I'm so sorry to hear about your lonely course. Thank you for sharing on this personal level. Reading your words elicits a lot of thoughts and feelings. And there is no reason this side of the cosmos why such discussions shouldn't be respectful. If we want to draw closer to our creator, we have to learn to practice his attitudes and his behaviors.
There are differences in perspective here, but after all, this is why God created us as individuals. Each person is unique, and therefor, our perspectives always bring something unique, if we honor him.
I'd like to share a few thoughts in response. Not to convince you of anything or to make some assertion that my way of thinking is 'right', but purely in the spirit of open sharing, no strong attached.
I was reflecting on our exchange the other day. I found myself asking mentally a question of (you, myself, others - aka a generic 'you' question): "What do you identify with the most in your life? What are you, first and foremost?"
To me, the answer to this is "I am a child of My Father, the creator". Before I am white, or brown, before I am old or young, before I am <occupation>, before I am <believer>, before I am a homosexual / heterosexual, before all of these things my core identify should be "I am a child of my Father".
That will mean different things to different folks, but to me it means that, whether I feel it or experience it or not, the truth is that I am loved. He loves me. To do honor to our creator, I should never embrace or indulge in thinking otherwise. Not to say that this isn't a challenge; there are things about myself that I do not like, that I am not happy about, and that I currently find difficult to love, but that's my problem, and not His. It’s my limitation, not his.
Let's put aside the question of whether one is or can be born with [X] sex attraction, or born as [X], or born as anything other than as a child of God. It seems to me that whatever your journey, the step of learning to accept yourself and open yourself to God loving you for who you are has been a critical step, and an important one. How you see yourself, or experience yourself, this may not necessarily be fully or completely how God sees you (and the same is true for me), but if we open ourselves up to him, he will always find the most loving path for us to move forward in our life.
Maybe that's one step on (this process) or one step on (that process), but it seems to me undeniable that it has been or was a critical step for you in moving forward. And in that context, regardless of other points or questions that are being put aside for the moment, I rejoice in that and am grateful that you could take such a step.
You mentioned 20 years before you realized that you need "to trust him more than the people who claimed to know him". Indeed. Indeed. On the other hand, if we are truly walking forward on the path of learning and knowing and increasingly realizing our true nature, then 20 years is not actually that long a time. It's what life is made of. I fully confess that I am still learning, particularly about myself, and in recent years I continue to be blessed with many opportunities to be challenged internally about how I love others, and how I learn to love myself as God loves me.
"Your opinion on whether I'm right about this is irrelevant". Think you could possibly tweak this a bit? Because my opinion on this is extremely relevant, but to me. Maybe what you really mean is that "your opinion on this is not relevant to me". That's a statement I can fully embrace and respect, but I’m not all that excited about the idea that my opinion isn’t relevant full stop. It’s relevant to me, it’s relevant to God, and to be frank, you don’t need to invalidate my opinion to justify your own. That’s not how it works, imo.
(And if your belief requires you to adopt the viewpoint that "I am right and everyone else is wrong" and then assert that on to others, well, how that is any different from the attitude or behavior of those who think their view of God is right and anyone else, aka you, is wrong?)
Your pushback here is rather intense: "Your opinion doesn't matter, and when we are before God's judgment throne, I will still be right." I can understand that there is a lifetime of experience and journey (and sufferings, no doubt) behind that pushback, and I can accept that you may have reasons for this approach, but to echo your words, that's not really relevant to me. It’s also not necessary here, I think, but each to his own. Your choices.
"This knowledge is from him". In my experience, God raises and educates us continually on a journey and returning and being restored to him is an ongoing process. People thinking that because they experience something as correct and right and from God, that this must be true for everyone - This is one big problem in the entire religion & spiritual sphere.
There is a balance that needs to be sought, and it is ALL about taking personal responsibility for our choices and our beliefs. Failing to take responsibility for the beliefs I choose is foundational to all the relational conflict that emerge between people including in the sphere of religious or theological views.
This is not to say in any way that truth is relative. Truth is truth. But until you or I become an absolute person absolutely one with God, our view and understanding of truth is going to be inherently relative. That realization is what I am talking about when I say a balance is necessary. For us, truth is relative. And what’s important is: does my view of the truth bring me closer to God or further away? Ultimately, only God can know the answer to that, and even if someone else can know it, it is NOT someone else’s responsibility to decide.
