tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3140461622670330413.post348119114162191312..comments2023-09-24T04:28:46.764-07:00Comments on deep down things: Do Not Go Gentle: Searching For Truthjennypohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08885906238155398438noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3140461622670330413.post-87233656652328007982009-03-05T06:57:00.000-08:002009-03-05T06:57:00.000-08:00Lovely and encouraging!Lovely and encouraging!Hannah Imhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03492599174205493872noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3140461622670330413.post-83088623265217671272009-01-21T00:45:00.000-08:002009-01-21T00:45:00.000-08:00really enjoyed reading your story jennypo you a...really enjoyed reading your story jennypo you are a deeply caring soul and your waters run so deep stop by my place soon againRoberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14137068859515196903noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3140461622670330413.post-40281695456527121352009-01-19T22:03:00.000-08:002009-01-19T22:03:00.000-08:00p.s. Exrelayman, I hope that you change your mind ...p.s. Exrelayman, I hope that you change your mind and feel free to argue as many points as you wish. I am not looking for a fight, but I appreciate having my thinking challenged. It is dangerously easy to slide into a murky pool of smug narrowmindedness if we are content to interact only with those with whom we agree.jennypohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08885906238155398438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3140461622670330413.post-91021942419678615112009-01-19T21:49:00.000-08:002009-01-19T21:49:00.000-08:00Exrelayman and Slapdash,I'm so sorry if I appear t...Exrelayman and Slapdash,<BR/><BR/>I'm so sorry if I appear to mock your pain and bewilderment. As you both point out, this offers you no answers. Of course it gives you no answers - I wasn't telling about God, but about me. <BR/><BR/>So why tell it? The first and simplest reason is that exrelayman, you asked. But after all, I wasn't just being polite. The point, in a nutshell, is that I know what it is like to feel that there is no God. There was a reason why I had that experience, although I couldn't understand it at the time. That means that there might be a reason why you each find yourselves in similar positions. <BR/><BR/>I can't see inside your heads and hearts. I don't know what things are keeping you from knowing God. Maybe he is hiding from you for a time, as he did from me. But maybe you are not being proud or rebellious, and maybe God is not being cold or capricious. Maybe there is something more at work. I don't know. We are more unique than we are often aware of. We each have our own journeys, and our own ways of describing them. No one else can make a prescription for you. <BR/><BR/>I want you to know that I realize what it feels like, and this was never meant as a "naah, naah, naah". Nor am I trying to say, "just do what I did, and everything will be great." <BR/><BR/>But above all, let me clarify this, exrelayman: an experience in no way negates the need for reason. What I have described is much more about being lost than it is about being found. Finding Truth is not about shining visions, but about seeing things as they are. It wasn't God that I saw first - it was the truth about what I know best: myself. <BR/><BR/>I am not advocating an add-water-and-stir, insta-happy kind of faith that lands in your lap complete with shimmering visions and you never have to think again. Truth is not an experience; the experience is just how we get there, and it is as different for each of us as we are different.jennypohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08885906238155398438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3140461622670330413.post-30459432896896981422009-01-19T19:43:00.000-08:002009-01-19T19:43:00.000-08:00I came to Jesus as a three-year old.And since this...I came to Jesus as a three-year old.<BR/><BR/>And since this is where my own patience wears thin with those who would say that my loss of faith is because I never knew God, I will stop here.Slapdashhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09175742547306567984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3140461622670330413.post-73006360238885414252009-01-19T18:52:00.000-08:002009-01-19T18:52:00.000-08:00I must add a comment to this long list. Jennypo h...I must add a comment to this long list. Jennypo has left out one important detail. -- not purposely, I make haste to add, because it was her purpose to Give Hope, not to reveal a step-by-step plan for finding God. However, the things she reveals are hidden to those who have never come to God through His Son, Jesus Christ. "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for: it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For therin is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith" Romans 1:16,17 It is through Christ that the righteousness of God is revealed!!<BR/>Knowing God is impossible without first coming to Him through Christ who died on the cross for our sin. Jennypo did this as a child. I know this because I am her little sister and she tried to help me understand my need for salvation. She accepted Jesus Christ as the payment for her sin, and this put her in a position to learn and know God. Trying to know God without first coming to him through Jesus, is like trying to read a book in a foreign language, without first learning the language. It is a step that can never be "jumped over". <BR/>"For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? shere is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolisness of preaching to save them that believe." 1Corinthians 1:18-21joeyannehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07261373211909007140noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3140461622670330413.post-71484030735811002412009-01-19T12:30:00.000-08:002009-01-19T12:30:00.000-08:00Hi jennypo and exrelayman--Thanks for creating thi...Hi jennypo and exrelayman--<BR/><BR/>Thanks for creating this exchange. It's been an interesting read.<BR/><BR/>I wish I could say there was something compelling to me about how you've found your truth, jennypo, but there's not much I can point to in what you've described to say "aha! I get it, there's truth!" For what you have described is a personal experience not unlike those described by all kinds of people of other faith. It clearly moved you, and you write about it very eloquently... but your experience and inner certainty about the nature of God is completely subjective and not something you can replicate for me or demonstrate apart from your personal experience of it/him.