Believe in God; - joyful or burdensome?

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Hoosier said:
I prayed, and while I didn’t feel “automatic joy,” I felt a lift later in the day.
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Many who didn’t get the hint yet, think whenever they pray, there must be automatically joy coming up. But in fact it’s such with this joy:

It’s the joy, that’s continuously in you, when you “have” God - like when you “have” a very dear person you love.

You might talk over many a sad thing with this person, feeling not at all joyful at the time - but you are still joyful to be loved by this person and have her or him, all the time, and you are sad if you lost this person.

This sadness is in atheists. If they analyze their happiness they have for other reasons - be it good friends or money or whatever, they’ll find an emptiness, founded on bottomless loneliness.
The contrary so to Christians who “have” God.

It is joyful to know for a child, that he at any time and out of and any situation can run to his loving parent and be comforted.

It is joyful to know for a Christian, that he at any time can turn at any time and in any situation to his loving Father in Heaven and be comforted!

In the Old Testament, Hanna in 1 Sam 1:18 was terribly sad and even couldn’t eat for her grieve. Then she prayed and put all her sorrow into the hands of God. And the Bible goes on and tells us:
Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast.
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Hoosier said:
Thank you, everyone who replied to me. I prayed a Rosary this morning, and while I didn’t feel “automatic joy,” I felt a lift later in the day.

Hi Hoosier, 👋
Have you prayed the Rosary again? Since I first read this post I have prayed four more rosarys and went to Mass twice!

Bruno, I’m trying to learn German so maybe we can meet in the middle. 🙂 I will PM you my e-mail.
**Mein Freund Hoosier, Das ist für Sie gut, um eine andere Sprache lernen zu wollen.👍 Ich spreche mehrerer, und hoffentlich machen Ich can mich verstanden in einigen them. Mein Freund Bruno ist ein guter Mann! Er ist gerade ein wenig wortreich!😃

God Bless **
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**When we speak about having joy in Christianity, newcomers to faith and believe in God often seem disappointed, with not actually feeling Jesus’s presence (right away).

They do not really believe and feel, that anyone is listening when they pray.

Suchlike expectations indeed makes them depressed and lonely, even when people at church and priests are nice and practice what they preach.

They do realice though, that before entering "tentatively” into Christianity as former agnostics and existentialists, they didn’t get anywhere and their life was literally empty. Now however, they wrongly thought; at once when they open that new door of beauty of Christianity, they are inmidst in it, profiting right away of all the advantages believers have.

This is expecing too much, and they now think, we where telling them a lie.
But:

We can not expect to feel Jesus presence - before Jesus feels our presence!
Our believe is by far not enough, if we expect a reward for praying - the reward of feeling Gods presence. To pray is a help for us - not or God. To pray is our very lively connection to God IF WE PRAY IN BELIEVE.

If we behave such disappointed; we admit to God, that we do not really believe - until God gives us this reward we ask for.

Let’s be honest: How would we react, if someone we love would tell us; I DON’T BELIEVE YOU LOVE ME - COME ON - PROVE IT!
We’d say: GET OFF ME!

Let’s however not despair. Even Saints - the more they believed in God, the more they recognized how little, how weak their faith in God is. And even to His apostles Jesus said in Mt 17,20: … you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.

Well - it’s not known, if ever a mountain moved because someone told him to. On the other hand; - nobody who really had enough believe to do so, wouldn’t do such thing and thus tempt God, but rather do something useful, like showing others the way to God. Jesus here only demonstrated to us our shortcoming in faith.

In fact; if we had just a bit more than what we think we’d have, we’d be ever so happy and joyful; for then we realized what’s expecting us (according to 1Cor 2,9):

“No eye has ever seen, no ear has ever heard, no mind ever conceived what God has prepared for those who love him”.
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Monica4316 said:
I think that believing in God is joyful, even when there are difficulties. And He is always there to get us through those 🙂
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God is our ultimate concern and reality. Serving Him will not always be a continuous ‘high’. We can expect to suffer as a result of it. This is one of Jesus’ central teachings. Amongst the wicked, we will indeed suffer.
 
