by IslandWoman 16 Replies latest jw friends
For those that pray, do you pray only in quiet reverence and thankfulness or do you also pray as if God were right there in front of you and you have this bee in your bonnet (or whatever) about something and maybe just maybe you might also be a little upset with God?
Personally I pray to God about anything even about being upset with him. I love God and do not fear him so to lovingly be upset with him sometimes, is just me.
How would you characterize your "discussions" with God?
Thanks,
IW
quiet. But enjoyable. Mainly alot of appologising. Im the one screwing up the many opportunities he has given me :)
I think we are suppose to pray for God's will not what we want.Not an easy thing to do sometimes,i ask for alot of forgiveness.
Edited by - rubytuesday on 21 November 2002 14:12:53
I talk to him, and at him. I ask alot of questions, and for forgiveness alot. I don't know that he has direct intervention my life, but just in case, I keep in touch. If he does have a purpose, its hard to see, and I tell him that too.
I think we should respectfully be able to talk to God about anything.
For me the most important part of prayer is gratitude. and then forgiveness
I don't have a lot in a material way but I am grateful for everything I have, my health and well being etc. I thank God for it and I always see the cup as being half full and never half empty.
Getting back to the actual question, I pray to God as to a superior being therefore He possibly does not find my prayers to be of a particularly chatty nature.
link
Edited by - link on 21 November 2002 14:29:27
You can't have a discussion with God, he never answers. You can talk at him but not to him because you never know where he is. If the bible is his talk with us then he needs to explain just what he ment by it. I am disappointed that he let me be raised to believe all the BS that the GB demanded that I swallow. If he is there and cares what I think, I sure hope he let's me know.
Ken P.
On the rare occasions I pray, I find myself apologising for my confusion and current lack of faith. I'm newly out of the org, so I'm taking time to heal my soul before I tackle the big issues.
When I was a JW, I used to be angry at God.I would be prostrate on the floor, crying and begging for a response from him. I was trying so hard to serve him, yet was still being told by the human beans at the congregation that I did not measure up. I bought into all of that "God's chosen channel" stuff, so thought that I had offended God in some way, or that he was testing my faith or something. But ya know, I just don't think a God of love would put someone under so much stress from his supposed followers that the person gets sick like I did.
The saddest thing is that before I was JW, I believed in God and Jesus Christ beyond a shadow of a doubt. I was fortunate not to have been exposed to a lot of the more radical Christian thought, so I had the pure joyous faith that a child creates when left to invent their own perception of God. This led me to begin to search for God on my own at the tender age of 3, a search which, I thought, culminated when I found the JWs as a newly married teenage bride (talk about ripe for the picking off lol).I think I lament the loss of wonder and my childview of God that the experience brought me.
I'm not sure I can go back to that now, and it saddens me. Life is not so black and white anymore.But still, believing that there is someone out there gives me comfort, so until it is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, I think I'd rather assume there might be. Only on a kinder and more reasonable level than the WTS God.
Oddly enough, I had an interesting spiritual experience while running, which recurred in a dream within days of deciding to leave the WTS.Still having a mixture of the WTS mindset mixed with a whole lot of practical reasoning, I just really don't know what to make of it. My indoctrination tells me that it was Satan trying to corrupt me, my scientific mind tells me it was a hallucination produced by endorphins and lodged in my subconscious then recalled. My heart tells me it was an answer to my prayers.All I know is, what ever it is, it left me with a peace I haven't felt in years, and I've been able to draw on it during the difficult early days of leaving the org.
A thought or two on prayer...
I think that what trips so many people up in their prayer life is that they hold a somewhat rigid definition of just what constitutes a prayer or the act of praying
I remember a time in my life that I was fairly certain that there was no God, that while my lips were forming the familiar words of praise, my mind was reciting a very different refrain: "I dont even believe in you, why am I saying these things? Are you even there? Am I just talking to myself? Do you even exist? Why dont you ever answer if youre actually there?" Occasionally the internal dialogue would become even more intense and dissolve into anger: "I hate this. I hate you. I cant believe Im spending my time talking to the great imaginary friend of mankind To hell with this, to hell with YOU, You're a waste of my time."
I confided my doubts to a friend one afternoon. How was prayer something I could continue to participate in if, in my heart, I was anything but prayerful? He told me that, at times, his oldest son would get angry at him and resentful of decisions hed made during the course of parenting. Often, the boy would refuse to speak to him at all. Other times his son would lash out angrily at him verbally. He said that, though neither situation was particularly enjoyable, he much preferred the latter, because even though his child was furious with him, at least he was still talking to him. That story made me realize that even at my angriest, my most resentful dialogue was still a prayer. It was still communicating with God, still speaking to him. In my mind, I began to associate prayer with conversation with God. I decided that my prayer life would change. I would tell God what I was actually feeling, and when I didnt know what I wanted to say, I realized that sometimes the desire to pray is in itself a prayer. My thoughts and feelings during prayer werent distracting God from the needs and desires of others. This is GOD were talking about, not AT&T. You cant jam his lines.
I still doubt, I still get angry sometimes, I still wonder at times if He's listening. The difference is that I've decided its OK to think these things, but instead of holding them close and never speaking them aloud, I give them to God as part of the conversation. I used to believe he didnt ever answer my prayers. Now I believe he always did. He just didn't always say yes.
My sincere thanks to everyone for responding as you did. It meant a lot to me.
I think keeping the child inside of us alive is very important not only for our relationship with God but also for our own inner happiness and enjoyment of life.
Thank you,
IW
