Can close proximity to Jehovah ruin the faith of exJW's?

by truthseeker 10 Replies latest jw friends

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  truthseeker

  This is a point I have been thinking about for a long time.

  In the organization, we are not encouraged to have a personal relationship with Jesus - not even a nominal one.

  Instead, we are told to draw close to our heavenly father, Jehovah. The Society even published a book entitled "Draw close to Jehovah", encouraging everyone to get to know their Creator.

  There is nothing wrong with getting to know God, but when you look at this aspect in context of the Jehovah's Witness faith, it is possible that after learning about the cult, our relationship with Jehovah is ruined. Why?

  We are told to pray to Jehovah on a daily basis. Our life is centered around what Jehovah wants. Have a problem? Take the matter in prayer to Jehovah. Wait on Jehovah is the advice often given.

  When our eyes are opened, our faith in Jehovah is shattered. We reason that if he was such a close friend and father to us, why would he ever let us be deceived by a cult? Why would he allow us to be blinded for so long?

  So, we lose faith in God. We reason that after developing a close relationship with him, how great can that relationship be when we learn that his organization is such a farce?

  And not being encouraged to have a close relationship with Jesus, we are effectively on our own.

  And that is the reason I think many exJW's lose faith, lose interest in God and feel alone and abandoned.
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  troubled mind

  I think your right . I know that is how I personally felt when I stated unraveling the lies I had been taught all my life . I didn't care about believing in anything anymore . I didn't really think I would ever have faith again. I started talking to a Pastor of a local church , and he gave me a book about Basic Christianity by J.Stott . The explaination in that book about Jesus role and Jehovah's has rekindeled a desire in me to try to again to have a relationship with Jesus . I am not 100% , but at least I have a desire now .
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  ICBehindtheCurtain

  I agree with you, that JW's put too much enfasis on Jehovah mostly and rarely Jesus. But, all I can tell you is to research just who the Bible's Jehovah really is, there was a post on this a couple of days ago, I'm not saying that there is no God or Creator because I really believe there is, just not the one mentioned in the Bible. There is a very deep rabbit hole when it comes to religion, but to get at the truth you have to be willing to take the pill, like in the movie "The Matrix" and see what a dreamworld we have all been living in. It's scary at first but once your eyes are opened free - like the very Bible says "you will learn the truth and the truth will set you free". The Jesus thing, I suggest you go to the website www.jesusneverexisted.com check it out there is alot of information on there, this will help you see what a load of BS has been dropped on all of us for all these years. Good luck on your journey. Mine has brough me to a place of peace and happiness as I have never felt before.

  IC
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  Narkissos

  Your delightfully ambiguous thread title caught my eye...

  On reading your post, I came to think that a vital ability for all ex-JWs (and perhaps all ex-anything, which means about anybody in the long run) to develop is self-contradiction, or being able to reinterpret one's experiences without negating or destroying oneself.

  The more we have committed ourselves into interpretation of past experiences ("how I understood it was the truth, how Jehovah answered my prayers, how he led me to make this or that choice" etc.) the more subjectively expensive is reinterpretation. It's quite tempting to substitute one ready interpretative system to another (Jesus to Jehovah, for instance), or negate the past experiences (I was just fooled by an organisation / Satan etc.) but if eventually we want to be the subject of ourlife we have to engage into the risk of subjective reinterpretation -- alone.
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  blondie

  John 14:6 (New International Version)

  Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

  There are plenty of scriptures that clearly state what a Christian's relationship is with Christ and God.

  John 10:9

  I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be savedI am the gate; whoever enters through me will be savedI am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved

  How many times are these scriptures discussed in the WT publications.

  The WTS has a program of leaving out the scriptures that do not support their views. They bury them.

  Blondie
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  truthseeker

  Narkissos, nice post! I agree with you there.

  When we've out our faith in an institution for so long, coupled with a close relationship with God, and then we find out otherwise, everything crumbles. It takes time to heal.
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  fullofdoubtnow

  Good post truthseeker.

  Once I'd found out the truth about the wts, I felt that I'd never had any kind of relationship with god at all. I completely lost interest in any kind of faith, and I felt so disappointed and alone.

  To be honest, I'm no longer interested in a relationship with any kind of higher power. I feel that if there is a god, why would he allow an organisation like the jws fool so many sincere people? If he really cared whether we worshipped him as he requires, he should have shown us the right way to do it, not left us with the confusing mess of so many differrent shades of belief we have today.
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  peacefulpete

  .

  I think what Narkissos is saying is that to avoid the danger of loss of identity we are better encouraged to recognize the mental processes whereby we arrived at the conclusions we did in the past. We are still ourselves despite our having learned our previous understanding of the world was arrived at through faulty interpretation. We might be better equipped to avoid repeating these type of faulty interpretations if we reflect upon how we arrived at them. We were not just victims of a deceptive organization, we were victims of our own mind's misinterpretation. When understood in this way the attraction to simply shift objects for our devotion is controlled. The "relationship" we had with a nonentity, demonstrates the depth to which our minds can carry us. Observing the same in members of other religions doesn't make me want to return to the mire.
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  Narkissos

  I guess there are many possible subjective strategies depending on one's personality. Some will turn right away to a self-protective "never be fooled again" attitude -- however I think the vast majority of our opinions are second-hand anyway, we can only check a very small portion of them firsthand in one lifetime. Others will still allow themselves an expression of subjective "faith" -- but they will gradually learn to consider their beliefs as provisional, and not to smuggle them as "objective facts" anymore, either to their own minds or to their neighbours'. Perhaps the key value is humour -- not taking one's beliefs, or scepticism, too seriously?
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  peacefulpete

  It probably only behooves us to "check into" those opinions of ours that are life altering. Whether I think Toyota is better than Honda can be left to sort itself out.