Post
by Guest » Wed Feb 25, 2009 6:23 am
Hi,
I understand where you are coming from. I do think God cares about your everyday concerns though. No, He doesn't base his love for you on whether or not you have money in your checking account or whether or not you have a job. He loves you, and He values you no matter what your circumstances. That's what's so great about God. He's so powerful that He created this world, and He's so loving that He cares about our concerns that we think are trivial. He does want you to be taken care of and to take care of yourself:).
Maybe think of prayer differently. When you are praying, you are having a relationship with God. You are getting to know Him. Requests are a part of the relationship, and He 100% wants you to pray for yourself. However, He really just enjoys you wanting to spend time with Him:). He wants to have the most intimate relationship with you. He smiles when you spend time with Him in prayer:).
This is definitely deep stuff:). It would take me books to explain to you the way my view of God has changed over the years after a number of even life and death experiences and raising a child with severe autism. It's just clear to me that you think you don't deserve His love, and then when you realize that He loves you, you quickly jump to how you can repay Him by being thankful enough for His love. God loves us. It's a wonderful gift, and we can never repay Him for what He's done for us. He just wants us to accept His gift. Then our actions will be motivated by His love, but not by striving to repay Him. There will be no struggle. My verse today in a devotional was, "Come to Me, all of you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest." There's no striving with God:). Just rest in His presence and love.
I definitely think your dream was from God to comfort you. There's this neat book called, "90 Minutes in Heaven". It's about a man who died for 90 minutes and went to Heaven. It's facinating. However, when he came back to earth, he had massive injuries from his car accident. He had a horrible leg injury. Heaven was a wonderful experience, and he was really angry that God sent him back here. The book shows he dealt with the experience of having died and the difference in realities that he experienced between Heaven and Earth.
I think it's O.K. to look for tangible signs. I always look for signs, but the more time I spend time with God out of my love and need for Him, the more easily it is to spot the signs. I have a certain intimate sign with Him that reminds me of His love for me that has to do with Robin birds:). They are very plentiful where I live, but that just means that I am frequently reminded of His love. He will speak to you in a way that is very intimate and personal too. It's O.K. to look for physical signs and circumstances that encourage your faith. It takes time to internalize all of this in our hearts. However, the more your faith grows, the more you will remember the past signs, such as the dream, etc. It will get easier, but I just think it's always a struggle to believe in what you can't see. However, look at this beautiful world-look at the trees, look at the sunset, look at the squirrles and flowers, etc. Humans didn't make those:).
Can I ask you about how you learned about God? For me, my parents took me and sent me to church when I was a small child. However, my father was very abusive, and I tended to think that God was like my abusive father. I also was so fearful that I thought the pastor was drowning my father when he got Baptized! For years or even most of my life, I had a very skewed perspective of God based on fear. I used religion and God to think badly of myself, to beat myself, etc. Could that be an issue for you? I don't mean this in a mean way, but in a way that is understanding because I've been there, but I think you are really being hard on yourself. You are really using all of your energy to get it "just right." I think God just wants you to stop and rest in His love in your relationship with Him:).
I think that there could have been a time in the past when I thought praying for myself was selfish. I can't imagine thinking that way now. Sometimes, people will give you guidelines for prayer. They will break it down into percentages, tell you about formulas that say that you should spend a certain amount of time on yourself and others, etc. The truth of the matter is that if you have a heart that desires to spend time with God, He will guide you in your interactions with him. He just wants you to be yourself:). There's really no "wrong" way to pray. If you truly feel that you only want to pray for yourself, then God knows your heart and He wants honesty. He will then work His love in you to give you a heart to pray for others. He'll do the work:) when you spend time with Him. So just be honest, and God will do the rest.
Hope something I said helps. Feel free to private message me if you would like and think I can help in any way:).
Take care,
luvpiggy
