Why do you suppose we turn our backs?

[sparrow]

If God has comforted you in a beautiful way.
Why do we then, later... turn our back on it and torture ourselves and move AWAY from that comfort? What is it in us that causes us to push it away and wallow yet again in our remorse, etc.? Why do we do this?

Perhaps it is that old "angry God" vision in the back of our minds? Do you think that is what it is?

It's almost as if punishing yourself becomes addictive. Making yourself re-live past mistakes over and over and seeing just how bad you can feel as some sort of self-mutilating punishment? What is it? Why? Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we forsake the comfort, His love, His arms around us telling us it's ok? Why do we push that away and punish ourselves over and over.....?

1 John 2:24-25
24 Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is the promise that he made to us —eternal life.

I'm trying so hard.


Any insight? I think I'm truly starting to damage myself. I rest in His comfort, then I feel guilty about feeling peaceful and I slip right back to torturing myself. It's really starting to get kinda sad.

[WhiteWings]

Perhaps it is that old "angry God" vision in the back of our minds?
....
Why do we forsake the comfort, His love, His arms around us telling us it's ok? Why do we push that away and punish ourselves over and over.....?

As you mentioned it's partly about the angry God teachings.
The other part is "nothing comes for free" "if it is to good to be true it isn't"
That makes ET in a way easier to believe. Eternal bliss  is offset/payed by eternal damnation. That way the good thing isn't free anymore. That makes sense and that's why we drift back to it.

You forgot an important point. Chance. If you believe in an ET God and He is ET you get into Heaven. If you are an ET and God is UR you get into heaven too. But if God is ET and you believe UR....

[sparrow]

Perhaps it is that old "angry God" vision in the back of our minds?
....
Why do we forsake the comfort, His love, His arms around us telling us it's ok? Why do we push that away and punish ourselves over and over.....?

As you mentioned it's partly about the angry God teachings.
The other part is "nothing comes for free" "if it is to good to be true it isn't"

Maybe it does have something to do with that, I'm not sure.

I mean, I will never forsake the truth of UR. I don't have an issue with that at all. I'm firm in the belief that God loves all and all are saved.

I think this struggle I'm dealing with is more... I'm just so dissapointed in myself over certain things that I just... I can't forgive myself. I know logically all of the things I need to be thinking about..(how HE forgives me, etc. and how it is utterly SELFISH of me to feel this way and to dwell...) I know all that in my mind. But my heart is another story. I feel like I keep just grabbing my heart and wringing it with both hands. I think remorse is a teacher. I think that I had to go through certain things, otherwise I would not have learned anything from my mistakes.

But then I think the lesson may go on a bit too long to the point where... it's just not serving a purpose anymore other than to torture yourself and just keep forcing yourself to feel pain. As some sort of "payback" or something for the mistakes you've made. It's sad. Because how is that doing anyone any  good? How is that honoring God? It isn't. And then those thoughts just ADD to it and make me feel like even more of a loser.

Guess it's just a journey I need to go through.
Perhaps, later on down the line... He'll use me to help someone else.
Maybe the pain will fade away soon... and get better.
I guess I just have to cling to Him more.
Maybe try to focus on the good that He gave me through this.
I guess I just feel I don't DESERVE it.
It's not fair. I need to suffer.
That is what I'm trying to slowly rise up out of.
Because I'm no good to anyone like this.
Perhaps I just need to have patience..
Just walk my path and take it one day at a time.

I :HeartThrob: you guys.
I'm glad you all are here to talk with...
It can be a lonely road at times, eh?

:HeartThrob:,
your sis,
sparrow

[WhiteWings]

Perhaps it is that old "angry God" vision in the back of our minds?
....
Why do we forsake the comfort, His love, His arms around us telling us it's ok? Why do we push that away and punish ourselves over and over.....?

As you mentioned it's partly about the angry God teachings.
The other part is "nothing comes for free" "if it is to good to be true it isn't"

it's just not serving a purpose anymore other than to torture yourself and just keep forcing yourself to feel pain. As some sort of "payback" or something for the mistakes you've made. It's sad. Because how is that doing anyone any  good? How is that honoring God? It isn't. And then those thoughts just ADD to it and make me feel like even more of a loser.

The hurting yourself is a form of paying. So the gifts isn't free anymore. It gives you more control over salvation. And it's no longer to good to be true because you payed for it...

[sparrow]

Thank you WhiteWings...
You've given me something to ponder.

[martincisneros]

Biggest problem with this is our focus on our love for God rather than His love for us.  Most people need half an hour a day of saying over and over again outloud "God loves me."  And just don't say anything else, until that really sinks into your core and allows the Holy Spirit to "bare witness with your spirit that you're a child of God" as it says in Romans 8.  You never outgrow "Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so......."  In the two years that I've been advising folks do this little exercise of saying it over and over again, even if it's only the last 5 or 10 minutes before you fall asleep, and your first 5 or 10 minutes after you get up, perhaps while you're in the shower -- just say it over and over and over again: "God loves me." -- I genuinely don't think anyone that the Holy Spirit has given that direct order from Him to do that has ever obeyed Him. 

