Some have wondered about where I come from on the topic of faith. And, as we all ponder our past JW religion, and the events of the day, I need to take some time to address matters of my faith, as I look for some answers.
When Adam was created, God did not wait for Adam to play a guessing game and start praying. Rather, God reached out to Adam. Not through some book or another person ... but mono-e-mono, in the breezy part of the day ... God checked in and had a chat with Adam. "Hi Adam, son, let's have a couple of brewskies, sit by the lake, and ponder the meaning of life."
Genesis is just allegory, as some say. If Adam and Eve are allegory, a principle lesson about life, then our relationship is reduced to an allegory, in principle it becomes a bunch of "if's", "maybe", and "buts." Either God is our father, and personally interested in us as his children, and having some direct one-on-one communication, or he is not. It is not that God has been knocking on my door, or that I have been ignoring him. Rather, I knock, seek, and ask, and it seems that God, my father, is not home, or is choosing not to answer his own door.
God's Kingdom not of this world? I don't accept the common interpretation that somehow we are drifting on our own to contend with evil, because God's Kingdom is "out there" somewhere. What Jesus was saying is that God's Kingdom does not spring from this world, or "of" this world, as though this world developed it and built it. But Jesus did say, God's Kingdom is "within" or "among" you, and thus it is from God, through believers, and eventually fills the whole world as God works through his children.
My problem is that it seems much about God is less clear and forthright than I once thought. For example, when I would not get an answer to a prayer, someone or some Catholic Priest, or some JW Elder, or some Protestant Preacher would say, "Well, it is not that God did not hear you, but he is just saying no -- at least for now." I used to accept these kinds of comments as being good ways to look at how God works. No more. Why? Because when we do this, are presuming to know things we factually do NOT know. We don't know if God received a certain prayer. We don't know what he thinks about a certain prayer that he does receive. We don't know his real response -- because -- he is dead silent with us.
When Jesus came to this earth and died, he removed the stain of Adam, and reconciled us to God, as adopted children, and we were transferred into God's Kingdom. Yet, unlike Adam who got to have an afternoon chat by the lakeside with God, enjoy some father-son bonding in a two-way normal parent-child relationship, we don't even get a phone call or simple email from God. So, what is the relationship God? How are we therefore reconciled to him? How are we in God's Kingdom? And how is God's Kingdom really within us?
I can no longer accept simple plausibilities, analogies, allegories, platitudes, myth, and cute stories to define my relationship with Almighty God who was supposed to have adopted me as his child based on my belief and faith in Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. I don't want an invented relationship with allegorical analogies to determine the wisdom of my life and my path to heaven. I want a real God, real heavenly father, with a real relationship based on real words out of his mouth, and some mono-e-mono time ... no guessing games, no rationalizations, no posturing, no theological prognosticating and postulating, no floating in and out of some state of mind where I have some experience that I interpret that a sense of euphoria as something from God ... no, I want real time relationship.
That is where I come from, and the State of My Faith. If no Holy Book is concretely from God, and God does not audibly reciprocate in a conversation, and my faith has to be based on some interpretations and plausible rationalizations of allegorical myths from dessert dwellers over 2,000 years ago ... and hundreds of subsequent books and sermons by well intentioned theologians and philosophers ... then, I have to sit down and question again in my life the origin of everything. I have to wipe everything clean and start once again.
The final question is ... where do I go from here? My above comments on this topic are not intended to say that I have lost my faith. Rather, I am in the process of complete and total overhaul, redefining, and rediscovering what faith I should have, if any at all, and what relationship I should have with God, if any at all, and what I am going to base it on. That is where I am at in the stream of my existence. At age 50, I am reduced to age 5 in my spiritual knowledge and wisdom. I just don't know anymore. And while I can accept that we don't know everything, and cannot have answers to everything -- I at least want some concrete answers to some things -- and I cannot think of a more important feature of life than my ultimate relationship to God, and my following and having faith in Jesus Christ. And, until I can find some of these answers about God, I am not even sure of anything else around me. - Amazing