Searching soul23

I accepted the Lord in September of 1992, and sixteen years later, I am still waiting for things to fall in place so that I can start really feeling like I am serving the Lord. It isn't always easy to see how we impact others for the good of the Kingdom, but we do all the time. None of us will ever be completely mature until we are perfected in Heaven. If a 'slow down' occurred, it happened for a reason. And if you can't answer some basic Christian inquiries, maybe you could post them here so as to encourage others who may feel a similar lack of maturity.

I don't understand the virgin birth. But it's kind of pivotal to everything I believe about salvation. So I accept it. Here's what I believe in a nutshell: Adam, the first man, spoiled everything for everybody by declaring himself at odds with God: sinful. From that time on, everyone born in the line of Adam has been at odds with God, and has been subject to the same penalty. Now, Christ was born of a virgin, and thus was not in the line of Adam, nor under his penalty. Even so, He lived a perfect life. When Jesus, (Philippians 2:6 included in my logic) though being in very nature God, and not considering equality with God something to be grasped, died under the penalty of Adam, He took that penalty for me. And now, under His name, I can be credited with His righteousness even though I was born in the line of Adam. But alas, this is a mystery too profound for me to grasp. I take it by faith.

Welcome to Worthyboards! I do not have many friends my own age. Not even in the church. But I was drawn to church because I thought that would be a good place to meet people. Now I know that my social life is not the issue. It's my spiritual life. I'm glad you're in church. My dad didn't like going to church for a long time. But then for some reason, he started going. My parents wake up early on sunday morning and have coffee in bed for about an hour while they discuss whatever is on their minds. Maybe something my mom said got my dad interested in church again. Keep praying and keep going to church. Maybe your husband will follow you someday. Or Maybe he will find Jesus before he ever goes to church because of something you say to him sometime.

I'm glad my topic turned hot overnight and got moved to the Inner Court. I suppose proponents of The Emerging Church have valid points. It's good that there is a church that appeals to the unchurched. Maybe they will find Christ... As for me, I just want to be true to my school. I wasn't taught any of this Emerging Church stuff. But at least I can discern that. As for the rest of them, I'll let God decide. Here is Ecclesiastes 12, which rings true in this matter for me: Ecclesiastes 12 1 Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, "I find no pleasure in them"- 2 before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark, and the clouds return after the rain; 3 when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men stoop, when the grinders cease because they are few, and those looking through the windows grow dim; 4 when the doors to the street are closed and the sound of grinding fades; when men rise up at the sound of birds, but all their songs grow faint; 5 when men are afraid of heights and of dangers in the streets; when the almond tree blossoms and the grasshopper drags himself along and desire no longer is stirred. Then man goes to his eternal home and mourners go about the streets. 6 Remember him

religion comes from two Greek words meaning a return to bondage. Christ came to set the captives free... If a church doesn't provide me with relationships, is that the church's fault? Is it Christs fault? Did he really free me? Or is it my fault for not living in that freedom? How many relationships would you say it takes to prove that I am free from religious bondage? Any specific kind of relationship? Jesus is content that I abide in Him. Shouldn't I be content to hear the Gospel, accept His love, and push the rest aside for awhile. After all, the Gospel is a seed. It doesn't turn into fruit over night. But if I tend the soil long enough, I will get the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, meekness, and self-control. Maybe without these fruits, I won't be able to have the kind of relationships that count. Maybe without patience, for instance, I cannot hear God speak because my mind is too cluttered with its own pseudoreligious junk. Maybe once I radiate love, joy, and peace, people in the church will be attracted to that and I will start having relationships that reflect the rest of the fruits. I like it simple most of the time. And the simple way to test this theory is to go to a Reformed Church that preaches just the Gospel and wait for God to give me the rest. If I trust him and have peace about the matter, what can go wrong?

What a great message! Very thought provoking. Makes me want to double-check what I hear at any church I go to.

