My continued involvement with my agnostic has lead me to spend a lot of time thinking about what I really believe. That can't be bad...right? I think about things like: will my Christian friends not be as close to me if I date him? (Which I am proud to say has not happened!) Or how will this decision affect the children in my life: nieces? kids of friends? kids at church? Or the biggie, if I'm willing to ignore the Lord telling me to not be unequally yoked, what else will I ignore. And WHY???
I'm not entirely sure I've been "doing" Christianity right. By that I mean I think I have spent all of this time saying that everything that happens is in God's hand, but truthfully have been striving daily with white knuckles to do what I think is right. (I DO know I can't earn salvation.) I can see now that that put a lot of pressure on me. Pressures like, do I mention Jesus enough to my niece and if not have I somehow missed a huge opportunity? Does my attitude at church affect the kids who see me? Have I done some permanent damage to their view of the church? How will I explain to my pre-teen friend Mikayla that she should not date a non-Christian boy, when I am? This really goes to the question of my credibility. While these concerns may be valid, the reality is they are not really in my control.
I don't really get how the Holy Spirit works. I tend to think of Him as the lesser of the Trinity. More like an angel or helping spirit than actually God. So I don't rely upon Him. I don't depend upon Him to take care of these concerns. I act like He is useless because I think I can take care of it all myself. All I need to do is work really hard or longer or persuade more people to help etc etc. Perhaps this view of the Holy Spirit is not related to how I "do" Christianity, but it might be.
Sorry, this post is all over the place.
Hard Truth from a Good God
4 years ago
Posts
Wowie! Some really good questions. I always think it's good to self-evaluate. It gives you those moments of clarity before the cloudy comes back in. I wish I could really hold on to the moments of clarity longer. :)
ReplyDeleteI would recommend talking to your pastor. You will always question things that is human. I am still learning how the holy spirit still works but I am letting God take more & more things from me or me giving those to him & praying daily about it and wonderful stuff is occuring. Have you thought that maybe this is a test? A temptation from Satan that God is seeing what you will do with it??
ReplyDeleteJolene
Well you know where I stand on the dating the agnostic. I love you and I want you to be with a man who can lead you spiritually. As for the rest I totally understand and when it comes to the holy spirit I think I do the exact same thing. Lately I have been trying to sort of study the three different persons of God and really pray about how I am to relate to Jesus, God the Father and the Holy Spirit. I'm not an exper yet but I know that they are all very important. I'll pray for you. Thanks for revealing your heart, it's encouraging.
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