The vast spiritual void I am facing.

[Metalhead]

My 12 step sponsor keeps on telling me that I should define my own higher power, but how can I define what is most likely there but not really giving me much reason to have faith?

Yeah, I believe there is a God. And I also believe he is not in line with any Abrahamic religion. He weeps as he sees us hurt each other in his name. But he dropped me into this world for some reason I am not grasping. I feel as if I have lived 40 wasted years. I feel as if there has to be more to life than how most people have been living it.

My state of constant discontent is interfering with my ability to have faith. There, I said it.

Beer and weed are not the answer. Either is escaping into movies or video games. Neither is relying on other humans. Any exterior factor I can see and feel is not the answer. I need to figure out how to get my faith working. I do not feel as if I am good enough for a higher power’s standards as I stand now.

 

[Finder]

Maybe it is not a lost of faith, but rather the faith you have has lost you. I don't really believe in a personal god. I have found Eastern religions far more satisfying. I would look at some of Joseph Campbell's popular work like the TV series The Power of Myth. He is a great synthesizer of spiritual and religious ideas.

 

[Greatshield17]

My 12 step sponsor keeps on telling me that I should define my own higher power, but how can I define what is most likely there but not really giving me much reason to have faith?

Yeah, I believe there is a God. And I also believe he is not in line with any Abrahamic religion. He weeps as he sees us hurt each other in his name. But he dropped me into this world for some reason I am not grasping. I feel as if I have lived 40 wasted years. I feel as if there has to be more to life than how most people have been living it.

My state of constant discontent is interfering with my ability to have faith. There, I said it.

Beer and weed are not the answer. Either is escaping into movies or video games. Neither is relying on other humans. Any exterior factor I can see and feel is not the answer. I need to figure out how to get my faith working. I do not feel as if I am good enough for a higher power’s standards as I stand now.

My advice would be to simply let your higher power take you by the hand and guide you to those standards he has. Human faith (and all virtues) are like a muscles need to be exercised.

 

[Metalhead]

Maybe it is not a lost of faith, but rather the faith you have has lost you. I don't really believe in a personal god. I have found Eastern religions far more satisfying. I would look at some of Joseph Campbell's popular work like the TV series The Power of Myth. He is a great synthesizer of spiritual and religious ideas.

The whole idea of a personal God rubs me the wrong way. I am not a fan of New Age designer religions.

I believe there is a God who is benevolent, but he does not interfere. He gave us our world and our free will for a reason.

 

[Metalhead]

My advice would be to simply let your higher power take you by the hand and guide you to those standards he has. Human faith (and all virtues) are like a muscles need to be exercised.

I may as well just do that. My own ways have not been working.

 

[Thinx]

Well maybe while you have a think about this, get outside and walk, get some air and look at the world, it's there for you. Vaccines are on their way, the busy social world is on it's way back, meanwhile you can walk and wonder about things, and be fitter and healthier as you do that.

Get a Fitbit if you haven't got one, they have virtual challenges and challenges you can do with others. I think you stay in too much, outdoors there are distractions and interesting sights and the real world outside your own head.

 

[leehart]

For me the concept of God is linked to the concept of good and evil - right and wrong. If a being created all of this, by virtue of their existence and nature, right and wrong are also defined. So I am uncomfortable with the idea of defining our own idea of God. Ultimately for me, I became a Christian, both via personal conversion but also the idea of a God of justice and morality who cares deeply for the world and would enter into its troubles to alter the path of humanity.

I hope you find what you seek, it is an interesting journey to go on if nothing else

 

[Metalhead]

As somebody described in another thread here today, I have spent too much time trying to fill a God sized hole. I think I will buy myself a Bible in the near future, start reading through it. Of course, there are gay-friendly churches I know of, but all of them are shut down due to the pandemic. It takes a pandemic and a lot of social distancing to get me to convert.

 

[Greatshield17]

As somebody described in another thread here today, I have spent too much time trying to fill a God sized hole. I think I will buy myself a Bible in the near future, start reading through it. Of course, there are gay-friendly churches I know of, but all of them are shut down due to the pandemic. It takes a pandemic and a lot of social distancing to get me to convert.

Hope it helps you.

My only advice would be to read the New Testament first and the Old Testament later. The Old Testament is a vast collection of works written across several timeframes, foreign cultures and social regimes; it contains dark and morally confusing episodes which you may have already heard of, Our Lord referred to the people of the Old Testament as "stiff-necked;" most importantly though, the Old Testament is primarily meant to be read through the lens of something called Typology, where an object, person, event or something is supposed to foreshadow or call to mind something else. (J. R. R. Tolkein wrote The Lord of the Rings, not as Christian Allegory, but as Catholic Typology, where a Catholic reader or reader who knows a bit about the Catholic Faith, will pick up the typological images and figures there, but there's no obvious 1-1 allegorical parallel present in the book.) You might get a better primer for typology by reading through the Old Testament references in the New Testament, then reading the actuals persons, places, events, &c. in the Old Testament. (The exception would be the Book of Revelations, there you have to have a good grasp of typology and Old Testament imagery to get what's being said.)