Thank you everyone for the comments and incites backed up by scripture. I can see now that following correct doctrine and precepts is more important than following a church that has a young peoples' group I'm attracted to.

For the past several weeks, I have been going to a church I was attracted to just because they had a ministry for my age group. Turns out that church is part of the Emerging Church Movement, a New Age movemenet that appeals to the masses, especially the unchurched or post-churched. I guess I know why I didn't like the sermons, now.

And actually, the pastor did say that the soul's craving for intimacy was like a mirror to point us toward a relationship with God. It's a good apologetic, but only halfway complete. Consider the following paraphrase of a similar, but complete apologetic from The Pilgrim's Progress. Then the Interpreter led him into a very dusty room, where he called a maiden to sweep the room clean of all the dust. But as soon as she began to sweep, the dust flew into the air and nearly choked poor Christian. And it seemed that as soon as she swept one corner, the dust settled even more heavily in another corner. Then the Interpreter called another maiden with a pitcher of water, instructing her to sprinkle the water throughot the room. Once this was done, the room was swept clean with pleasure. The dust is our sin. The person sweeping is the law. The person sprinkling water is the Gospel. And the water itself is Christ. While the law may reveal to you quite clearly your need of cleansing, yet it hath not the power to cleanse you of of even one small spot, nor even to show you how to clean your sins. This is the work of the Gospel. And Christ alone has the power to cleanse you. But my question is this: what are the elements of our souls' cravings for intimacy that have the power to get us into relationships with God or with other people for that matter? A craving is really nothing more than an over-inflated desire. It's like hunger. My hunger may tell me I need a sandwich. But it cannot provide me with bread, meat, mayo, or the knowledge of how to put them together. So if I crave intimacy, that's fine. But first I have to define intimacy. Then I have to gather up the ingredients I need for it. Then I have to know how to put them all together. Let's do intimacy with God, first. I need God, which means Jesus. And in order to have that, I have to admit I'm a sinner in need of a savior. And in order to do that, I may need to go through a really tough time. OK. Jesus, acquired. Now, I need to know His character, which means I have to familiarize myself with the Bible. That done, I will have to become comfortable with prayer. Then trust and obedience. And just how I put these all together is anyone's guess, so I''ll have to go to church to learn that. But, oh dear, they don't teach that at church. All they cover there is my craving, which I already know about. And if you think that was hard, just try explaining to me how to develop human intimacy from scratch. My craving, I know. So you don't need to go over that again.

Sounds like a friend of mine who left a good church because he was obsessed with a girl there to the point where he couldn't focus on God. I find myself in a similar situation. I've found a good church, but the enemy is trying to distort my mind and get me to leave just because there exists the potential for temptations there to pull me away from God. But thanks to your dream, I can see the stupidity of leaving. God obviously wants me there, and the devil obviously doesn't. That means that it's probably a decent church, right?

To answer some questions...I guess I was just confused by the sermon and worried about what the study group might focus on. This is the back cover of the book from which the sermon was drawn. It is called Soul Cravings by Erwin Mcmanus. We can spend our whole lives trying to satisfy the one insatiable part of our being, our soul craving. Our capacity for spiritual experience both proves our need for something greater than ourselves and leaves us wanting when we fill it with anything but God. Soul Cravings is a powerful, down-to-earth exposition that interprets our need for intimacy, meaning, and destiny as common sense apologetics pointing to the existence of and our need for God. The book will deeply stir the reader to consider and chase after the spiritual implications of their soul