God wants us each to have the sense of conviction that what we are convinced is true is true. How else could we commit to it, and God wants us to be committed, but more than our commitment to what we think is true, he wants us to be committed to him. It’s tricky though, because we identify and thus engage in a relationship with him only through our perception of truth. Nonetheless, God does not wish for us to impose our convictions on others in a way that overrides their responsibility or which ignores their responsibility to choose. (my opinion)
You may have very good reasons for the belief that you were "born gay" (whatever that means, a whole other discussion, but essentially that it is ‘an unchangeable aspect of your nature’(?). I empathize and sympathize with that. Moreover, I don't need you to either justify that belief to me or for me to accept that because this is 'true for you' it must be true for me. I'm OK with someone having a belief that is different to mine; my choices in faith are not predicated on some other people's acceptance or rejection of me because of those choices. And some choices come bundled with pain. In many cases, especially in the healing process, pain comes along with good choices.
What I'm saying here is, I’m really OK with the fact that there are and will be differences in our beliefs, about many different topics, not just this one. And, I think one factor there is that to me, you are not your beliefs, but rather, a child of God. As long as a person engages in their beliefs with the best integrity that they can muster, how could I not respect that or even thank God for that? It's the integrity and heart that we bring to our choices that count, because we will always make choices that are, in some cases, sub-optimal. Moreover, we also make choices that are the right choice [now], but which may no longer be the right choice [then].
If this was not true, we would be doomed to a hellish existence forever. Case in point: as children, we make certain [unconscious] choices in order to cope with the challenges and traumas and emotional injuries that we sustain growing up in ANY family that is not perfectly in unison with God's heart. But as we grow older, our unconscious mind will bring those choices to the surface, so that they can be altered or corrected once circumstances have changed.
Example: A child may develop a deep anger and resentment towards a parent who is being abusive in some way (deliberately or unconsciously), and that anger and resentful emotion may form a protective barrier to more hurt and injury, but once the child grows and is no long in a place where the parent's abusive behavior can have the same impact or influence, then the child will ONLY move forward by revisiting that anger and resentment, and working through it, and then making a different choice. (letting it go, finding love and forgiveness, etc)
Another example: a child may choose to believe "I am unlovable" based on all the information available at the time. They may feel unloved, and then choose to believe that on some level, because they feel that. But later on, they may find that what they saw and understood at the time, as a child, was not the whole picture. By expanding their view, he or she may find a different perspective and thereby choose a different view (belief) and find healing, and in healing, be able to live a better life and more credibly fulfill God's desire for him or her.
So, I'm not going to assert that your belief is wrong. I don't need to and to me, it's not relevant here. What's most important for me, personally, at least in terms of who you are (theoretically, as we’re just nodes on some internet platform at this point), is that you are making the best choices you can with integrity.
I'm also not trying to imply you will CHANGE your choice or your belief in future... I'm just saying that whether your beliefs and choices are right or wrong on an absolute scale is purely for God to judge and access, and for you to live with. For me, whether your beliefs are right or wrong is not relevant (emphasis on 'for me'). I can accept and give thanks that you are doing your best to fulfill God's desire for you as best you can perceive it. If indeed you are. Can any of us do more than that? I don't see how I could.
And frankly, so long as you treat everyone with dignity and kindness and fairness, it doesn't really matter .....
I think we are on the same page here. I aspire to treat others with dignity (despite them often attempting to undermine their own dignity! kek), kindness and fairness. Well, no, not with fairness. "With generosity" is what I aspire to. Heaven knows, if things were fair, I'd be up the creek without a paddle!!!
But where generosity falls short, then yes, I guess fairness is at least a good minimum option.
God has already given me all the validation I need.
That’s fine. That’s between God and you. It is neither for me to make your choices, or you to make mine. I'll strive to have same heart of God towards the choices of others that I think he has towards them. I try to imagine: how would he feel about this? After a lifetime of this, I feel like he shares with me – or rather, we feel the same way, about a lot of things. Ultimately, I can really only know or experience God’s heart through the respect, generosity, care and understanding that he continues to show towards me, and the heart I share towards others.
If we could all simply practice "love one another as I have loved you" we'd all be a LOT better off. Of course, that’s NOT simple. It’s gosh darn hard. Nonetheless, God’s love involves respecting people's responsibility, even if they fail it (we all do in some way). The responsibility to make choices is our Father's greatest gift to us, and he is very, very, very respectful of it - even when he doesn't like it or doesn’t agree. He won't violate it and he won’t intervene, unless he can do it with perfect integrity.
So whether we agree or not on this or that is beside the point. Having differences is not a bad thing, if they are united and dedicated to the same cause or purpose.
