the Faith
disappointed
1 a : the act or state of wholeheartedly and steadfastly believing in the existence, power, and benevolence of a supreme being, of having confidence in his providential care, and of being loyal to his will as revealed or believed in : belief and trust in and loyalty to God b (1) : an act or attitude of intellectual assent to the traditional doctrines of one's religion : orthodox religious belief (2) : a decision of an individual entrusting his life to God's transforming care in response to an experience of God's mercy c among Roman Catholic theologians : a supernatural virtue by which one believes on the authority of God himself all that God has revealed or proposes through the Church for belief
2 a (1) : firm or unquestioning belief in something for which there is no proof b : CONFIDENCE; especially : firm or unquestioning trust or confidence in the value, power, or efficacy of something 3 a : an assurance, promise, or pledge of fidelity, loyalty, or performance 5 : something that is believed or adhered to especially with strong conviction: as a (1) : (not)a system of religious beliefs : RELIGION b : the cherished values, ideals, or beliefs of an individual
A lot of Christians I know talk. They talk to me. They STAND UP FOR WHAT THEY BELIEVE IN. Ha. That means that they tell you about the superiority of God, the healing and saving power of Jesus, what sin is and how you're committing it, and how they can help you, how their version of God can help you.
Don't get me wrong: I am a
Christian. I do believe in God, in Jesus Christ, that he came, lived (which most people tend to overlook for the next parts), died, and rose. He lived a perfect life to show us how we can possibly live if we even try a little bit, because trying means to trust in him and ask for his help, and if he can do it, we can too with his help. I believe most of all in the power of the Holy Spirit. It's that gut feeling. It's that intuition. It's what gives you words and makes you say them, the right words, so right you couldn't have thought of them, and you don't even realize you're the one saying them until after they've come out of your mouth. It is our true, pure guide here on earth.
But don't preach to me about what every Christian preaches about. Tell me that God is there for me. Tell me he doesn't want me to have stress and will take it and take care of the stressor. Tell me that he loves me. Tell me that Jesus is gentle and kind. Tell me that the touch and love of God are beautiful. Tell me about the joys that God created for us, the joys of having a relationship with him. And by relationship, I mean talking and listening, I mean trusting and compromising. I mean everything that would constitute a relationship here on earth. Don't tell me that He doesn't approve of what I'm doing with my life. Don't tell me who is and isn't going to Hell, or ask who I think is going or is there already. Don't judge me. Don't ask me what God thinks I should be doing is. I'm always attempting to, well, as Paul puts it in First Corinthians 10:31, "whatever you (eat, drink, and whatever you) do, do it all for the glory of God." And don't just quote the Bible, like that, and tell me it's making a distinct point that is really just supporting whatever you want to say. The Bible is a document as a whole. Sure, it has good quotes in it. But not many Christians that I know take the Bible as a contextual book. They don't take it for its stories, for its ideas, for its philosophies as a whole. They forget it is whole and complete, and what that means is that we have to take it as something to learn from as a broad perspective.
Oh and what is up with telling me my actions are "unChristian"? You have no idea about my life, my relationship with God. I could very well be doing the holiest thing possible in the situation that I'm in, but it's not like you would know. You don't care to really get to know me well enought to make that judgement, even if it was yours to make in the first place. You're not well-informed enough to judge me within a lick of truth, a lick of justice. There's always more than one side to a story, and actually, there are billions. We all affect each other in a web, and every event affects every other one so we're all so webbed together that only God and the person in question (agent) knows anything close to the entire story. The agent knows less than God, but other than that, they are the only one that knows everything or even CLOSE to anything about his/her actions and his/her compliance with God. Sure, we can help each other, but DON'T FUCKING JUDGE ME! You're the one(s) that trust(s) every word (of the Bible), right? "Thou shalt not judge" or however it says it in the KJV is a big deal to me. No one should ever judge, Christian or not, but if you subscribe to a Christian doctrine, theology, philosophy, church, religious organization, you should be even less liable to judge.
No, not all Christians are like this. But I'm seeing more and more a sin of formalism, and a sin of forgetting what the words "in Christ's name" means. "In Christ's name we pray, Amen." What does that mean to you anymore? Nothing, it's just a way to literarily construct your prayer so that people understand it with the linguistic parts of their brains. It makes it sound good. It makes it "this type" of prayer. What happened to letting yourself go? I don't even like to pray before meals out loud anymore. It's gotten to the point where it's sinful. It's talking to God just because you feel you have to, at this point. Again, this isn't for everyone. In fact, when Tony and I used to pray before meals, I always felt in communion with God, and that the prayer was a genuine desire to be close to God and to feed ourselves spiritually before we do physically.
I will none with false religion anymore. Nothing that's not pure is going to be considered something I do for my God... I do everything for my God, and I attempt it to be the best. I will pray because I want to be close to God. If I don't want to be close to God at the moment, I will pray that I do want to. Simple, broken-down relationship with God. That's all. No societal or cultural religious practices just simply because they are what we do. Just what God prompts me to do, what the holy spirit tells me to do, what would glorify God.
6 often capitalized : the true religion from the point of view of the speaker -- usually used with "the"
the Faith