Forever Jaded…

I went to an Easter program put on by a local church…and I have to admit it was very well done.  Very creative, very unique, and everything tied well together.

Afterwards, I was talking to a friend about the show…and somehow we got on to some of my unbelief in prayer, demons, etc.

I do have to admit I have prayed the following…a lot over the last couple of months:

“God, give me faith I know I’m weak here.”

and more recently,

“God, help my unbelief.”

Ironically, after my last post about not believing in prayer…I went to an event at my church that is all about prayer.

They are sending postcards inviting people to submit prayer requests anonymously through a web site…and letting people know that the church is praying for them.

The pastor asked for some people to come help address and stamp them…and then they’d all pray over them.  I went to help with that as I still think it’s a good idea.   While for myself, I don’t really believe in prayer or that there is power behind it…I  will not begrudge someone who reaches out asking for prayer.  I will admit that the studies of brain activity during deep prayer  or meditation have shown interesting results/activity though.

Yes, I’ve been rather silent on here.  Mostly because I haven’t felt like putting to “paper” things within my head yet. I’ve just wanted to keep it in my head.  That and honestly, March was really a blur due to the demands of my job.  The only weekend in March that I didn’t work was the weekend I moved.

Moving.  Wow, I have to say that I learned quite a bit from my friends that helped me move that weekend.  Quite a bit about “community” and what it should be.  I felt bad I was not as prepared as I wanted to be, but they took it all in stride.   What amazed me most, was how genuinely grateful they were for me for picking up the bill at a pizza shop…it’s the least I could do!  I still feel like it wasn’t enough!

Spiritually…ugh.  Well…yeah, I’m going through the motions, but there’s still not really anything there. I actually had dinner with a friend who said that he’d seen growth…and I was shocked.  Truth be told, there just isn’t any.  There’s just a whole lot of…silence.  Don’t get me wrong, I definitely believe in Jesus, and His being Lord/Savior/sent to die on the cross for our sins, etc…but…there’s a lot of stuff that I just don’t buy into with respect to Christianity anymore.  And no matter how much I try to reset my brain to convince myself that I do, I can’t.

I don’t believe in Satan, I have a hard time believing Jesus’ miracles.  I don’t buy into spiritual warfare.  And I’m still a bit of a relativist…even after listening to a series by Craig Groeschel regarding relativism and subjectivism.  The series was very well done, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.  But, I still find it a bit egotistical to think that my “religion” is the absolute Truth.  I do obviously believe that absolute truths do exist…I just have to look at science for that.  But when it comes to the less scientific, I find myself still a relativist (but still believing in Christianity for myself) with respect to “what’s true for me, may not be true for anyone else”.

There’s also still an agnostic side to me.  God is still an intangible to me, in some ways like the wind.  I can not see it, or touch it, or grasp on, but I can see the effects.

Prayer.  This has been something in my mind for a while.  I still hate asking for prayer, especially since I’m not convinced it does anything really.  I usually am at a very desperate point if I’m asking for prayer on my own.   I do think there is a psychological benefit to prayer, but I am not convinced it does anything beyond that.  I’m not convinced I’m not doing anything more than talking to the air or my dog when I try to pray.

I would never look down upon anyone for asking for prayer, as I do think there is a benefit to it…but not the same way that others think.  I’ve mostly just accepted the awkward moments when people go around the room asking for a prayer request from each person.  If they pull one up for me that they feel the need to pray for…that’s fine.

I’ve been trying to read various things, and listen to various things to try to get back to that Christian that I once was…but I still lack the faith to do so.  I’ve tried to do things in “obedience” but I can already see the legalistic side (that whole, just do what you’re supposed to do, and the feelings will follow train!) that turns me off instantly and makes any of this a “chore”.

I also keep hearing the idea of “repentance” being a complete change, a regeneration, yadda yadda. Well, that didn’t happen with me this time…so, I now wonder about that sincerity.

On top of the rest of my really crappy week…S texted me today because he just had to tell me about something that had happened in his life.

Being that I still care about him and couldn’t tell it if it leaned toward good or bad…I responded.  And it was something really awesome for his life and something for which he’s worked long and hard.  Of course, the texts went back and forth a few more times…including how tempted he’s been to just show up at my door with flowers.

