Hope deferred

by life is to short 6 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  life is to short

  Proverbs 13:12 "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. I have heard this before from Dave Ramesy about finances and how if you can never see an end in sight to get out of debt, if you always are making nothing to live on and getting nowhere with no hope of it ever changing, you just give up. Thank God's it's Friday and Oh God it's Monday breaks your spirit.

  I was reading this book by Henry Cloud and he expounds on this and says "There are few sicknesses of the heart like hope deferred. Companies and individuals get sick and stall out when they keep hoping for something that just never happens."

  I know I felt so hopeless as a JW. We drove and drove and drove pioneering, we lived on nothing had nothing, just the hope that the world would end very, very soon. That was my only hope, my only way out, It was wishing that everyone who was not a JW would die, not only die,but die a horrible death, killed by God. It made me want to so badly tell everyone that they had to be a JW and I would get so frustrated with my fellow JW's because they did not seem to have the same urgency that I felt. Than I was told to keep my blinder on and not look at what anyone else was doing because it all came down to my relationship between Jehovah and myself. I honestly tried to do that but the bottom line was that the other JW's did affect me

  I remember the trapped feeling like it was yesterday. I have often wondered how the GB keep selling the end is so close with a very true scripture like Proverbs 13:12, how often can that carrot be dangled in front of it's members without them reaching it before everyone becomes hopeless and just cannot do it anymore.

  LITS
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  schnell

  My favorite was when they'd say we shouldn't pursue our dreams and businesses and ideas in this system, since we can do that in the NEXT system...

  Living for the future. That's all that is.
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  LongHairGal

  LIFE IS TOO SHORT:

  Hopefully, you feel differently now and doing better..I was a single woman who worked full-time and was the exact OPPOSITE of you!....People in the hall probably viewed me in the harsh way like YOU would (some critics were affluent married women with a cushy life)....But, I'm retired now and very glad I never listened to the JWs----If all the judgmental critics in the JW religion can't pay their bills now, hopefully some brother with a business can help them out.

  SCHNELL:

  The problem is that the things you mention are hardly a "hope", but merely ways to make a living in this world, to pay for food on the table, insurance and rent....

  The Jehovah's Witness religion is unbalanced and in total unreality about life in the real world and I have no use for them.
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  life is to short

  LHG ones like you did not bother me in the least, the ones who bothered me, upset me were the ones who pioneered but could not work, many lived on welfare or got what ever state help they could. They rode around with us in service, many of them we had to pick up and take back home. None of them could afford to give us a dime for gas but they all had really bad health and would tell me that Jehovah had given me good health so working was not hard for me.

  The most they could do was an hour or two in service before they had to take a break and somehow they had money to buy hamburgers and sodas, chips, candy bars, etc though like I said they could not afford to give us a dime for gas and I am not joking. One sister I finally confronted as when my husband would drop me off for work she would wine to him for her to take her out longer as she lived two house past us in the country. She would say she just needed to go home and veg out. One time I just got sick of it and told her she needed to give me something for gas, She dug in her purse and gave me five dimes which she counted out very slowly. I took them all. Another sister made the loud announcement as soon as she plopped into our car that she was giving me a dollar as she and her husband had only $5.00 dollars to last them to the end of the month and it was only the 15th. She must have forgotten because around noon she said she was starving and had not had time to pack a lunch so we had to stop and she spent over $5.00 on lunch. I sat in the car while she went in because I felt so stupid going into a place and not being able to afford anything. She took everything to go and sat and ate it in front of me. I was so mad I threw my sandwich out the window as it just made me sick to my stomach and I just could not eat. It just really hurt.

  Another pioneer couple who were very, very, very broke bought a brand new car and parked it one to 2 blocks away so as to not get door dings on it and only took their family in service in it but rode around all the time in ours. The husband told us that he did not feel he needed to give us gas money because all we did was just pass the proverbial dollar around.

  LHG honestly ones like you were not even on my radar, I never even gave those who were not pioneering a true thought because I was just trying to survive pioneering. We had 10 pioneers and they were all free loaders. There were many in the hall who did not pioneer but I was just not around them and when I was I just never gave the fact that they were not pioneering a thought.

  I was just trying to keep my head above the water with working 30 plus hours a week and putting in 90 for service. Looking back now I do not know why I did not judge those who worked full time, but I just did't I judged those who were pioneering and treated me like crap, and I did not really judge them I just was really hurt by them.

  Also my husband and I qualified for government help but I would never take a dime as I thought I put myself in this place and I was not going to let the government take care of me, nor did I ever go around acting poor. I have since learned that many thought I had money because I never complained.

  This religion just is so hurtful.

  LITS
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  LongHairGal

  LIFE IS TOO SHORT:

  Thanks. I appreciate it. I'm sure you did the best you could and were a very sincere Witness. You deserve a break in life and some good luck.

  The Witness religion is very hurtful and too many of the JWs are users. They wanted somebody else to pay for their "everlasting life". But, I certainly wasn't giving them anything since I was so "unspiritual" for working.

  I knew I wasn't going to marry anybody there and I had to plan for my future. It was the only sane thing to do. I knew I was viewed negatively and I had to dismiss it from my mind. Also, I was never reproved for immorality but still viewed suspiciously because of my decent figure. I dressed modestly, but it didn't matter.

  Fast forward to now...I'm retired and glad I'm OUT!....Not interested in JWs or their hard-luck stories. Good luck with their "spiritual" friends helping them out.
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  Half banana

  As a JW I remember the irony of the Watchtower using the scripture you quote contrasting hope deferred with fulfillment of hope.

  I also remember staying in California about thirty years ago and hearing that the bros around there at the time were getting impatient because of not seeing "the end" as promised by the WTBTS.

  Deferring hope is all the JW org can ever do, it's a big con trick. Each generation of Watchtower believers, and there have been five of them now, forgets that the earlier generations also lived with their hopes permanently deferred.

  People eventually tire of hearing false hopes and I think the org is now ignored because of being a false prophet as the decline in numbers is beginning to show.

  Yes LTS life is too short to waste on useless religion.
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  Amelia Ashton

  This scripture was the Day's Text as I was starting to wake up and I remember thinking how sick I was of waiting for armageddon. 2 years later I was out. :)