Personal Revelation

Briguy

Hello all!

Sorry I do not post much but I do not have much original things to share because everyone here seems to cover it all. I have had something strike very close to home and I thought I might share it incase someone out there might be thinking the same thing and is trying to put their finger on it. I should give a small history on it to set it up.

Growing up in the truth I was a model young man. By 16 I was praying over the whole congregation, had mothers comming up to me actualy saying they wish their boys were like me. (sickining I know) I enjoyed at a young age being in the popular circle of the congregation and it "felt" good.

When I started to fad away it was about 8 years ago. I was newly married (which as we all know can be a distraction in it's own way ) The congragation had rumors flying through it and a few had shunned me but not all. Why? Because I met my wife through a online witness chat site that was set up. We talked for months and I flew her down to California from Canada and we got married one week after she was here. Upset about how this was recieved we both stopped going to the meetings at that point.

A year later we had a elder and his wife call on us. They were a great couple and very kind. Why did they call on us? Well unfortunatly I would like to think that it was out of love that motivated us being thought of in the congregation, but they had told us it was a "campaign" that was set up by the WTBS to try to reactivate couples that are no longer active. We restudied old information we already knew by heart and tried again to go to meetings and out in field service. We never did a single wrong doing, got disfellowshiped or anything in our absence. Yet because we were inactive trying to come back, the congregation was very cold. This eventualy discouraged us again as we were really trying and thought we were decent people.

After all this I thought to myself. If I ever go back again it is because my heart moves me to do it because I feel this avenue will bring me closer to God. Looking back though I still think many things taught are good ideals and bible truths, my heart though was never fully in it.

I just got done reading Crises of Conscience... and WOW this hit me hard. Ray Franz at the end points out about how a very active organization like this may "cloud" ones personal relationship with God. What ends up happening is we as people get so wrapped up in- mettings, study, making your watchtower looked intensively studied, talkes, pioneering, daily text, apointments in the congregation, and many more things, that people get wrapped up more into their service to a organization rather then their service to God Almighty himself. Not that the above things are bad, the focus gets very blurred.

So now I know why I never went back. My heart was never motivated to go because something was blocking my personal relationship with God himself. It is me and him. Not me, the organization and him. SO now I take a different approach and am working on really getting to know God. Not getting to know God through a channel made by humans.

AuldSoul

Welcome to the rest of your life, Briguy!

CoC gets a lot of people thinking unexpected things. I also chose not to read it until after I left permanently. I started reading it the week after I DA'd myself.

Respectfully,
AuldSoul

fullofdoubtnow

Hi Briguy, and welcome to freedom!

Crisis of Conscience has been a very effective book for a lot of people. I personally read it while I was fading, and it helped me to see that leaving the watchtower was the best thing for me to do.

Personally, I haven't looked for a post-watchtower relationship with god, but I wish you well in your search.

Linda

Crumpet

I think that was a lovely post Briguy. And you express yourself so well you should definitely post more. Each perspective is unique you know!

You spend so much time doing various borg related activities its very hard to get to know God. I got to know god much better when I left and decided he was a nasty-pasty if he existed at all so I am in the process of shunning him!

Seriously though I wish you joy in your journey. How are you and your wife now?

Briguy

Doing well crumpet. Still married after 8 years. Thanks for asking :)

Thanks for your nice wishes above to the other posters.

Quandry

Sorry to say as a good member of the Borg, I would have been giving you wierd looks also. We were taught that the internet was bad, and the society said that one should not go to chat rooms. You were disobedient, you bad boy. Of couse, this overlooks the fact that in the WT it mentions some that were living in Communist countries that met their spouses by being introduced by a C.O. or that others communicated through letters, but that was not the evil internet. so.......

Hope that you and your wife continue to be "on the same page" as to the WTS. May you have a happy marriage.

Wasanelder Once

brig,

Good to hear you are going about this at your own pace. Too fast for some, too slow for others I'd imagine. It sounds as if the same old signals are there for you as for everyone else. Jesus said "We'd know them by their love for one another." It just isn't there.

Nice escape,

welcome,

W.Once

greendawn

Welcome Briguy, I believe the congo had gone to extremes to turn against you just because you met your marriage partner through the internet,

greendawn

Welcome Briguy, I believe the congo had gone to extremes to turn against you just because you met your marriage partner through the internet, did some there want you for their daughters since you were an exemplary JW and then got pissed off? All in all this is a very judgemental and unloving organisation and as you said they want their members too tightly bound to them and not really free to relate to God naturally. Above all they do not see Jesus as the central person in the New Testament era that we live in and only pay lip service to this.

journey-on

God knows who really needs to get out of this org and sometimes I think He takes a personal interest in those who have been treated like you and your wife were. He reads the heart and some of us truly suffer from our association with people like them and in order to stay close to Him, we have to remove ourselves from the fake love and fake concern and fake doctrine and fake worship in order to find real Truth. Some don't sincerely care about real truth. They just plod along blindly doing what they're told to by the borg. Some really do need Truth in order to maintain a real relationship with God, so they are guided out into the Light.

Personal Revelation

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