This morning at church, my pastor made a boo-boo. The sermon series is about marriage. But absolutely the only scripture he used to support his sermon was in Genesis 1 and 2. But then he erred when he tried to incorporate the entire book of Hosea into his message. It is not easy to encorporate specific verses of the minor prophets into sermons preached on a personal level. The meaning of the book of Hosea is clear. It is a warning to Israel's northern kingdom to return to the Lord. God used the imagery of loving an unfaithful wife dispite her short-comings. And to better illustrate his point, God commanded Hosea to take a prostitute as a wife. Would she be faithful to him? Of course not. That was the point. But Hosea probably didn't want to take an unfaithful wife. To me, marriage was not the point of Hosea's prophecy. Adultery was! The adultery that Israel had committed against God. They had sold themselves to idol's. Thus the warning to return to serving the one true God or face His judgment. The rest of the minor prophets also use imagery to make points about the state of the nation Israel. One important rule of exegesis is that scripture is always intended to be interpreted the way its original audience would have interpreted it. Otherwise you could look at any verse and it could mean any number of things to you based on what's going through your mind at the time you read it. Be careful not to read things into scripture that aren't there. Make sure to read entire passages when you're not sure, and don't read the Bible for yourself when you're deeply distressed. At those times, you'll be more likely to misinterpret.

I seem to get into more serious trouble when I am trying my best to live for God. Does that mean I am not as good a person when I desire to live for God? Does anybody understand what I'm going through?

If anything is going to drive her away from God, it will not be primarily you. There are so many factors when it comes to mental instability. You really can't predict what's going to drive her away, what's going to draw her back, or what God's plan is for her life in the meantime. It might be good for her to know she's not the only one. If you want, you can print out my post titled Uncertainty.

I'm having trouble with being patient in tribulation.

As a bicyclist, it is pretty easy to flip off an intolerant motorist. And I've done it more than a couple of times. It's easy to do things that are blatantly wrong, because we're sure to be noticed. But everything we do is building a reputation for ourselves. But what kind of reputation do we want? And moreover, since it is so easy to build a bad reputation and so time-consuming to build even the foundations of a good reputation, we'd all do well to pray for more patience, and to develop a reputation for that particular character quality.

The heart of the matter is a matter of the heart. You can sway one's opinion, chage their point of view; but only when the heart is changed can the old become the new. Give us clean hands, Lord. Give us Pure hearts. TV may actually be helpful to some people in some ways. To other people, it may be destructive. By the same token, some people have born bad fruits after receiving Biblical advice, because their hearts were wrong.

Cool dream! Don't let it get you down, though. Sounds like you must be familiar with the parable of the sower and the seeds that he scattered. There is a theory that our dreams help us to process what we cannot process during the day. I hope God blesses you as you worship him. As for me, I am trying not to get stuck with the cares of this world to the exclusion of my spiritual journey.

Probably more than anyone else, I seem to be enduring the exact same thing you have stated. The breakthrough for me came after a monumental social failure. But it couldn't have come at a more opportune time, because I was finally ready to pray through my issues, and seek God's will for my life rather than just the worldly wisdom of my psychologist. I think I can articulate this pretty well, finally. It helps to know my audience is someone who has a vested interest in what I am about to write. My fight is with mental illness, bipolar disorder, lack of social awareness, seizure disorder, medication resistance, and more. But I am great at understanding things that can be put into words, so I may have some insights for you that you will find helpful. First of all, you say you have been struggling with bipolar disorder or some other mood disorder. Sounds like meds may help. There are a wide variety of antidepressants and mood stabilizers. If you are not already taking fish oil, that might be a good idea. And you definitely should get the opinion of an actual psychiatrist. He may recommend counseling as an adjunctive to drug treatment. If your psychologist knows what your psychiatrist is doing with your meds, he may be able to help you distinguish between situational depression and disappointment versus clinical depression or mood swings. Lithium is commonly used to treat psychosis, which it doesn't sound like you had. Depression is commonly treated with MAOI's, SSRI's, or a class of drugs that works on the neurotransmitter dopamine. One of the newer meds for bipolar is called Abilify, and I have no clue how it works, but I do take that one myself. When you say that that you often get depression/dissappointment right after spiritually charged events, which I do too, it makes me really want to reach out to you and other people to whom this is happening. I figured out that for me, the situational dissappointment comes on when I am psyched for a good time, and then it doesn't happen. In the science called dianetics, scientists postulate that aberrative circuits are installed in our minds. For instance, in my case, one aberrative circuit might be the expectation that God will always bless be beyond my wildest dreams when I engage in church events. At the time it was installed, I was likely experiencing bipolar mania. I just walked into a church, prayed for guidance, picked up a bulletin, and was directed into a group that became a playground for my grandeous imagination. I played there for three years straight, and ever since that ended, all my spiritual ventures have absolutely paled in comparison. And this, as you might guess, has caused disappointment and unimaginable anguish. Another source of social frustration is my brain injury itself, which has put some of the social activities my peers enjoy beyond my capacity to enjoy. Separation from peers is hard, when that's what you've been seeking your whole life. So I decided that I needed to find God for myself without my peers to prompt me. On the other hand, if you've been seeking God your whole life and now you don't seem to get the same enjoyment from Him, maybe He is leading you to try your wings in a new world. Maybe instead of being the one ministered to, it is time to minister, using your talents to increase the Kingdom. Say you find an area of ministry where your church is lacking and volunteer to start a small group or something. Sometimes it is counter-intuitive what you should do. I am still searching. Don't give up. Contact me if you want to. But definitely contact your doctor, too.

