A Note of Searching

Another honest and a bit soul baring blog... don't judge me too harshly please.

I've been reading my Bible a lot more. Not only reading, but Berean style- searching for answers and testing it against itself to see if my own understanding is correct. Haha, disdainfully I realize a sinner can't completely understand a perfect God and there are some things I'll just have to put in the 'wait til heaven' box... He is after all GOD and I am only human.

In my life I've gone through different seasons of faith. Haven't we all? I mean, as you grow and change not one thing stays the same so perhaps I should not feel so guilty about my seasons... but than God DOES stay the same, only my perspective changes, so why am I so easily tossed about like the ocean and a doubting person?

Agh- yes AGH! Disgusting.

Back to the story.

I grew up with the Word incorporated into daily life. My parents are some of the best; I remember family study, church, prayer, taking interest and action for the less fortunate, and memorization being a daily thing. The Bible is familiar.

Then there was the teenage time, crazy that was, and the early twenties where my faith was zealous... haha, but most definitely not tempered.

Then came a study on grace that changed my life...

Then I had kids and started caring about the world they would grow up in... and it seemed so hopeless; we brought two beautiful and delicate little flowers into a world that crushes, abuses, and wants everything like it's degraded, misshapen, hopeless self. The fine line of choice is theirs- hope in heaven and expectation of trials and tribulation here on earth or a dark soul, no hope, and less horrible here on earth? Obviously, to me, there is only one to choose... but either way it is hard and difficult.

I can see why people go childless by choice. 'Welcome! I love you more than anything! That's why I wanted to bring you to this horrible.. place... oh wait, I suck, sorry...'

Add on top of that how they test you past your limit of patience, creativity, sleeplessness, everything (if I'm going to be exact), and you're left with sorry the world sucks and sorry I treat you so badly, but I'm so glad you're here and I love you! How empty that sounds.

So now there is an ongoing study of what can I TRULY believe in? When my friend's baby Elias was sick I searched the scriptures to know what I should ask for... it seemed to me there are several verses about faith and healing that are straight forward. But he wasn't healed; did those verses just not apply??

So what now, is the whole Bible, especially all the hope and encouragement in the New Testament, subject to God's will? Meaning, yes that verse in James 5 about healing DOES mean what it says it means, but God's will was for him to die so it is null? That sounds so faithless of me to write but truly I do believe God is who He says He is, awesome, and Jesus is who He says He is, Savior, Man and God, but what I don't understand is how I'm supposed to live out faith... what "promises" should I fall back on? Seems to me only two assuredly apply to me- that of a hope in heaven and trials and tribulations here on earth.

And then today in study I came upon Mark 3:28-29, blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. So I looked some stuff up online and found this link, pretty good study, but discouraging if I take it literally. If you know me, I don't know how to take it any other way; I have three settings, sarcastic, emotional, and literal and they are all set 'on'... well, all the time. Even my sleeping dreams are sarcastic, emotional and way too literal...

Geesh, back to the point girl!

What IS it to blaspheme the Holy Spirit? When you get a nudge to do something right, instead of wrong, and you say NO... like driving and someone cuts you off and you get a small voice in your head saying give them more room when they don't deserve it but you say 'no way!' and instead honk your horn, ride their tail, and lecture them from inside your car. That is obviously saying no to the Holy Spirit... but then, you can and probably will repent of that so perhaps that doesn't count.

Someone might say then: no dude, it's just when you say no completely to God- like, I don't want you in my life at all and I know the salvation message is true and all but I want to do my own thing so cya! But I counter with I've done that, for a time, in my own life. Many people I know have... there are even extreme cases where this person was going off the deep end of sin but they decided to come back to the Lord after years of dissipation. BACK to, they had previously walked with the Lord. Doesn't that EXACTLY follow Hebrews 6:4-6?? I mean, really, if you're going to take the Bible LITERALLY,  someone who blasphemed the Holy Spirit like that will NOT be forgiven.

But then there is Jesus, grace, and God's will again... so in the end I put it in that old box of I don't understand.

I can't even begin to go into prayer and what the heck is with God just picking certain people from the old testament? I mean geesh it would SUCK to be Ishmael and not Isaac, as if Ishmael or his mom had a choice... it's not like those Israelites were holy or anything, at best the word that describes Jacob is deceitful, but he was called Israel. So why did God just "pick" them?

And prayer... when Jacob was scared of Esau he prayed that God would protect him. This to me is an example of what prayer seems (more and more) to be- just an aligning of our own hearts with what was already going to happen. He was promised a huge family, etc and he was worried about his brother killing him? Praying for protection didn't make God protect him, it just reminded himself of what he was promised and thus that he would be protected. So prayer seems to be purely talking with God so that we can be more like Him... but in a sad way it is also helping us accept our fate whatever it might be... if our God is the God of hope that surmise of prayer is much too discouraging to be true. Then, you also have every epistle ending with "pray for us" and often saying pray for each other and that would seem pointless if it was just so that the people praying would be ok with whatever happened... but then, can a human really change the heart of God? Again, God's will covers everything and really no human is going to change the will of God. Probably for the better.

Sigh, so the wheels keep turning.

I know two things- in the world I will have trouble, but I have God's peace that where He is, someday, I will also be.

So the search continues...