Hi, I am new here and both understand and respect, at the end of the day, we are each on our own personal journey with our own personal spirituality. I am most sincere and look forward to your kind thoughts about if we should try to understanding God.
As a young child I remember believing in and loving God but, of course, did not think about understanding him. However, after becoming associated with JW’s, over a long time, I became more and more confused about exactly who He is. I continued to think of Him as a loving Creator and, although I felt accountable to him, believed Him to be good, kind, loving, merciful, and forgiving. However, while twice reading the entire Bible front to back, keeping up with weekly Bible reading, study, and research it took effort to balance in my mind my loving Creator with the God I was taught to fear as described in the Hebrew/Old Testament. I strove for and felt I had a good relationship with God even though I couldn’t fully understand Him. I am grateful I learned about Christ being our Savior and really appreciated how he was described as good, kind, loving, merciful, and forgiving. When the book The Greatest Man that Ever Lived was published I found myself having a deeper level of understanding and appreciation for Christ and told myself since he was the image of God this could also be used as a way to describe God. So I connected the dots of who God is by examining Christ. I felt I had a good relationship with them both. Although, occasionally, I was a little worried I would offend God because of the closeness I felt with Christ, even though this connection is what helped me to feel closer to Him. In my mind it was like the God of the Hebrew/Old Testament was one side of Him but then He decided to let us see the peaceful side of Himself by revealing His son in the Greek/New Testament, and I chose to focus on this peaceful side of God.
In addition, I tried to balance my observation and confusion about what appeared to be unjust/unloving treatment of some, I always recited to myself what I had heard: “you don’t have all the facts” or “have faith Christ is the head of the congregation.” However, a few years ago, after I was personally assaulted with exceptionally cruel and harsh treatment, having no doubt I did know the whole story and did have all the facts, I became totally baffled. Not about these men, for I am not their judge and am fully aware we will each hold our own accounting to God and not men and those who do not practice mercy will be judged without mercy - James 2:13. Yes, I sinned and repented and have since stayed on the Bible’s “straight and narrow” and have been granted peace of heart and mind knowing I am in good standing with God and Christ and, not that it matters, was even clearly told, “we believe you are repentant and know you have been forgiven…we just don’t want to...” So initially they referred to me being “stoned” and then over time they “softened” and, even though they claim to be God’s reps, clearly said even though they know God forgave me, they “just don’t want to, so they can make an example out of me.” This situation, along with world news/events, has pretty much wigged me out regarding organized religion and, as stated, the Hebrew/Old Testament seems brutal.
Today,somehow, I still feel a very strong spiritual connection, have faith God exists, love Christ, and have peace in knowing I am in good standing with them. I am aware that it is impossible to fully understand God and am therefore left thinking maybe I should stop trying to and just be content with the knowledge, joy, and peace I have been granted. What’s your thoughts?
Peace
