Mike N
Jesus u said the greatest of all commandments was to Love God with all ur heart, soul, & mind. I need help with that. Forgive me. I don't love you. Please gently help me to love you. Right or wrong (most likely wrong) it's etched in my mind (because of a lifetime of unanswered prayers & bad experiences) that you are sadistic, cruel, a liar, hypocrite, and not to be trusted. Again, forgive me for that sentence above. This is why I need your help. My life has been one of stagnation, loneliness, failure, sadness. Despite my prayer for help, it never truly has fully come yet. And when I read the Bible it only makes me not like you more. You talk of forgiveness but send people to eternal hell. The God of the Bible won't forgive people unless there is some kind of blood lust sacrifice be it an animal and or his son. Why couldn't you just forgive folk without the blood lust? I don't understand any of it. Like Solomen I've prayed for wisdom but not gotten any understanding. You make promises that you have not kept. Call on me and I shall answer? But you haven't. Knock and the door will be open. Ask and you will receive. Some may say I don't receive from you because I'm a sinner and that God answers the prayer of a righteous man. But you also said when asked why you sat with tax collectors and prostitutes that, "Those who are well don't need a doctor". I'm not well. And I'm doing what you said would work. I'm coming to you and asking. A lifetime of seeming absence from your love has made me not like you. I fear you, but I don't love you. Forgive me and instead of being mad or vengeful for that please help me with it. Please don't run me through the gauntlet of a counterproductive "tough love" or hard-task-master lessen learning from a doom and gloom God.. Just be gently, will ya? I fear you might be a sadist and come down hard on me. That would only further confirm my negative idea of you. Please be gentle and kind and help me to love you. I'm in my late 50s with no friends, no wife, no home of my own. I'm running out of money and health. No stamina. Brain damaged. Bad eyes, bad teeth, bad back, exhausted beyond belief. I can't even function and keep up to par with my peers. It's been a lifetime of broken dreams. In one of your biblical stories you told of a man with no fruit who would therefore be throne into the fire. How can I be fruitful if you don't empower me with stamina, smarts, gifts, skills, & open doors. All I've seen is supernatural blocks on my life that keep me down. How is that my fault? Yet, you would condemn a man unfairly? I also see you as unfair, btw, as well as the other things. Unreasonable. Unloving. Can I give you an analogy? Say I come across an abused shelter dog that growls, and snaps at people because all it's ever known in it's life was abuse and betrayal. And say I adopt it. But it misbehaves. I could yell at the dog and demand it love me, but that wouldn't work, right? It's already terrified and untrusting of people. I could roll up a newspaper and smack it and say "bad dog" but that would only make it trust me less, right? Or, I could earn it's trust, gently, kindly, with love. That would work. Do that please, God. Do that with me, will ya?
Received: July 18, 2022
