I learned to "Let go and Let God". ICL~~~Dennis Your so right, At a point in time this year I was in a blissful state of maintaining a calm, peaceful and positive lifestyle and somehow at some unknown stage - did just this. so it all started in early this year and I dont know how it all spiralled out of control and left me now in this stage where I am sort of picking up pieces and trying to make sense of it all. I have volunteered a lot of my time to this issue and dwelled on it. Not once in all this time did the thought the person is not remorseful cross my mind, I do need to be more assertive to how time and patience I give people - I don't ever want to be feeling this way ever again!

Dennis thank you so much for your post. I have read it and it has been such a huge help to me. I posted this thread because no matter what I wont allow anything to deter me off course from my bible study however this line within the Lords prayer has become a bit of a road block in my practice. Each time I would question the stress this person has cause my whole family and I would shut down and go off tangent thinking things through like crazy and trying to read between the lines of verses and then end at the verse to forgive more than 77 times. However having read some of the posts all of which have been great has lead me to have an epiphany..the person in question has been the most complex member of my already complex family - why am I so bothered by how I cannot forgive this person when they clearly don't repent for anything of what they have done? Or even see how what they have done is wrong? I can only repent for my past sins and beg God to forgive me. If someone cannot even acknowledge they did something wrong let alone seek repentance then I have just created a burden of my own. I still have a slight issue with the concept of forgiveness it terms of the repeat offenders this one person is the sole one and only person in my family who has ever cause another member to have hurt feelings, stress, anxiety and pain on a repetitive basis so collectively as a family this person i'm sure has been forgiven what more than 88 times! Im just going to keep on going with my studies and improving myself and as enoob57 mentioned to spend a while mentioned switch that negativity to love!

Firstly thank you all so much for your kind words of wisdom. I never intended insult tp anyone by questioning the Lords Prayer and although I am having a rough year and lets say my stress levels are dangerously high, I have never not once questioned my trust and faith in God. As much as my family has fallen apart this year its made us all sit back and question our values and faith. Also its interesting to see how much the power of one negative person has tested us all to the extreme, well how one person who is so full of hate has totally a medium sized family all stressed out to ill health. Its funny how the saying 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger' keeps coming to my mind. Through all of this I can honestly say that maybe this is all a part of my process to becoming a better christian and having total faith, otherwise why is the most unthinkable junk happening to me?

thanks, Im sort of stuck in a negative trap so speak. When my family gets together we all now sit and talk about how hurt we are but this one character and each time the conclusion is we did the forgive and forget method but she just kept on with the antics. Maybe assertiveness is the key!

Question - What if I am totally unable to do this? Does it mean I'm less of a good christian? A few weeks ago possibly a month ago I was in a sheer moment of stress and ended up having to turn to all my lovely brothers and sisters here for advice. Well yes my life did spiral out of control suddenly and this was caused by a family member doing a disappearing act. However with the help of God I haven't completely gone nuts. If one specific person causes a whole range of people intense stress and ultimately causes them to become sick due to the stress they have caused, does this forgiveness rule apply? Am I wrong to take things literally to the point where I am over thinking things through?

Sorry I dont mean to bump this topic up to the top but the book is brilliant - all natural and herbal remedies. Just be careful to make sure that herbal remedies do not interfere with your other medicines!

My advice would be make sure you can control the situation between you your family and your parents. As Jake said the worst thing that you can possibly end up doing is end up with seriously poor communication and all the relationship breaking down. All you need to do is make sure that you are firm and fair with them. I think at some stages parents do not realized that they have over stepped your comfort zone and when as kids we don't speak up they really don't address it as a serious issue. I understand exactly what you mean and i think you need to address the issue as a serious matter with your parents and even re-set the boundaries and ensure that they understand how busy you are you cant volunteer up all your time.

Hi No worries, I would always advice the natural route all the way. I mean its unfortunate for me that by the time I got really clued up on all these natural alternatives it was at the stage where I was on a wide range of allergy control medication. I do literally have to take one drug for lungs, eyes, nose, ear and throat too - but oddly enough through natural little things all works there are tonnes of books on this the best one is this to buy and keep (you just need this one book!) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bartrams-Encyclopedia-Herbal-Medicine-Bartram/dp/1854875868/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1349478407&sr=8-1 This caters for everyhing!!!

Gary, Im sorry if I am diverting the topic slightly - But it fits here in context, how can you explain if you suddenly have a heightened sense of instinct? Would you classify this in the same category of a spiritual realm experience? (Im being vague and there is a reason behind it!) free.

Hi, well it would have been better if I added a bit more background to what is making me go off tangent, Well a few weeks ago I had a really stressful moment with my family issues (I think you can find that post through my history on this lovely forum) anyhow my initial thoughts were around how I started off with such a closed mind I was a firm agnostic/atheist in oct 2010 and then by oct 2011 a firm christian so that was I dwelling on anyway. But I think Gary has hit nail no the head, are some of us just destined to be guided to good and some people just destined to bad? I'm trying not to start debating predestination....but im tip toeing there slowly...