My earthly desires revolve around having friends. Am I not normal, in this? But alas, I am not normal. I am not as good as everyone else. I am isolated. Held in the iron cage of despair. Then along comes a fellow pilgrim, and tells me I must not despair. He tells me I am as good as everyone else, but they just don't think so. Can I move on? Can God show me his great love without making me comfortable in a church, with friends all around? Can I be satisfied with being a pilgrim bound for glory to Zion, despite my heavy burden? Will I press on for the Celestial City, or will I be content to live in the City of Destruction? You could think of it another way. I am passionate for my earthly desires; I don't have much patience, and so I have been pursuing a church only in hopes it will bring me one step closer to having the friends I so crave. So I found what I was looking for in the way of a church with lots of young people, but that doesn't seem to satisfy me. Is this because my desires were skewed to begin with? Is what I really needed to desire just a closer walk with the Lord? Can I have that independent of church? So really, it comes down to Passion and Patience. I am not content to wait for my reward, and I must have all now; whereas, if I just waited until the time appointed, my treasure would be far greater. I need to be patient. God will give me what he wants to give me, which is greater than anything I could think to even ask for. All will be done in God's time; I only have to wait.

Can religious trappings be age-related? I was friends with a group of young college students at Calvary Church in Grand Rapids, MI. It felt so right! But as they began to graduate and move on, I was left completely alone. Bereft of church relationships with people my own age, I began to drift from my faith. I left the church, isolated myself, and began to hate God for all the false bravado I had experienced in the church. But I still missed "Michelle," a name I have given to that time I felt things were right, that time with the college group that meant so much to me. I, of course, have not moved on with my life yet, and probably never will in the forseeable future. I am so sad! Is that the kind of trapping Mr. Peretti talks about? If so, I would be interested to know how I can move beyond that. I mean, it would be easy if my life had a discernable pattern of forward movement. But it doesn't. I have been in a rehab unit since '93, and I have no clue when or if I'll ever get out. It's depressing at times, and even scary. I can't get a job or go to college, and I do not have the capacity to enjoy some of the other things my peers enjoy. We have no common ground, except for church, if I could find one. I have had the dream of finding a church with a group that fits my social goals. And just recently, it seemed I had found one. The study group was comprised of 6 people from 22-28. It seemed perfect. Until we all went to a bar down the street. I ended up conversing mostly with a lovely young woman named Charity, who ends up being the actual leader of the group, and is probably married to someone who attended seminary. So, there you have it. It was novel for a while, being with a group again. But now I have figured them out, and I'm not interested...or am I? Last night, the group went to a brewing company for a 21st Birtthday Party of someone else new to the group, I decided to go check it out, thinking I could have a good time with a few people, other than just Charity. It ended up being about 40 people I didn't know in a crowded brewery late in the evening. Everyone was talking at once and I couldn't hear myself think. I tried my best to stay calm for as long as I could. I wanted to leave, but I was trapped by tables and chairs and people all around. I had a terrible time. So I guess that's the final end of church, social life, and Christianity for me. I can never go back. I can only pine for the lost time of "Michelle." Charity, of course, would probably welcome me back. But I don't feel worthy. And how can I ever feel accepted by a large, confusing group that only does activities I don't really like?