**Take the case you are in this moment suffering a harrowing happening, like your child/wife/husband dies, you the news of your doc - you will die soon, - whatever.
Isn’t it ever so joyful then, when you at this point can lay all your forlornness in the hands of God whom you will see soon anyway?

Joy isn’t always ha ha. Joy also is trust in God. Very quiet joy.**
 
Bruno_Schulz said:
**Take the case you are in this moment suffering a harrowing happening, like your child/wife/husband dies, you the news of your doc - you will die soon, - whatever.
Isn’t it ever so joyful then, when you at this point can lay all your forlornness in the hands of God whom you will see soon anyway?

Joy isn’t always ha ha. Joy also is trust in God. Very quiet joy.**
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Hi Bruno, 👋

Some sayings I often read:

When you get tangled up in your problems, be still. God wants us to be still so He can untangle the knot.

Live simply, Love generously, and Care deeply, Speak kindly … Leave the rest to God.

I don’t know why some people change churches; what difference does it make which one you stay home from?

Quit griping about your church, if it was perfect, you couldn’t belong.

Don’t let your worries get the best of you; remember, Moses started out as a basket case.

Many folks want to serve God, but only as advisors.

God Bless **
 
‘O dying souls! behold your living spring!
O dazzled eyes! behold your sun of grace!
Dull ears attend what word this word doth bring!
Up, heavy hearts, with joy your joy embrace!
From death, from dark, from deafness, from despairs,
This life, this light, this word, this joy repairs.’

St. Robert Southwell

Psalm 118:6
 
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seekdatruth said:
Psalm 118:6
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Psalm 118:6 sounds different to me:

" Der Herr ist für mich, ich werde mich nicht fürchten.
Was könnte ein Mensch mir tun?"

This Psalm was the word, my PROTESTANT faher kept repeating. He kept saying: What on earth can happen to you, when you have God?!

Here Psalm 118:6 in English:
The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?

The worls would be another one, if people would take this as wisdom.
However: My second father died when he was 55. (I’m a lot older than both of my fathers where ;-)**

nightynight 😉
 
Bruno_Schulz said:
We can not expect to feel Jesus presence - before Jesus feels our presence!
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This should be preached from the pulpit, and advertised on billboards everywhere! Such a simple yet profound thought concealed amongst other wisdom. Amen, Bruno!
 
Bruno,
Psalm 118:6 was not for that post. I know exactly what it really says. Your translation is correct.
 
Bruno_Schulz said:
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Psalm 118:6 sounds different to me:

" Der Herr ist für mich, ich werde mich nicht fürchten.
Was könnte ein Mensch mir tun?"

This Psalm was the word, my PROTESTANT faher kept repeating. He kept saying: What on earth can happen to you, when you have God?!

Here Psalm 118:6 in English:
The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?

The worls would be another one, if people would take this as wisdom.
However: My second father died when he was 55. (I’m a lot older than both of my fathers where ;-)**

nightynight 😉
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Not to get too far off track, but Psalm 118:6 is beautiful, not because it means having God on your side means you have a magic shield from all earthly harm. NO, what it means is what happens to you in this world doesn’t matter. It’s the prize in the end that makes all here seem like it doesn’t matter if you feel pain, or people kick you around. If you have your eye on that prize, who cares what people say or do? I’d even say there could be a considerable amount of joy in that type of belief! 😉
 
seekdatruth said:
Not to get too far off track, but Psalm 118:6 is beautiful, not because it means having God on your side means you have a magic shield from all earthly harm. NO, what it means is what happens to you in this world doesn’t matter. It’s the prize in the end that makes all here seem like it doesn’t matter if you feel pain, or people kick you around. If you have your eye on that prize, who cares what people say or do? I’d even say there could be a considerable amount of joy in that type of belief! 😉
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Hi seek, 👋

Having been in constant pain since 14 May 1966, all I can add to your posting is AMEN!

Bruno, I am Disabled, I am not an Invalid (in a chair, as you asked). Like you, much of my disability is “invisable” to others One finger on my left hand being the exception! (Gunshot wounds chest stomach and left hand!) I amlso have health problems due to Agent Orange exposure. Ever hear of it? Click On: God Bless America

God is good, all praise and glory to Him!**
 
**well old man 😉 - my disability is “visible”.
In fact when I’m in the public indoor swimming pool here in Karlsruhe, many asked me: Gosh, what’s that for a scarf there an this big swelling on your chest.
And I have the story then about my implanted defibrillator
“when I cough, the garage door opens” 😃

At the moment I’m very concerned about the many hostilities the Pope is attacked by.
The pope is right in his rehabilitation of several Priests who did wrong.
Who else but the Pope can show us what it means to forgive.**
 
Real, yes, Agent Orange I got in on too.