And I basically again had to point out that we can’t be in contact at all with the current situation.

I’m ecstatic about what he had to share with me…and he deserves it.

But I don’t need this right now.

The demands upon me with respect to my job for the next couple of months are pretty extreme.  This means I’m at a point of being stressed out that I’m trying to offload anything and everything I can in my life.

I’m pushing back on my boss massively, but there’s an audit and all of the work I’m doing is necessary for the audit…so, I don’t have much room try to renegotiate anything…and he has even less resources than he did previously.  We’ve managed to rearrange a couple of things too…but it really just evens out the high level of stress through April.  At least it’ll be a constant.

So, something’s gotta give.  And that usually means everything else in my life…

My FD stuff is already suffering, administratively as well as operationally.  I haven’t ridden since before Christmas…and I am probably at least a month behind on the training stuff I need to be doing.   I’ve lost count of the emails I need to write for this as well.

My apartment is a mess…and I’m moving in 2 weeks.  And I feel so bad for the hours I work and being away from my pup soooo much.  Thankfully, she really is great and handles it very well.  Occasionally the question pops up about if I should give her up to someone who has more time, but then I realize how happy she is with me and that she is definitely my girl.

I have to work this Saturday night from 10pm until 6am…and then I’m supposed to  go run sound at church.  That will put me on a 4 week rotation at church for doing that…which will coincide with another Saturday night that I’ll be working yet again.

holy crap.  I’m moving in 2 weeks.

I really despise where my life ended up in many ways.

I HATE being in IT.  My father tried to push me into the computer field when I was in high school…I took a year and a half of computer programming and HATED IT.  There was never any question in my mind that *I* did not want to go that direction.  It sucks.  I’m sitting here at the office at 9:30 at night after just having gone and smoked because if I didn’t step away from the monitors one was going to go through a window.  I’ve tried REALLY hard for 12 years to like it.  And what the FUCK do I have to show for it? Nothing.  Absofuckinglutely nothing.

Every time I see the blue lights flashing…I wonder how my life ended up so incredibly fucked up and wondering if I should take a chance again.

But I did that once…and while I don’t regret it….I really don’t have it within me to do again.

So that leaves me relegated to working in the field I’m in now.  I find irony in that I’m DAMNED good at what I do (considering how much I hate it)…and every time I’m given unrealistic expectations…I find ways short of killing myself to meet them.

Why?  So I can hopefully get a position within IT that I can TOLERATE finally.  I’m so fucking close to one, it’s not even funny…

Work has always been first in my life…and always will be…as an ESTJ, that’s just how I’m wired.    I don’t know how NOT to put it first in fact.  I’m deadline driven in this field…and I am HELLBENT on meeting those deadlines.  I don’t miss deadlines.  Period. End of story.  No matter the cost.  Right now, part of that cost is me smoking…as well as me contemplating what to do about my FD involvement as I feel so guilty for how far behind I am with certain things.  I haven’t even been on a unit since just before Christmas.  (probably one of the reasons I’m in bitch mode lately)

What brought this on? The fact that I just came back in from having a cigarette in the ass cold…and seeing a couple of cop cars with their blue lights on.

It doesn’t matter that I have certain luxuries in my job…things like working from home, going in whenever the fuck I feel like, wearing jeans to work, etc…when you just absolutely hate what you do.  Those things occasionally make things almost tolerable.

I still find the skeptic inside of me…alive and kicking.  As is my ego and pride.

I’ve begun reading Vintage Jesus with the hopes of being able to renew within my own mind who Jesus really was/is.  As I read, I find certain things that the skeptic within me screams about.  And I’m only about 35 pages in to the book, so this could be very interesting.

My church has started a couple of new outreaches…I think one is a great idea, but the other I’m very conflicted about.

First, they are sending out postcards to our “neighbors” letting them know the church is praying for them, and to give them a place where they can submit anonymously any prayer requests online.  I think this is a fantastic idea…and is not intrusive.  This is letting them know the church is out there…and providing a way to connect.