Dear fren,
I'm so sorry to hear about your lonely course. Thank you for sharing on this personal level. Reading your words elicits a lot of thoughts and feelings. And there is no reason this side of the cosmos why such discussions shouldn't be respectful. If we want to draw closer to our creator, we have to learn to practice his attitudes and his behaviors.
There are differences in perspective here, but after all, this is why God created us as individuals. Each person is unique, and therefor, our perspectives always bring something unique, if we honor him.
I'd like to share a few thoughts in response. Not to convince you of anything or to make some assertion that my way of thinking is 'right', but purely in the spirit of open sharing, no strong attached.
I was reflecting on our exchange the other day. I found myself asking mentally a question of (you, myself, others - aka a generic 'you' question): "What do you identify with the most in your life? What are you, first and foremost?"
To me, the answer to this is "I am a child of My Father, the creator". Before I am white, or brown, before I am old or young, before I am <occupation>, before I am <believer>, before I am a homosexual / heterosexual, before all of these things my core identify should be "I am a child of my Father".
That will mean different things to different folks, but to me it means that, whether I feel it or experience it or not, the truth is that I am loved. He loves me. To do honor to our creator, I should never embrace or indulge in thinking otherwise. Not to say that this isn't a challenge; there are things about myself that I do not like, that I am not happy about, and that I currently find difficult to love, but that's my problem, and not His. It’s my limitation, not his.
Let's put aside the question of whether one is or can be born with [X] sex attraction, or born as [X], or born as anything other than as a child of God. It seems to me that whatever your journey, the step of learning to accept yourself and open yourself to God loving you for who you are has been a critical step, and an important one. How you see yourself, or experience yourself, this may not necessarily be fully or completely how God sees you (and the same is true for me), but if we open ourselves up to him, he will always find the most loving path for us to move forward in our life. Maybe that's one step on (this process) or one step on (that process), but it seems to me undeniable that it has been or was a critical step for you in moving forward. And in that context, regardless of other points or questions that are being put aside for the moment, I rejoice in that and am grateful that you could take such a step.
You mentioned 20 years before you realized that you need "to trust him more than the people who claimed to know him". Indeed. Indeed. On the other hand, if we are truly walking forward on the path of learning and knowing and increasingly realizing our true nature, then 20 years is not actually that long a time. It's what life is made of. I fully confess that I am still learning, particularly about myself, and in recent years I continue to be blessed with many opportunities to be challenged internally about how I love others, and how I learn to love myself as God loves me.
"Your opinion on whether I'm right about this is irrelevant". Think you could possibly tweak this a bit? Because my opinion on this is extremely relevant, but to me. Maybe what you really mean is that "your opinion on this is not relevant to me". That's a statement I can fully embrace and respect, but I’m not all that excited about the idea that my opinion isn’t relevant full stop. It’s relevant to me, it’s relevant to God, and to be frank, you don’t need to invalidate my opinion to justify your own. That’s not how it works, imo.
(And if your belief requires you to adopt the viewpoint that "I am right and everyone else is wrong" and then assert that on to others, well, how that is any different from the attitude or behavior of those who think their view of God is right and anyone else, aka you, is wrong?)
Your pushback here is rather intense: "Your opinion doesn't matter, and when we are before God's judgment throne, I will still be right." I can understand that there is a lifetime of experience and journey (and sufferings, no doubt) behind that pushback, and I can accept that you may have reasons for this approach, but to echo your words, that's not really relevant to me. It’s also not necessary here, I think, but each to his own. Your choices.
"This knowledge is from him". In my experience, God raises and educates us continually on a journey and returning and being restored to him is an ongoing process. People thinking that because they experience something as correct and right and from God, that this must be true for everyone - This is one big problem in the entire religion & spiritual sphere.
There is a balance that needs to be sought, and it is ALL about taking personal responsibility for our choices and our beliefs. Failing to take responsibility for the beliefs I choose is foundational to all the relational conflict that emerge between people including in the sphere of religious or theological views.
This is not to say in any way that truth is relative. Truth is truth. But until you or I become an absolute person absolutely one with God, our view and understanding of truth is going to be inherently relative. That realization is what I am talking about when I say a balance is necessary. For us, truth is relative. And what’s important is: does my view of the truth bring me closer to God or further away? Ultimately, only God can know the answer to that, and even if someone else can know it, it is NOT someone else’s responsibility to decide.
