What Next, God?

Well, this thing on Christianity is killing me.

The more I read and listen to preachers, the more I get the sense that you honestly DO need to believe the Bible literally and completely to be a Christian. Well, I can’t. Here’s why:

The only way it could be accurate in its current form is if the thousands of scribes and verbal communicators and everyone else who ever laid hands on transmitting books or passages of the Bible could only transmit with divine inspiration. In other words, God would have to move every piece on the chessboard, every moment.

But this is in direct conflict with Free Will, a necessary tenant of the faith – AND is pretty contradictory to the God I know. He can’t MAKE you do anything. So the Bible cannot be 100% accurate, or He is 100% controlling.

I’m not going to go as far as to say “erego Christianity is wrong”.

But I’ve been listening to some respected preachers and they have taught things I believe and sense in my gut to be dead wrong.

For example, evolution – which I was taught in Catholic school, it was no big deal back then – is racist. (I must have been absent the day they taught that one.) Oh yea and Darwin was a racist. Because, ya know, most of the people living in 19th century were forward thinking, civil rights activists. YEA.

And here’s one that from my own experience is CLEARLY not true: “It’s as if God had His back turned on us UNTIL we accepted Christ as our savior.”

Well, since I’ve been walking in step with God since 1993, AND since I really still don’t have a handle on the whole Jesus thing (I don’t FEEL Him personally like I do God or His Holy Spirit), this is flat OUT WRONG.

Don’t even go down the road that these things I’ve learned are not of God, that it has not been the Real God with me, because I specifically and to the point asked for HIM. It would be wrong of HIM if he allowed anyone else to show up.

That is where I am at. It is miserable and painful, but I cannot make this final leap. I try, I leap, I jump, I miss. I pray, I study, I hope, I miss. I accept, I speak the words, I think the thoughts, I miss. The belief is not coming. I cannot push it any other way. I am doing my best with this, but if evangelicals are too be believed, it looks like Hell for me.

Now THAT would not be just in the least.

There’s no doubt about it: temptation is easier to fight when you are healthy. Proper nutrition, exercise, sleep and just generally not sick help me when I battle.

So it’s no surprise that 3 hours of sleep last night has put me on the down side of temptation. I gave into something I thought I licked.

I cannot feel self-hatred, only bitterly disappointed because this is my Achilles Heel, and it means that God is far from me now.

What is the length of time, I always wonder, before I can ask for forgiveness and beg mercy? I had opportunities during the temptation period to resist, to pull, to not go as far as I did. My prayers for help did not go unanswered, only my response to rise above and STOP lacked. I feel remorse and disgust at my actions, but I don’t feel worthy as yet of even asking forgiveness when it was so deliberate.

It’s like addiction, only if the alcoholic were learned cured. What I really need is a spiritual partner. My own partner shot down the idea that I could conceivably lick this sin this weekend and that little devil has been sitting on my shoulder ever since.

Given that sleep is not an option right now (my little one is having to hard a time sleeping), then that must mean that I am strong enough to defeat temptation even at its most difficult point: when my body is suffering fatigue.

We fall, we get up, we try again, but sometimes we can’t – or shouldn’t – get up to fast. To wallow in our fallenness is to feel the sting of our incorrect actions. Suffering, not for the sake of suffering, but to learn our lesson better and better this time.

This road is difficult but someday, somehow I shall overcome, with God’s grace.

Well, yes, despite all my ups and downs, I decided to become Christian, meaning that I can accept Jesus’ divinity (at least, some of it), that His sacrifice meant something and is necessary.

But I will be an Anne Lammott Christian. I don’t necessarily subscribe to each and every word in our current translation of the bible as perfectly, accurately defining the Will of God, but I do know that you can divine God’s Will for YOU by reading it, in the interpretation you were lead to, if you are praying, walking with God, and listening for His guidance (which is WAY harder than it sounds). I don’t subscribe to the theory that this is the one and ONLY way to God (because I found God without Christianity), and I still find my gut weighs heavily in favor of successive (but limited in number) lives and the road to perfection as humans.

I do not see that anyone has the right to tell gay people that they cannot be what they were created to be, that they were not created as they are, or that just by being gay they are in some way fundamentally wrong or broken.

I don’t believe that fertilized eggs have souls, or that life starts at conception, but I don’t know when and where it does begin or when the soul enters, and for that I would not take the chance of abortion. I wouldn’t choose to tell others what to believe about it either.

And about telling others what to believe, all I can tell is what Christianity has done for me. It’s taught me forgivenness, which has opened a door allowing peace to float in. It’s taught trust in God, which has opened a window allowing in comfort in times of trouble. It’s taught self-love, which has allowed me to flush my stress down the toilet. It’s taught me compassion, which has allowed to me throw out anger and rage.

It’s shown me that following the heart of God makes life easier, even when it’s really difficult. It’s allowed me to let go of knowing all the answers. (Me: Hey, God, is Jesus really your son, really the same as You, really the only way to you, and if so, why doesn’t he know when he’s coming back? God: Maybe that’s all not any of your business. Maybe all you need to know right now is that I desire you to be Christian, esp since you asked me to make you one. See? I answer ALL your prayers. Me (bowing humbly): O.K.)

Happy holidays, and for those of you who are not Christians and celebrate Christmas, may it evoke in you so much joy and peace that you wonder who the True God is and then can’t resist but to pursue Him. AMEN.