The next one is that some of them are going door to door ala Mormon style just knocking on people’s doors and chatting with them…this is the one I’m extremely conflicted about.  On the one hand, I absolutely applaud the faith required to do this… I sure as hell don’t have it.  On the other, I think about how I’d receive it if someone were knocking on my door..and the answer is that I wouldn’t handle it very well (that’s just the nice way of putting it).

I am extremely rude INTENTIONALLY to the JWs or Mormon’s that come knocking…as I want them to pass word around their people to never come back to that door.  And it works.  I have it happen _once_ and I never see them again.  And it’s not just a religious thing…as I’m very abrupt and rude to any other random solicitation.

It’s my home.  IF I am actually home, I’m likely  trying to veg if I’m not working.  Either way, it’s always an unwelcome intrusion into my day.

I’m hesitant to even actually post this, as I know a couple of people from the church read this…and I don’t want to discourage them with my own conflicts regarding this.

At the same time…I’m reading a book called “Vintage Jesus” and it’s mostly about how Jesus was a lot more “in your face” and “intrusive” than most people make Him out to be.

I forced myself to come up with a prayer request during small group…with the idea that maybe it’d be a step towards putting down my pride.

And now, I entirely regret that I asked for it….and I’m trying to figure out why.  I asked for prayer for my knee as it’s been acting up and I’m going through the fun process of trying to be “approved” to see the orthopaedic surgeon again.  A week later…when it came time to ask for prayer requests…someone asked how the knee was…and I just shrugged and essentially said it’s fine.  They asked if it was healed and I said no…and well, I think I was almost asked if I believed if God could heal it or not.  There are other reasons that I’m not happy about the idea of having it repeatedly brought up week after week…but I don’t feel like going into that.

And…I’m not sure I do.  And if He could, I’m not sure He would…(and why would He?)

So, it’s made me question what I think/believe about “miracles” and…well, it’s clear that my scientific mind has a very hard time with this concept.

I can accept most if not all of the “miracles” of Moses…and do consider them miracles even though they can be explained by science.  For example, the whole parting the Red Sea has been scientifically explained.  I still consider it a miracle though due to the timing aspect.  I don’t believe it to be a mere coincidence or lucky break that the wind came just at the appropriate time.

The “miracle” of Joshua and Jericho…has also been scientifically explained.  But again, I consider this a miracle as how would Joshua have gotten the idea to march around the walled city in step/formation as a way to bring down the walls on his own.

But that brings me to the miracles of Jesus…where not all (okay, not sure if any really) have been explained scientifically.   So, I have a really hard time with those.

I think many things are miraculous though…I think that the world of medicine and how far we’ve come in really just a short time…is a miracle.  I think the body itself is a miracle…just how it all works together is amazing to me.

So, I guess I’m more likely to pray that God would guide a doctor’s hand or give a doctor wisdom to diagnose and treat, then for God to pray for healing.  So the idea that “God would heal my knee” when I haven’t seen a doctor or anything is just…silly to me.

This past week at small group, we got into Romans 8…which deals a lot with that whole predestination vs free will theory/theology.

And..while the pastor got into a long discussion regarding this…I sat there rather apathetic towards it.

The truth is…I really just don’t care which is “true.”

To me, it isn’t something that’s going to change what I believe.  Also, it isn’t going to change how I act, what I say to a person, etc.  It is not something that has ever changed my attempts at sharing my faith, or “witnessing” to people.

I fail to see how it’s really important in the end.  One way, the onus is on us to believe….the other, the onus is on God to have selected us.  So, it’s probably better to go with the idea that the onus is on us instead of risking if we are one of the elected or not.  Though, I do have to think, if predestination is true, then wow, that could be quite the kick in the teeth.

It’s funny, 6 months ago…if this discussion was happening around me…I’m fairly certain I’d throw something back about not being ‘predestined’ by God.

Also, if predestination is true, then I fail to see how we have assurance of salvation.

Personally, I think this is really one of those concepts regarding a timeless, ever-present, all-knowing God that we may never understand.

But hey, maybe I am not predestined and that’s why I continually struggle with the entire concept of faith.

Mostly, I just don’t really care which is the “correct” theory.