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Need Encouragement?
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What keeps getting in my way?
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Hi everyone.
So I've always believed in God, but as a teen never really did anything to at on my belief. I realized this when I went to college and started to spend time finding out what my beliefs actually are and how to be a Christian.Since then I've tried a number of times to build a relationship with God (I admit I don't really have one). I start successfully, then something switches in my heart and I give up.I've come to accept that in the past I've let this happen by letting other thing get in the way, but the last couple of time times I've tried I've really felt like I'm getting somewhere but then I feel very sharp change and a strong rejection of God.Yet now I'm feeling his pull again, calling me to get to know him but I'm worried about hitting that wall again and being chased even further away.
Has anyone felt this? Any advice on how to find what the wall that I'm is?
Thanks in advance.
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Claire 08/22/2011 21:13 |
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Helga
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08/22/2011 23:39 |
Claire I understand how you feel. The Word of God, The word in the bible, is so easily written and for all of us to understand. We all at different levels in our walks and remember the Devil roams around each one of us to devour us. The devil hates Christians and will do anything to make you doubt. Us who believe for some time go through trials and tribulations and in that time have to cling on everything we have. None of us is perfect and Jesus knocks at each one of our door and is happy to lead us and guide us every day.
Speak to Jesus in your thoughts and loud and ask Him to reveal to you everything about you. Give Him your doubts and hurts and ask Him to heal you from the inside out.
The more you know the Word of the Bible the more it becomes a Weapon, which is the true Weapon of every day living.
I pray for you............and love you in Christ
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Jake Van Horn
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08/23/2011 01:12 |
Hi Claire,
Totally agree with Helga. When you feel that strong rejection go straight to the bible. Find all the stories in the new testament where Christ is speaking with "sinners". There's no rejection there but rather deep unconditional love and the invitation to follow Him. If we have any question as to the heart of God for us, all we need to do is Look to Christ. He died for you Claire..... God isn't going to go to that kind of trouble to save you just to reject you when you seek Him. Praying with you Claire.
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Peter
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08/26/2011 09:59 |
Hi Claire,
Reading your post, I was reminded of something that was said in the class that was recently released through the podcast. I think it may have been in the first episode: "have you ever considered that it isn't you?" The feelings of rejection are an attack of an enemy. God wants you to turn to him (repentance) and come to him (sanctification). He loves you, and you were made to love Him. Your feelings of rejection must come from somewhere else... If you haven't listned to the class episodes, they may be helpful to you. If you have listened to the first episode of that class, I encourage you to listen to it again!
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Ray
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08/26/2011 13:44 |
Yeah, it is this statement that gives clue, "I feel very sharp change and a strong rejection of God." You know that isn't His nature. Like Peter referes to here in the "The Fight for Life," If it's just you and God in the mix, then somebody has to take the blame for this "feeling." The enemy loves if we think of things that way.
John 10:10
So, what do you do with this. I want to add to what Jake and Helga said the word "wait." Linger on the words, don't be in a hurry to get someplace. I was reading this book on prayer the other day and realized how I don't wait, don't wait for peace to lead the way. I suspect many of us do not. The text is from the 1500s so it may be a little foreign:
Much reading is more for scholastic than for spiritual science; but in order to derive profit from spiritual books, we should read them in this way; and I am sure that this manner of reading accustoms us gradually to prayer, and gives us a deeper desire for it. The other way is Meditation, in which we should engage at a chosen time, and not in the hour given to reading. I think the way to enter into it is this:—After having brought ourselves into the presence of God by a definite act of faith, we should read something substantial, not so much to reason upon it, as to fix the attention, observing that the principal exercise should be the presence of God, and that the subject should rather fix the attention than exercise reason.
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Let us apply this method to the Lords Prayer. We say “Our Father,” thinking that God is within us, and will indeed be our Father. After having pronounced this word Father, we remain a few moments in silence, waiting for this heavenly Father to make known His will to us. Then we ask this King of Glory to reign within us, abandoning ourselves to Him, that He may do it, and yielding to Him the right that He has over us. If we feel here an inclination to peace and silence, we should not continue, but remain thus so long as the condition may last; after which we proceed to the second petition, “Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.”
Guyon, Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte, 1685, A Short Method Of Prayer (Kindle Locations 183-188). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.
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Kelley
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09/04/2011 17:00 |
Jeanne Guyon also wrote "Into the Depths of Jesus Christ" which is one of my all time favorite books and deals with the subject Ray is discussing. Being with God can be such a beautiful thing, our hearts will call us back. Love in this way is a tender yet infintitely strong tether to the Beloved.
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