There's no such thing as anyone that's either so secure in Him or sooo profound in their revelations of His majesty and mysteries that they couldn't use a refresher course of doing that simple little exercise, if it's only the 3 minutes you make your oatmeal in the morning or your morning coffee before you run out the door.  I'm certain some of the tangible experiences I've experienced with Him this year are because I started obeying that a couple of years ago, that whenever I'd think of it, even if it was under my breath while in the car with other Christians -- just start up again and again and again.  1John talks about "knowing and believing" the love that God has to us.  Grow that in your spirit like a Mark chapter 4 seed with saying and saying and saying it until you believe it in your heart and are speaking by Mark 11:23-24 type of faith on this basic certainty of God's Written Word, and He'll start shouting it at you in a billion ways -- or you'll sensitize your ears to being able to hear Him with that little practice since it says in the Bible that He already rejoices over each of us with singing!

People make a mistake with trying to believe and practice any of the other promises, principles, precepts, et. al. of the Scriptures without first having set down really deep personal roots in this core truth that your faith that's come by hearing and hearing by the Word of God, per Romans 10, is only going to be as active, effective, operative, energizing, etc., as the degree to which you've known AND BELIEVED the Love that He has for you.  If it were nothing but good psychological therapy, then not only "what would be the harm?" but "how much personal baggage might it help you to simply release without the struggles others have with it??"  But, I'm fully persuaded that doing this will TOTALLY SET YOU UP for Him making one of His loving passes at you, when He thinks that your foreplay with that confession of faith has gone far enough in preparing your spirit for His seed. :HeartThrob:

Repeat after me for the next few minutes:

God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me. 

[sparrow]

Thank you Martin.
I appreciate that brother.  :HeartThrob:

Thanks for letting me get this off my chest.
Sometimes you just have to share your low points with others.
Just put it out there in black and white.

Thanks again.

[Kimberlaina]

For a few years in college I lived in a dorm where about 1/3 of the residents were part of a very cult-like Christian group (I'm sorry I mention it so often, but this experience totally changed my relationship with God).  They were very guilt-oriented Christians.  One of their favorite authors was Joshua Harris.  I haven't read enough of his work to have a fully formed opinion on him, but the opening passage to his book -- which my friends read to me -- really disturbed me.  It is a wedding scene.  The groom meets his bride at the front of the church, and filing in behind her are all the women he's ever slept with, evidence that he is a sinner (a rough paraphrase).  The message is that sexual sin is a special kind of sin, the kind that is like a stain you can almost get out but you will never really be "white" again.  My friends seemed to feel this way about all types of sin; Jesus could remove most of it, but you'd still be a little tainted.  I identify with you, sparrow, because at that point in my life, I couldn't let go of *anything* I did that I felt was wrong.  I imagined God as a sort of audience, like the grad students who would evaluate my clarinet auditions.  One wrong note and, well, sorry, but you didn't make the band.

I think that we hold on to sin because we imagine the judgment of God like a giant gathering of all humanity in a big stadium in Heaven, and all the bad stuff we ever did gets put up on the Jumbotron.  And God says, "What were you **THINKING**?!?"  :mshock:  I'm no Bible scholar, but I don't think that vision holds up.  The Bible says that God won't even remember our sins:

Hebrews 8:12 says, "For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more."

Jeremiah 31:34 says, "...For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."

Isaiah 43:25 says, "I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; and I will not remember your sins."

If God can't remember, they definitely won't be on the Jumbotron, and the vision of the past lovers at the wedding is also silly.  It's almost as if we think if we remember our own sins, we can avoid the Sin Jumbotron by saying, "Yeah, yeah, I remember that.  It was stupid.  Please just fast forward through this part, 'cause I don't need reminding."  But why should we be haunted by something that God Himself has *forgotten*?  We might always wonder what would have happened if we hadn't sinned, but God is in control and we can't mess up our lives so much that they're beyond His repair.  Life is like bumper bowling!   :HeartThrob:

Anyway, I think the ultimate solution is to learn to love yourself the way God does.  We search ourselves for faults all the time, and we imagine God does too, but really God loves us just as we are.

[sparrow]

I think that we hold on to sin because we imagine the judgment of God like a giant gathering of all humanity in a big stadium in Heaven, and all the bad stuff we ever did gets put up on the Jumbotron.  And God says, "What were you **THINKING**?!?"  :mshock: 

Ok, I have to come back and read the rest of your post later...because I am totally laughing right now. And it feels so good to laugh I just have to enjoy the moment...

be back later.

THANK you.