<BR/><BR/>I have been through very dark times much like you and have searched just like you... and, simply put, I have not found what you found. It's a capricious it/him god who would remain stubbornly absent and silent to struggling people like me and exrelayman while revealing himself in incontrovertible ways to people like you.<BR/><BR/>That being said, I appreciate what you've written here, and as always, really appreciate your generosity of spirit and general support of my journey. So I hope you take my comments in the spirit intended even if there's some frustration in my tone. :)Slapdashhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09175742547306567984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3140461622670330413.post-23080179532414080232009-01-19T06:36:00.000-08:002009-01-19T06:36:00.000-08:00Jennypo,Here is a little story that brings a tear ...Jennypo,<BR/><BR/>Here is a little story that brings a tear to the eyes (a good tear). Thought you and others who come here might enjoy.<BR/><BR/>http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?section=magazine&id=3789373Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3140461622670330413.post-25403793614205712632009-01-18T22:44:00.000-08:002009-01-18T22:44:00.000-08:00Hi Jennypo,Wow! Very eloquent and very beautiful p...Hi Jennypo,<BR/><BR/>Wow! Very eloquent and very beautiful post. I applaud your bringing it over here, as it deserves a post of its own. And I very much feel humbled by all the effort that was clearly put into it. The person that I discern in this writing has been a joy to experience, even though I am pretty sure we will likely never see eye to eye about things theological. To such extent as we actually make acquaintance here in cyberspace, I am honored.<BR/><BR/>The poem on your home page has been a favorite of mine for years. My unbelief can nonetheless appreciate and thrill to the power of feeling in it. Just in the unlikely event that you have not yet experienced it, I will mention that the song 'I will sing His wondrous glory' by the Gaithers is very powerful also, and I would expect you tube to have it.<BR/><BR/>Now to the business at hand. In fact there seems little we can do constructively. It at least appears we can be win/win in our dialogue, both willing to make ourselves vulnerable, but with neither losing anything because of our risk. (Because we both choose to treat the other the way we would wish to be treated - seems like I have read something saying that is a good idea somewhere!) So what I shall do here is put my finger on what I perceive as our differences, and why neither of us can persuade the other.<BR/><BR/>By the way, I am exceeding what I generally consider proper comment length as I feel that the fullness of your response to me merits a well thought out reply, and thus being brief as is my wont would not be doing you justice.<BR/><BR/>In something parallel to your experience with your grandfather, I learned of something about my great grandmother that affected me powerfully. I was not present, but family members who were present at her death bed reported that her dying words were, 'Isn't Jesus beautiful?' Knowing about this was staggering for the young child that I was, and served as impetus for a long period of seeking Jesus and God (I mean who would want to be on the wrong side and be cast into Hell). So maybe my motive was not the best, as I am sure fear was more motivation than love.<BR/><BR/>But even with this youthful impetus, and a true desire to align myself with God rather than against God, I could not hold onto my attempts at faith. I cannot believe because I want to believe, or am afraid not to believe (nor do I say your are doing this - I paid attention). I am constrained by the evidence that I have at my disposal, and an epiphany of the power of that you experienced was not given to me. I think that you and I and Slapdash as well as many others, are all doing the best we know how to do right now. Like Martin Luther: 'Here stehe ich, ich kan nicht anders'.<BR/><BR/>I choose not to go into the evidence that dissuades me, as I know from experience with my brother who also has had some epiphany that has been denied me, that no evidence of facts or reason can dent his belief (he is fundamentalist, I don't think you are). Also from your story I grasp that you are likely aware of any skeptical evidence that influences me, and that going over it would be futile and frustrating for both of us.<BR/><BR/>So what I think I see is, for you 'God has come into your life, speaks to you, and comforts you'. Who the heck am I to say that isn't so? Well, now I am going to say that isn't so for me, though it be so for you. This is not to argue or persuade, it is just laying out why we cannot really reach each other.<BR/><BR/>FOR MY PART: 1)If there is something I want very badly, and seek and seek it, my brain will try to deliver it up. If I am deluding myself, of course I don't know I'm deluded or I would not be deluded. 2) God apparently grants epiphanies to Mormons, Muslims, Jews, and Hindus also. The fact that all epiphanies do not agree is quite a problem for me. 3) Having sung 'Jesus wants me for a sunbeam' and 'I've got that joy, joy, down in my heart' before going to kindergarten, how can I know that this influence isn't helping me simply know something that was ingrained before I had any say so or critical judgment. This would be on a feeling level, from somewhere unobserved by the conscious mind. <BR/><BR/>I hope I have not given offense. I love my brother, and from our limited contact esteem you as a person very highly. But in a nutshell, 'God has come into my life' is poor evidence to me for the reasons cited above, and the evidences (I got gobs of 'em) contradictory to the God of the Bible that I have are poor evidence to you, being trumped by a sure inner knowing. At least this is my take on things. Correct me if I have misunderstood.<BR/><BR/>So we disagree. As amicably as possible I hope. I will be reading more here, but do not intend to be anyone arguing any points. You write interestingly, and I am touched. My very best wishes, and thanks for listening.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com