Some questions...answer one, five, all or none!
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1) What did/does evangelical Christianity/other Christians tell you a "personal relationship with Jesus" looked like/felt like? Further, what was/is your understanding of what Jesus wanted/wants as far as a relationship?
2) What did/do you want from your relationship with Jesus? What amount of that did/didn't/does/doesn't feel real, is something you experience(d), felt/feel, etc.?
3) If and when the relationship wasn't what you wanted/thought/asked for/tried to curry, how did that make you feel?
4) A criticism of my saying my own personal relationship with Jesus "failed as a relationship" is for others to tell me that I wrongly expected it to be like a human relationship. I agree...I was told and continue to be told that that that "relationship" has human qualities and should meet my human needs. Is that unique to me? To you? To second-generation Christians who accepted Jesus in their hearts as children?
5) If you did at one time but don't any longer identify yourself as an evangelical Christian...
- How has your connection with God changed?
- What about the "relationship" stuff?
-Explain the difference between your current experience of God and your former evangelical Christian one.
Photo credit: Webbelina
2 comments:
I will try and come back to this when it's quieter for me, Cheryl. It needs to be quiet when I write! ♥
A beautiful blog, Cheryl. Music too!
Your goal is so much like Virginia Woolf's:
"I want to tell the truth about my own experience as a person, a woman and a mother."
I suppose you are her fan, as I am.
I do experience Jesus as a presence in my life, so I can't share from the perspective of one who doesn't. But I recognize the ability to sense God's presence does vary from person to person... which must mean it's not that important. Everyone can feel awe at a sunset or a birth or death. I find the Psalms helpful as prayers in various levels of feeling close to and distant from God. Many of them are cries of "Where are you? Why have you abandoned me?" Others express trust.
Or perhaps in addition to natural talent, it's something to train for like an athlete. Sitting in nature, for an hour, and just listening can do it, esp. if one puts in that time every day. Of course, the saints and anchorites and "Desert Fathers and Mothers" would probably say it takes much more than an hour a day.
Like writing or writing poetry.
But maybe not everyone gets the same emotional high from the same amount of time put in... which then is an issue. I just know that the more saintly consider emotions suspect and do experience times of "dryness"--perhaps years.
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