Keep Smiling! It makes people wonder what you’ve been up to…

And why shouldn’t the Pope forgive the Priests? Like we forgive our own children? Like God forgives us? Still, there may be consequences to face for the behavior done, although it is forgiven by God.
 
**Tell me: Is there so much fuss in the States about this Popes rehabilitation of several priests?

Of course it was ridiculous and downright stupid of that British Bishop Richard Williamson, to deny German gas chambers and the murder of almost 6 Mio. Jews. (I always thought it was 5 Mio plus a lot of non-Jews Catholics and Hitler-opponents). Nobody denies this tremendous murder-orgy of Hitlers-Germany. I don’t even think God forgives that.

But ok – Richard Williamson is a silly little thing in that point – so what. The reason because he and other where excommunicated was a different one and doesn’t have the slightest to do with Richard Williamsons denying of Holocaust.

The pope rehabilitated those priests as he forgave them their big mistake to split off the church and brought them back into our church.
The pope also regretted in the same explanation, the holocaust and expressed his sorrow and disgust over the murder of about 6 Mio.

Now the Pope finds himself attacked even by German Bishops and of course politicians and the Jewish world. Of course it’s modernists again. I’m ever so glad, that our Cologne Cardinal Joachim Meisner, stands fully behind the pope. But it’s a deep shame, that Meisner has to “defend” the pope 😦

Sadly enough yesterday our Chancellor Frau Merkel also demands “a clarification” of Pope Benedict. Merkel, whom I always thought was our best Chancellor ever since Adenauer. Ought to hold back on things she doesn’t understand.

It is a shame, that seemingly “modernists” seem to take over our church.
The only hope is Jesus Word in Mt 16,18: And I tell you that you are Peter the rock, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will never overcome it!

Forgiving is the first honour of every Christian and a must. Nothing else the Pope did.
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**here
youtube.com/watch?v=UVvEveN6MKY&feature=channel
is the Pope to currant problems
in German translation though.

Surely you have it in English too. Publish here the internet access when you found it. Many will be interested.

However, my friends and I pray strongly for the Pope and our Church not to get hurt by this so damn stupid current challenge, that doesn’t even have any sense, caused by some ridiculous modernists, who always try to find a black spot on Church and Pope to criticize.

I was very glad to see the Pope talking today.
**
 
Bruno_Schulz said:
**well old man 😉 - my disability is “visible”.
In fact when I’m in the public indoor swimming pool here in Karlsruhe, many asked me: Gosh, what’s that for a scarf there an this big swelling on your chest.
And I have the story then about my implanted defibrillator
“when I cough, the garage door opens” 😃

At the moment I’m very concerned about the many hostilities the Pope is attacked by.
The pope is right in his rehabilitation of several Priests who did wrong.
Who else but the Pope can show us what it means to forgive.**
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I miss the German “spas”! I could really use one of those aroma therapy saunas and the warm salt bath! My joints ache at times because of the anthrax shots, and I have a bad knee which I get a tiny disability pension for. It was strange getting used to all the naked old men at the spa, but they didn’t mind me there, so I didn’t mind them! 😛 after a few times, it was the US military men who bothered me the most! :eek: I wondered when I would see one of my co-workers there and would have to hear them talk about me at work.
I miss kinder egg chocolate, and pfeffer-rahm schnitzel with the little kartoffelen. I got so fat there! And the beer and the WINE! Just the way the forest smells, could make me feel 10 times better right now.
…
Psalm 118:6
 
**Ha ha ha
you don’t say! :-)))
You know what:
several of my friends broke diplomatic relationes with me
because I was too frankly talking about saune (where I am 4 times a week) and come from an hour ago 😉
Very very funny !
They told me - it’s indecent exposure
and that’s what I did for centuries
Obviously I get per elivator to hell 😃
**
 
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