I agree that women are important in God's plan for the world, and for the lives of individual men. I no longer believe that there is always a right woman for each man. Before you pass judgment, listen to my story. Most of my young life, I have been obsessed with the thought that if I could find the right woman to spend time with, I would be happy. My youngest, most naive prayers were for relationships with girls when I was in elementary school. Those prayers continued through high-school, and into my twenty-first year of life. Finally, fed up with what seemed to be God's lame voicemail saying, "leave a message. I might return your call, or might not." I stopped praying, stopped going to church, and practically stopped listening to Christian music. At this point, was God aloof from me, or had I turned away from Him because I didn't like his methods? Recently, I started going back to church because I craved the social life I thought it would instantly provide. Although I wasn't really disappointed with the church itself, God still seemed to be holding my expectations just out of reach. In the meantime, ever since graduating from highschool, and vowing to end my string of pointless crushes, I have been having a series of wonderfully enriching relationships with various women, though none were ever even slightly romantic. There was Michelle, an angel in my estimation. And the full measure, I thought, of God's blessings toward me through women. I was devastated when she left this college town to pursue her calling. A year later, I came to realize I had been having another blessed relationship with the administrative assistant who had invited me to her wedding, just as I was going through the hardest time of my life. She always encourages me, filling me with a sense that maybe that one woman I've always longed for is not missing from my life and I just never realized it. But now she is getting ready to leave to pursue her calling to motherhood. I have not been sure how I would handle the disappointment of her departure. I hope she invites me to visit her sometimes, when I pass her house on my way to the state park. There are also several women and men I work with in the patient escort department. Among them is another secretary who is preparing to depart from us and pursue her husband's dreams. I have spent the past month worrying how I will cope with these losses. But aren't all of these relationships blessings, and isn't God faithful to provide more and more as our need grows? This seems like the story in the Bible of the woman who never ran out of oil and flour while she was ministering to the prophet. Maybe as long as I continue to have a reasonable need for these kinds of relationships, God will keep providing. what looks like the bottom of the jar to me is really just the beginnings of his vast richness. In conclusion, I have found that maybe there is not one woman who can fulfill my need for encouragement and companionship, and who can serve as a reminder of God's generosity in my life. Maybe there's not one, but dozens, hundreds,, or how ever many I need in my lifetime. Maybe I don't need to marry, or even date a woman to be happy I had a relationship with her. But I suppose if I ever got an unmistakable calling from God to marry a particular woman, I would have to make sure it was God. But so far, God has not called me into either dating or marriage; but I think I have finally found my calling, and I am happy with it. So, what do I think of women? I think there great. I think God sends certain ones to us dumb guys to help us along. I think a woman could condense my whole post into about two sentences. And I think dating and marriage might be just a bit over-rated. But not because they're detrimental in most cases; just because as a man, I have spent more time than what is necessary, reasonable, or prudent worrying about them.

I am blessed if I feel like I have a relationship with God. If I feel like God is distant or remaining aloof from me, I am less likely to search for his blessing in all things. But if I feel close to God, I feel close to his blessings; I will give my circumstances the best possible construction, pray for guidance, and decide that the Lord is on my side whether my circumstances look bright or bleak.