 

[Metalhead]

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I realize that most of the Christians I know in my life are absolutely nothing like the self-proclaimed Christians at the Baptist church my sister forced me to attend when I was in middle school (those Baptists were some of the most genuinely angry and bitter people I have ever met, not to mention they also had a massive victim complex). Most of the Christians I know are genuinely chill people. They know what works for them, and they stick to it. I can respect that a lot more these days than what I used to when I was feeling a lot more angry and bitter myself.

Now I'm not feeling all that angry and bitter, but I am feeling like I am trying to find my way through difficulties in life, and I have realized that rampant consumerism is definitely not the answer. Of course, I already knew that was not the answer on the most logical of levels, but I am not known to be the most logical person out there in practice.

I do not want to spend my life with a victim complex, feeling resentful over circumstances that are completely outside of my control.

 

[Greatshield17]

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I realize that most of the Christians I know in my life are absolutely nothing like the self-proclaimed Christians at the Baptist church my sister forced me to attend when I was in middle school (those Baptists were some of the most genuinely angry and bitter people I have ever met, not to mention they also had a massive victim complex). Most of the Christians I know are genuinely chill people. They know what works for them, and they stick to it. I can respect that a lot more these days than what I used to when I was feeling a lot more angry and bitter myself.

Now I'm not feeling all that angry and bitter, but I am feeling like I am trying to find my way through difficulties in life, and I have realized that rampant consumerism is definitely not the answer. Of course, I already knew that was not the answer on the most logical of levels, but I am not known to be the most logical person out there in practice.

I do not want to spend my life with a victim complex, feeling resentful over circumstances that are completely outside of my control.

Yeah when you read and hear about the accounts of actual Christian martyrs in the past, the last thing you find is feelings of victimization and self-pity; if they did they would never have been able to endure some of the things that they endured. self-pity never helps anyone, it just leaves them drowning in their own feelings of misery.

 

[Metalhead]

Well, I read the four gospels today. Nobody is reading those for the prose, but I am starting to feel more comfortable about this. Talked with a friend of mine who also happens to be Christian. I don’t know how to explain this, but it feels like I am stopping the whole resistance to a Higher Power and just letting God into my life. When I am at the steering wheel in my life, I drive around in circles and never really go anywhere. This just might be what I needed to do all along.

 

[Alexej]

Am I a human being on a spiritual journey or a spiritual being on a human journey?

 

[Streetwise]

Maybe it is not a lost of faith, but rather the faith you have has lost you. I don't really believe in a personal god. I have found Eastern religions far more satisfying. I would look at some of Joseph Campbell's popular work like the TV series The Power of Myth. He is a great synthesizer of spiritual and religious ideas.

What you might discover is what is really important ,the faith if it sustains ,is not lost but you've moved ,I'm not judging you, im telling you facts the Hebrew word for sin is to turn, if you move a certain amount you might knock yourself ,wobble, sprain yourself, fall completely, because you didn't concentrate on your position,you could do.it psychologically by reading too much and becoming exhausted or lose something because you concentrated on the wrong stimulus ,that's what I like about Judaism not complete Talmudic Judaism but the Shabbat bit, it means rest completely ,turn the crappin phone off ,learn Shabbat ,in Yiddish if you search it Shabbos or Shabos,as searching will take you to all forms of Judaism.Try it !

 

[Streetwise]

As somebody described in another thread here today, I have spent too much time trying to fill a God sized hole. I think I will buy myself a Bible in the near future, start reading through it. Of course, there are gay-friendly churches I know of, but all of them are shut down due to the pandemic. It takes a pandemic and a lot of social distancing to get me to convert.

Get a messianic bible !the Greek interpretations are inaccurate, Hebrew for instance says by his gashes you are healed, the whip the Romans used didn't leave surface welts, it opened the flesh to the bone ,the Greeks are too spiritual, Hebrew is realistic ,find a messianic temple to worship at the jews know how to do it .

 

[Greatshield17]

Get a messianic bible !the Greek interpretations are inaccurate, Hebrew for instance says by his gashes you are healed, the whip the Romans used didn't leave surface welts, it opened the flesh to the bone ,the Greeks are too spiritual, Hebrew is realistic ,find a messianic temple to worship at the jews know how to do it .

I was reluctant to get into suggesting which versions of the Bible the OP should use, but the Greek Septuagint and even the Latin Vulgate (which in fact was written using Hebrew sources that pre-date the Septuagint; St. Jerome deliberate searched for these sources.) do have some advantages and accuracies over the versions that use the Masoretic text; take for example the following passage from the Douay-Rheims version, a translation of the Vulgate Bible:

"And Michol took an image and laid it on the bed, and put a goat's skin with the hair at the head of it, and covered it with clothes." -1st Samuel 19:13 DR

Now in the Masoretic text, the "image" Michol uses is referred to as a teraphim. Here's the thing though, Rabbinical commentaries have discussed the teraphim and, I won't go into details on it but it's a rather gruesome practice, and modern archeology has confirmed what the Rabbis claim about teraphim. Again, I won't go into details on it but if you knew what teraphim actually were, there's no way that what Michol was using to disguise as David in bed could have been a teraphim.