An apology of sorts

I occasionally struggle with feeling like no one in the world understands me. Actually, it happens a lot. For some reason, I keep trying to share what's in my heart just to have people think I've jumped off the deep end. You'd think I'd learn to keep it to myself, but no dice. Apparently I am a glutton for punishment.

I initiated a thread on Facebook last week stating I was fed up with Christianity. I tried to express that I want to know Jesus, I want to know him more than anything I've ever wanted in my whole life, but that Christianity, as a whole, has become incredibly frustrating and confusing for me. I want to be part of a church that looks like the New Testament, and I'm just not seeing it. It feels like I'm just going through religious motions.

I want more. Or else I don't want anything at all.

I question the weirdest things. I wonder whether my great love for the bible itself has become an idol for me. I wonder whether I pray because I was taught to as a child, and not because I'm really connecting with the heart of God, because a lot of the time I feel like my prayers bounce off the ceiling.

I wonder why, since God has all the power in the universe at his disposal, since He is able to heal the sick and raise the dead, well, I wonder how come He doesn't do so more often. I wonder why He supposedly wants us to know Him and love Him but how someone like me can spend years and years praying and reading my bible, aching and yearning to connect and know Him, and yet feel He is aloof; far away and only mildly interested in those He has made to reflect His image.

I've tried to talk to my friends about how I'm sick of church. I've tried asking questions of other Christians, hoping maybe I'd latch on to something in one of their answers that would act as a key unlocking this door of confusion and frustration. My Facebook posts have becoming increasingly angsty and confrontational in my desperate attempt to explain my discontent.

The thing is, I'm unhappy because I believe to my core that I was created to know and love God, to enjoy him, to commune with him. I believe that my whole freaking purpose. And yet I'm supposed to be content to read a book, find a verse or two, and hope it speaks something profound and life changing? I mean, I get that the bible leads us to Jesus. It teaches us about him.  It teaches us how to live. Great. Fine. Now what?

When I ask friends how they know if God is speaking to them, most of them more or less say they really don't. I was super discouraged to find that most of my Christian friends don't really sound like they know Jesus very well. Not like they know their spouses or kids or even a close friend or anything . They talk about knowing him through obedience and through learning about him in the scriptures and such, but I guess that's just not enough for me. I can know an author of any book in that kind of way. I want to know God in a deeper way than that.

So, I'm seeking. But I'm frustrated, and it shows.

If you encounter me through Facebook or even in real life, please keep that in mind. I'm not mad at you, it isn't that I don't like you or care about your thoughts and feedback, it's just that I am so driven right now trying to communicate my deep need for more that I kind of come across like a jerk.

I'm sorry.

I'm not willing to play around at this thing any more though. I'm either all in or I'm out.

Does that make sense?

amy Danielle