You might find it odd, but I actually had never really read the bible prior to getting saved. I had read a children's bible at the age of seven or so but that was about it. A big picture storybook pretty much. I truly did not recognize him when he appeared in my life and started working miracles and changes around me. He scared the living daylights out of me more than anything else. I could not deny his presence, I wish I couild describe it to you. Imagine a room charged with electricity that feels like the wavelength of life. Imagine really big hands lifting you up. Imagine being healed by an invisble touch. Imagine being protected by an invisible force in very dangerous circumstances. Yet it was impossible for me to trust him because, though he may have known me, I did not know him. And the devil really took advantage of that, I was very easy prey. Trusting him, knowing him, it took me years.
The bible helped me sort fact from fiction, to have peace and know that he is God. That may sound odd to you again, but God is not a reality to you like he is to me. What is really interesting and brought me to tears literally for a really long time, was that during that time when i was so confused and going through so much, he was there, and everything he did, every way he asked me to go, it's right there in the bible already. I guess that's why a lot of Christians call it their roadmap, their letter from God. I am inclined to agree.
He is just as powerful and wonderful as the bible makes him appear btw, and I think I only got an inkling of it.
Look, if this delusion makes you happy, then go with it. But I'm sorry - it's a pure delusion. The bible is an insipid book of fairy tales. If you lived in Saudi Arabia, you'd be saying the same glowing things about the Koran and Allah. If you had lived in ancient Greece, you'd have been praying to some God or other. In a Brazilian rainforest, to whatever deities they believe in.
I prefer to be a free person, able to deal with the pains and joys of life as a thinking human being, not encumbered by pure superstition.
And I love how you selectively choose to believe about God's help. Your suffering and sickness... naw, that ain't God, is it? Or... or is this all-powerful being "testing your faith" by causing your suffering, the way he "did" to Job?
if so, he's a cosmic c0cksucker sadistic scumbag. If I saw him, I'd spit in his face for all the pain he's caused. But he doesn't exist, just an indifferent universe dealing out it's random curses and blessings on human beings and animals and plants and everything that's walked or crawled or swam beneath these skies.
I wouldn't trust someone so patently sociopathic, jealous, pathetic, lame, needy, and cruel.
