Searching

I love to read and I love to learn new things.  I like to discover new authors.  I love history.  World history, American history, any kind of history, I soak it up.  I have been reading a lot lately about the Civil War, reconstruction, segregation.  I have been reading about WWII.  The things that interest me most is how did people or countries get to a certain place, a certain perspective.  I have a deep interest in the motivations of people, and how they came to do certain things.  How countries came to be the way they are and the motivations and beliefs that led to how they are now.

I have also been reading about religion.  I am interested in the truth, to what the scriptures are actually saying, not what a preacher or denomination tells me that it says.  I have learned that I need to read the entire chapter in the bible, not just a verse, plus put in the context of who was talking, who they were talking to, what certain words really mean according to the times or in the original Greek.  What I have found is that I have been spoon fed doctrines and not the truth.

I am not so sure about certain things as I had before I started studying more deeply.  The more I study, not just the bible but other parts of history, things seem to come together, but I have more questions the more that I learn.  I have been questioned about my faith in doing the questioning and studying of the bible recently.  I was asked do you believe Jesus was who he said he was.  Yes I do believe that.  The next question, why do you believe that but you have questions about other things in the bible?  Good question.  The only answer that I have is that I was raised by a Southern Baptist mother.  I also believe in my spirit that Jesus is who he says he is.  I just happened to be raised this way, by chance.  If I would have been born in the middle east I would have the same strong core belief of a Muslim.  I believe there are many ways to the truth, and evangelicals christians do not have a monopoly on it.

All of this learning and questioning of my faith leaves me exhausted and with more questions than ever before.  It would be much easier to just go with my upbringing and go with the flow.  The question is, is that what God wants me to do?  He is the one that gave me a brain, and an inquisitive mind.  So, no I don't believe that I should just go with the flow.  There is a quote that I like by Galileo:

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

The above makes so much sense to me.  I have so many thoughts about what is in the bible.  But this I believe. When we we are finally with God and all is revealed to us, we are all going to be surprised.  I do not even begin to understand the mystery of God.  I may be wrong, but I believe that quite a lot of the things we have been spoon fed about religion in our generation is wrong.  I believe that God is so much more than we can even conceive him to be.  I think he has more revelations for us, more for us to learn.

This is what I choose to believe.  That our God is a good and loving God.  That we are on earth with free will and bad shit just happens, a lot.  I don't believe that God caused it, or is testing us.  I believe that the eternal spirit of God looks upon the world and sees individuals, not nations or states or regions.  He sees individual souls that he created and loves.  Maybe when I see him, all will be revealed to me, because I have so many questions still.  Maybe when I shed the flesh that holds my eternal soul that is when all will be revealed, when I will be able to handle all of the mysteries. 

This is my journey, to seek the truth, whatever it might be.