God wants us each to have the sense of conviction that what we are convinced is true is true. How else could we commit to it, and God wants us to be committed, but more than our commitment to what we think is true, he wants us to be committed to him. It’s tricky though, because we identify and thus engage in a relationship with him only through our perception of truth. Nonetheless, God does not wish for us to impose our convictions on others in a way that overrides their responsibility or which ignores their responsibility to choose. (my opinion)
You may have very good reasons for the belief that you were "born gay" (whatever that means, a whole other discussion, but essentially that it is ‘an unchangeable aspect of your nature’(?). I empathize and sympathize with that. Moreover, I don't need you to either justify that belief to me or for me to accept that because this is 'true for you' it must be true for me. I'm OK with someone having a belief that is different to mine; my choices in faith are not predicated on some other people's acceptance or rejection of me because of those choices. And some choices come bundled with pain. In many cases, especially in the healing process, pain comes along with good choices.
What I'm saying here is, I’m really OK with the fact that there are and will be differences in our beliefs, about many different topics, not just this one. And, I think one factor there is that to me, you are not your beliefs, but rather, a child of God. As long as a person engages in their beliefs with the best integrity that they can muster, how could I not respect that or even thank God for that? It's the integrity and heart that we bring to our choices that count, because we will always make choices that are, in some cases, sub-optimal. Moreover, we also make choices that are the right choice [now], but which may no longer be the right choice [then].
If this was not true, we would be doomed to a hellish existence forever. Case in point: as children, we make certain [unconscious] choices in order to cope with the challenges and traumas and emotional injuries that we sustain growing up in ANY family that is not perfectly in unison with God's heart. But as we grow older, our unconscious mind will bring those choices to the surface, so that they can be altered or corrected once circumstances have changed.
Example: A child may develop a deep anger and resentment towards a parent who is being abusive in some way (deliberately or unconsciously), and that anger and resentful emotion may form a protective barrier to more hurt and injury, but once the child grows and is no long in a place where the parent's abusive behavior can have the same impact or influence, then the child will ONLY move forward by revisiting that anger and resentment, and working through it, and then making a different choice. (letting it go, finding love and forgiveness, etc)
Another example: a child may choose to believe "I am unlovable" based on all the information available at the time. They may feel unloved, and then choose to believe that on some level, because they feel that. But later on, they may find that what they saw and understood at the time, as a child, was not the whole picture. By expanding their view, he or she may find a different perspective and thereby choose a different view (belief) and find healing, and in healing, be able to live a better life and more credibly fulfill God's desire for him or her. So, I'm not going to assert that your belief is wrong. I don't need to and to me, it's not relevant here. What's most important for me, personally, at least in terms of who you are (theoretically, as we’re just nodes on some internet platform at this point), is that you are making the best choices you can with integrity.
I'm also not trying to imply you will CHANGE your choice or your belief in future... I'm just saying that whether your beliefs and choices are right or wrong on an absolute scale is purely for God to judge and access, and for you to live with. For me, whether your beliefs are right or wrong is not relevant (emphasis on 'for me'). I can accept and give thanks that you are doing your best to fulfill God's desire for you as best you can perceive it. If indeed you are. Can any of us do more than that? I don't see how I could.
I think we are on the same page here. I aspire to treat others with dignity (despite them often attempting to undermine their own dignity! kek), kindness and fairness. Well, no, not with fairness. "With generosity" is what I aspire to. Heaven knows, if things were fair, I'd be up the creek without a paddle!!!
But where generosity falls short, then yes, I guess fairness is at least a good minimum option.
That’s fine. That’s between God and you. It is neither for me to make your choices, or you to make mine. I'll strive to have same heart of God towards the choices of others that I think he has towards them. I try to imagine: how would he feel about this? After a lifetime of this, I feel like he shares with me – or rather, we feel the same way, about a lot of things. Ultimately, I can really only know or experience God’s heart through the respect, generosity, care and understanding that he continues to show towards me, and the heart I share towards others.
If we could all simply practice "love one another as I have loved you" we'd all be a LOT better off. Of course, that’s NOT simple. It’s gosh darn hard. Nonetheless, God’s love involves respecting people's responsibility, even if they fail it (we all do in some way). The responsibility to make choices is our Father's greatest gift to us, and he is very, very, very respectful of it - even when he doesn't like it or doesn’t agree. He won't violate it and he won’t intervene, unless he can do it with perfect integrity.
So whether we agree or not on this or that is beside the point. Having differences is not a bad thing, if they are united and dedicated to the same cause or purpose.
Thank you for sharing.
Be well, fren.