Did you have "a personal relationship to Jehovah"?

by Awakened07 23 Replies latest jw friends

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  Awakened07

  Remember how it was always stressed how important it was to "have a personal relationship to Jehovah"?

  That those who got disfellowshipped or disassociated themselves because of what members of the org. had said or done, or failed doctrine etc., wouldn't have done so "if they only had had a close, personal relationship to Jehovah"?

  Did you feel that you had a personal relationship to Jehovah while you were active? Did you tell others that you had it, and would you think as I mentioned above when someone got disfellowshipped? I never were one of the more zealous Witnesses, but still I think I felt - at least for a while and intermittently - that I did have a personal relationship to him. But some of you were pioneers and elders etc., so perhaps you had it to a greater extent?

  More importantly: Now that you no longer believe in Jehovah; What do you think that "personal relationship" actually was? Was it simply your inner self? Deep prayer that - like meditation - could give you a feeling of getting in contact with a higher being? Was it just a feeling? Was it an imaginary friend for grown-ups? Or was it just something one told others that one had, and it was important to have, but in reality was just something one pretended to have in order to have a say in certain matters and feel important?

  If it was just a feeling that felt real at the time, and you still today believe in God (just not Jehovah); how do you then trust your current feelings for God?
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  Satanus

  Mine wasn't even like meditation. It was simply talking to the air.
  
  S
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  maxwell

  Yes, I felt that I had a "personal relationship to Jehovah". I would never have said that out loud because it sounds like you are bragging. But I prayed often till about 4 mos before I got disfellowshipped.

  Whether there is a God or not, I think of the options listed in your post, what was happening was more closely related to an imaginary friend and meditation. And I actually feel that meditation can be beneficial though I don't do that much now either. Perhaps to focus your thoughts and clarify to yourself what your goals are and how you are planning to reach them. Or just to imagine going through the motions of something you need or want to do like playing an instrument.
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  momzcrazy

  No, I never did. I did what I was told to do, and really, I was as scared of Jehovah as I was my dad. To me he was someone who got mad at you and would kill you if you disobeyed.

  While I was trying to raise my kids as Witnesses we were never as active as we "should" have been. But I remember telling my mom that my kids were closer to Jehovah and loved him more than I ever did. I never made him scary. My 2 year old tell Jehovah goodnight and I love you every night.

  I feel now that I can pray freely and feel as though someone is listening. I have to believe in a Higher Power but I am understanding that what was shoved into my brain as fact hasn't been true. So I am trying to find the truth by Bible reading. And it feels good to think someone powerful would listen to lowly me. Maybe it is just the pouring out of thoughts that helps, I'm not sure.
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  Gopher

  I think the "personal relationship with Jehovah" phrase was more of a slogan than a reality in the JW organization.

  There were times I imagined I was serving "Jehovah", or that he helped me. Now, I do not believe it was real.

  Is a relationship with a possibly-fictional being really possible? Believers the world around will claim so, and JW's will claim so too.

  The special dynamic inside the Witness organization is that people measured your spirituality or "relationship with Jehovah" based on certain tangible measures like commenting at meetings and field service time. But those things can be faked, and people can put their best foot forward and appear spiritual.
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  Mrs. Witness

  I always wonder about statements like that...how can you have a personal relationship with some one (or thing) that never talks back? How do you "let Jesus into your heart"? Basically, they're guys in a book. It's like having a relationship with Tom Sawyer, Ichabod Crane, or Scrooge.
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  Sunspot

  I was a typical JW lemming that followed what the WTS told me was "pleasing Jehovah". I was totally uneducated in the bible when I was contacted in a "poor" section of town, in an apartment block, and had just given birth to my fifth child in ten years. I was looking for something to cling to....and the WTS "new system" (as we called it back then) just fit the needs to a tee. I THOUGHT I was being taught what the bible said....because that was why I accpeted that "free home bible aids study" so many years ago.

  I never felt the "close personal relationship" that apparenty, others were experiencing. As with many other examples...I always figured it was something that *I* was not doing right, or was failing AT doing. I BELIEVED it when we were told that WE were the happiest people on earth; that only WE were "approved" by Jehovah, and that if I kept striving and struggling to fit into what the WTS said to do.....that it would all work out in the end somehow. Any feelings of peace and comfort were in my own mind because I so desperately WANTED them to be.

  It wasn't until I LEFT the WTS, had done some serious research and study OTHER THAN within the parameters of "WTS-approved" literature and THEN asked Jesus Christ into MY heart (and life).......did I begin to see the vast difference in a "personal relationship" with my Lord and Savior; IT WAS NOTHING LIKE what I had spent the previous 30 years to develop while attempting to fit the mold that the GB had set before me.

  Speaking for myself, I can say that as a JW, I did NOT have any personal relationship with an IDEA of who or what "God" was supposed to BE. Everything I learned from Day One, was contrived and cleverly geared to lead to adoration FOR the organization. I never "grew close" to that man-made organization.
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  AWAKE&WATCHING

  I felt like I absolutely had a close relationship with Jehovah. Finding out that the WTBTS was not his organization rocked me to the core. I read everything I could to prove to myself that it was not really the truth. I spent literally hours a day for the first 2-3 months.

  Then I began to realize that I was on a journey and only at the beginning. I thought that I would eventually get past the shock and horror and begin to figure out what the Bible really says and compare that to what I had believed it said for so long.

  Somehow along the way I've discovered that I really have no respect for the God of the Bible and even if he is real I don't want to worship him.

  I was as sincere as anyone could be. Why would a loving God allow me to get involved with a kool-aid religion when all I prayed for was the TRUTH.

  I can't pray at all right now and I am o.k. with that. I don't know what I believe and I am o. k. with that.

  It's a journey and I am o.k. with that.

  Was it all in my mind - the relationship I had with Jah ? I really don't know.
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  jambon1

  How can you have a relationship with someone you can't see? Religions strangest concept.
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  Nathan Natas

  Yes, I have had a personal relationship with Jehovah for a number of decades.

  Right now he's washing my car.