This was my 'Sign'

by MsGrowingGirl20 67 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  MsGrowingGirl20

  In my previous post i mentioned that i'm staying in the org because i think i got a sign from God...Some of you asked a lot of questions about my sign and even shared the society's view on asking for signs which i didn't know.

  I didn't disclose exactly what the sign was.

  Some of you asked me what it was and even stated that i know that you all would pick apart and prove that my sign was just a frivolous excuse to hold on to the org.

  Maybe you were right.

  So i've decided to tell you all exactly what it was---no embellishments or exaggerations. I would love to hear your opinions since i'm still in a terrible mess.Sometimes i'm 100% this is not the truth then other times i'm 60%....i feel if God was giving me a sign i'd be 100% this is the truth you know?

  So i woke up that morning and organized to go meeting. The saturday night before i was having a casual conversarion with a MS in my cong and one thing he said stuck in my head,"So if you can't get all the answers to your questions, you will NEVER preach again?" We were talking and i was telling him why i had really slowed down on my field service.

  That question continued to play over and over in my head.Was that what God deserved? But was i really preaching what God wanted me to preach? What if i make the wrong decision and leave and my 12 year old cousin misses out on learning about God because of me? (i'm basically the only in my house who practices a religion and he lives with me) What if i bring him up in this religion and its false and he hates me for it when he grows up? What am i doing? Am i really serving God?

  So when i woke up that morning to go meeting,i was in a mess.I woke up my cousin and we got ready to leave.Now my cousin ALWAYS dresses before i do but this morning he's taking extra long.i'm in the bathroom praying and asking God to give me a sign.ANYTHING! I really am not sure exactly what i specified or if i just wanted anything but earlier in the week one of my friends told me about the fleece test.I prayed for something. Preferrably that morning... The talk was supposed to be on 'God's Happy people' or something like that.We arrived 15 minutes late and as i walked into the Hall the first word i heard was 'doubts'. The brother who was supposed to give the talk on 'Happy People' couldn't make it and we had a substitute speaker doing a substitute talk on a diff subject---'doubts'.Just what i ws going through.He told us about settling doubts before we move on and doing research and that he had doubts before.

  I thought that that was a signn from God that this is where i need to be.About two weeks has passed and now i'm nnot so sure.
• 

  LostGeneration

  You read the wrong sign.

  It came a few days later when the Watchtower was ordered to pay $28 million to Candace Conti for their coverup of child sexual molestation.
• 

  Megachusen
• 

  Chariklo

  Dear MsGrowingGirl, your mind is going round and round in circles, isn't it? You're worrying and worrying.

  When we are in that state, things get out of proportion. We don't see clearly. We can't think straight for worrying.

  It gets very easy to see deep meanings in something that has absolutely nothing to do with what we're thinking about.

  This wasn't God talking to you. This was you being in a bit of a state, and grasping at straws. You are under very heavy pressure. Even if no one person is pressuring you, you are taking onto yourself all the pressure of Watchtower expectations.

  You want to do what God wants you to do. Truly, truly, God as he really is, NOT the severe judgemental jealous Jehovah of the Watchtower, wants you to lead a happy life and be kind to other people. He does not want you to go door to door in his name touting magazines for a publishing company.

  Please do just walk away. The Watchtower is not what you thought it was.
• 

  baltar447

  Sweetie, the thing is there isn't a satisfying answer to those doubts. The WT's answer? ignore them and WAIT. Which is a non answer.
• 

  sd-7

  Well, personally, I don't want to minimize how you felt or how you feel. If you took that as your sign to stay inside the organization, then that is your choice and your feeling. I think it would be hard to do anything that goes against one's own gut feeling.

  A long time ago, long before I left Jehovah's Witnesses, I took time to study another religion, and I had enough doubts about the Witnesses at that time that I thought about leaving then. In time, as I studied Watchtower literature further, I reinforced my resolve to stay a Witness at that time--and the preaching issue was at the core of that choice. There was a line of reasoning in the 'Live Forever' book that said, if someone knocks on your door, uses the name Jehovah and speaks to you about the Kingdom, who do you usually conclude they are? I thought that was pretty convincing at the time. It seems you have beaten back your doubts with a similar line of thought.

