What you are about to read comes from a website that I counsel teens and young adults on. At HELPinChrist.com, myself and other Christians help people who are having problems, believers or not, get through their challenging times of life using scripture... Preaching the Law to the proud, and giving grace to the humble, is always our primary goal...
I wanted to share a recent submission with you to illustrate the types of challenges that are brought to us quite often actually...
The names are not important, but the outcome is...
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>my_challenge = I'm mad at God is the simpliest answer to that question. When I was younger I had so much faith, but now I can't seem to even walk into a church. Part of the problem is people at my church don't understand how I could be mad at God, and just want the little girl back who loved God so much. How do I get my faith back? How do I trust GOd with my life again after he let me down? How do I get over my fear of walking into church again and starting a new relationship with God?
>how_can_HELPinChrist.com_help = I don't know what you can do. I guess the reason for the email is a need someone who does not know me to help my with my feelings about God. I tried to join an online group, but I could not find one in my age. I just nedd someone to talk over my problems with God, who will not tell me that other people have worst problems and that I should get over mine and trust God again. I dono't know if you can help me, but it is worth the try. Thanks for listening, even if you can't help.
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First of all, I'm sorry for the delay in responding to your submission - normally, I try to get back to people who write in within a day or so of their initial contact, however, your message, quite honestly, left me more than a little perplexed.
The reason is that yours is not the first message I've received that has made mention of someone being mad at God, and sadly, it's not the first to include that He'd seemingly "let you down."
This challenge led me to search the scriptures to try to understand what it is that you're going through, to see if what you're describing is anything that scripture describes as being normal, or even possible for a follower of Christ.
And I just couldn't find it... The things you've described... The challenges and the problems, just aren't there... The Book of Hebrews tells us that He will never leave us or forsake us. So either He is a liar, or it could be that you have some more explaining to do... You see, many people think that they're Christians and on their way to heaven, when in fact, they have an incorrect, un-Biblical understanding of just what Christianity is, and what it means to be a "follower of Christ."
I'm not saying that you aren't a follower of Christ, it's just that I don't find anywhere in the Bible where someone who professed belief in God as their hope of salvation, EVER claimed to be mad at God... Quite on the contrary, I've only been able to find where people over and over again recognized THEIR OWN responsibility for the problems they were having in their lives. Therefore, I'm not going to tell you to "get over it" because other people have it worse than you, so you should "trust God again." Instead, I'm going to suggest that you determine conslusively, whether you ever truly trusted God in the first place...
The Book of Ecclesiasties says that there is a time to laugh, a time to cry, a time to mourn, etc... It makes no mention of "a time to be mad" let alone a time to be mad at God... Again, I'm not judging you, I think I would rather encourage you to think about your relationship with God and consider how you could be mad at the One who gave His life as a sacrifice for your sins so that you could have life everlasting with Him in heaven? In Corinthians, Paul tells us to "examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith" and to "make sure that our calling and election are true" and that is what I want to encourage you to do...
For the moment, don't worry about why you can't stand to walk into a church, but consider your motives for becoming a Christian... Consider the method by which you took up the title of Christian, and please get back to me with a reply to those questions...
I realize that what I've written is probably a lot to digest - I know it would be for me, so take a day or two - or a week or two if necessary... But do this first - listen to or watch the message "Hell's Best Kept Secret"
Perhaps the answer to the questions you're asking will be found there.
When you're done with that, read Romans 6, and when you're ready, get back to me so we can see about sorting things out.
I look forward to hearing back from you...
-Benjamin, The Sower
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