  The first thing I would say is, the preaching work is itself not at issue in terms of deciding to leave or to stay. Why would I say that? Because the problem is NOT the preaching work in itself. That was NEVER the problem. The problem is, this preaching work is so thoroughly regulated by organizational procedure that it loses its meaning. It's turned into a compulsory work measured in hours and placements rather than in people and acts of kindness towards one's neighbor that go beyond merely leaving literature with them. To be sure, people can be helped and good can come of it, but the ultimate objective is always recruitment, not unconditional love. On top of that, you are required to preach a message that includes things that simply are not true and cannot be proven by scripture. As I said once before, if you preach a message that is not true, you bear a responsibility for the lives of those who believe it.

  So to counter what that ministerial servant said to you, if you cannot preach something that is true, then and only then should you never preach again.

  The question is, do you have the option of remaining in the organization without preaching and agreeing--both privately in your own thoughts and publicly--that every word written in [current] Watchtower literature is the absolute truth from God? If you remain in the organization for the sake of how they have organized a preaching work, then the answer will be no for you.

  But you can preach something that is true, if you still believe in the Bible's message. The original good news was and is always about one person--the Lord Jesus Christ--and what he did for mankind. If you can open your Bible and show that message to your neighbors, then there is no reason at all for you to stop preaching. The organization isn't the absolute end-all, be-all for preaching.

  Witnesses will always find something to guilt you over if you think about leaving or 'slowing down', and the preaching work is often a suitable stick in that regard. It's a form of manipulation, in the end, and designed to keep you busy enough that you don't actually think too hard about what is being taught. Emotional and behavioral control.

  I hope you find your way ahead in time. Tread carefully with all this, and for the love of Anthony Morris the Third, don't date anyone.

  --sd-7
• 

  Londo111

  Sister, one word is a lot of hang your future on, as well that of your cousin. What if he needed blood? What would you do?

  Of course, disassociating might not be the course for you…perhaps you are to help other people within the organization open their eyes. I agree--you need to do some research, don't give up in researching.

  I don't know if you've looked at 607BC…but that should be your test. If Jerusalem did not fall in 607, then 1914 can't be right. If 1914 is not right, then a 1918 judgment on Christians can't be right, and thus 1919 was just another year, not when a "Slave" was appointed. This whole religion stands or falls on 607 and you owe it to yourself to carefully research this, as I and others here have.

  Another good thing to do…start reading the Kingdom Interlinear, comparing the transliteration to the NWT. And ask yourself why there are some

  major discrepancies? For instance, why did the translator leave out the word 'me' in John 14:14?

  Compare Acts 2:46 and Acts 20:20. Why is the phrase 'according to houses' translated differently? Did the early Christians really go door-to-door or house-to-house like Witnesses do today?

  Also…WHERE are the Great Crowd rendering sacred service day and night? Inside the temple or in the courtyard? Compare Revelation 7:15 and 11:2.

  What is the Jerusalem Above? An organization or something else? Galatians 4:24.

  Do you really believe the Organization is Mother as is being said at the conventions?

  If you have not already, I feel you should read the following:

  In Search of Christian Freedom by Ray Franz

  Combating Cult Mind Control by Steve Hassan

  Please do not be offended by me saying this, but I feel that your struggles are related to BITE thought reform. Read Steven Hassan's book and ask yourself if the Society exhibits the same traits as other high control groups.
• 

  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  MsGG,

  If there was a divine message in that talk, it was that you have good reason to harbor doubts about that organization. The speaker doesn't seem to have really answered and settled your doubts. It sounds like he expects you to ignore your doubts, like he did.

  The fact that your cousin took extra long to get ready was also a sign that the KH is no place for him.
• 

  cofty

  Its called "confirmation bias".

  Every time I change my car I suddenly see that particular make and model everywhere I look. My daughter just bought her first car, a Renault Clio and for the next couple of weeks I noticed them EVERYWHERE.

  We are pattern-seeking animals the descendants of thousands of generations of pattern-seeking individuals. Its what kept them alive. That shadow in the trees and the noise might be a tiger or it could be the wind and a chance pattern of leaves. Those that decided it was probably nothing and went back to sleep tended not to leave offspring.

  We see patterns all the time and read purpose into every happenstance.

  Put all of that aside and focus on facts and evidence.

  Pursue your doubts fearlessly.

  "Sit down before a fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing" - Thomas Henry Huxley
• 

  Vanderhoven7

  DearMsGrowingGirl,

  You don't need an organization to get right with God. You don't need religion, you don't need extra-biblical rules and traditions, you don't need hyper criticism, you don't need shunning, you don't need flip-flops, you don't need false prophesies.

  You need Jesus, His love, His forgiveness, His presence, His life and power to live holy. Come unto ME all you who are troubled and don't know where to turn...and I will give you rest.

  After religion, try Jesus. He loves you as you are.