God does not want me

[Mystical_Seeker]

Where did Jesus say this is the self?

Through several references it is clear, and it became more clear over the years after I started studying the Dark Night and other mystical phenomena to try to explain what was happening to me. If you want to explore it more I can look them up but if you plan to reject whatever I come up with, there would be no benefit so if you really want to discuss it I will come up with examples.

Not sure if God hates me, but he definitely does not want me.

I’ve felt like at times like how that sounds, although I have too many ideas about why He might want me to think He doesn’t. I don’t know what my life will or won’t mean to Him but I know that I am capable of much.

Jesus said the one who believes in Him will do ever greater works, than the “miracles” that Jesus was doing to show that He had authority. If I believe Him then how can I resist that He has something that can be done on His behalf, through me…

Jn 4:11-12
Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works themselves. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father.

I have to worry, I’m the one carrying my cross.

Jesus said not to worry. You say you have to worry. If you believe that what Jesus says is impossible and that He really “didn’t mean it that way” then you are not taking Him at His word anyway and thus do may not have power to protect against the worry and judgment your culture has helped you get built into a seemingly stable cognitive structure.

So yes you have to carry your cross in that you have to deal with whatever your life brings moment by moment, so you aren’t supposed to have to do what Jesus did. If we could do that He wouldn’t have had to bother coming at all. Just expect that the world will lie to you – for example by causing to you believe that you must be worried and upset because of all that is wrong which is a common lie among even supposedly believing Catholics and we can see how we reinforce each other to focus on judging the world and condemning how far it is from God – something Pope Francis speaks against. This is something we have pounded into us because the world requires that you be able to be controlled and the more doubt and fear you have about God, the better their worldly non-solutions of worry and despair can sound.

Well, I’m still not without sin, so I haven’t received sufficient grace.

Avoiding sin, and being worried about it especially unto the point of believe God doesn’t want you, is a lie that Jesus came to save us from. I am confident He has the power that if God wills, the Spirit can give you direction. It’s very hard to tell though when you’re bummed out which makes it harder not to bum out – so yeah it’s a new concept that “grace” is not about “being without sin” or none of us would qualify.

As a matter of fact, this “self is evil” thinking is caused by sin! This is when you can see nothing but your own sins and cannot see the graces from God you are swimming in right now. This kind of thinking is exactly the kind of thinking that you have to abandon, if you want to pick up your cross and follow Jesus.

It may sound harsh, or like “blaming the victim” but that’s how He lays out the situation.

 

[nuntym]

+JMJ+

Avoiding sin, and being worried about it especially unto the point of believe God doesn’t want you, is a lie that Jesus came to save us from. I am confident He has the power that if God wills, the Spirit can give you direction. It’s very hard to tell though when you’re bummed out which makes it harder not to bum out – so yeah it’s a new concept that “grace” is not about “being without sin” or none of us would qualify.

I have to agree with Mystical Seeker, this is also the conclusion I found when I was studying St. Therese of Lisieux’s Little Way.

She once said to one of the younger sisters in her convent:

We are not sinners who cry over our sins; we take delight in them because they serve to glorify the mercy of God.

Many years later, after St Therese was canonized, this sister remarked: “What canonized Saint has ever spoken this way?” (The Letters Of St. Thérèse of Lisieux and Those Who Knew Her: General Correspondence, 1122).

It may be beneficial for you to read the writings of St. Therese of Lisieux, but I personally attest that they can be hard to understand for people who are at first put off by her flowery speech. I heartily recommend the books of Joseph F. Schmidt on her, either Everything is Grace: The Life and Way of Therese of Lisieux or Walking the Little Way of Therese of Lisieux: Discovering the Path of Love.

 

[nuntym]

+JMJ+

Yes, but I also need the grace to cooperate.

Think of it this way.

If cooperating with grace is equivalent to running a marathon, and my proverbial legs are broken, I need grace to get my proverbial legs healed. Otherwise, I’ll never see that finish line.

Or you can use your hands to crawl until Jesus in His mercy picks you up and brings you to the finish line.

This is St. Therese of Lisieux’s Little Way.

 

[Vico]

…

The following Church teaching should be helpful to get an understanding of our cooperation with grace. Pope Innocent X, from the Constitution “Cum occasione,” May 31, 1653, Errors from Augustinus of Cornelius Jansen 1. Some of God’s precepts are impossible to the just, who wish and strive to keep them, according to the present powers which they have; the grace, by which they are made possible, is also wanting.
*Declared and condemned as rash, impious, blasphemous, condemned by anathema, and heretical.

• 1. In the state of fallen nature one never resists interior grace.
     *Declared and condemned as heretical.
• 1. In order to merit or demerit in the state of fallen nature, freedom from necessity is not required in man, but freedom from external compulsion is sufficient.
     *Declared and condemned as heretical.
• 1. The Semipelagians admitted the necessity of a prevenient interior grace for each act, even for the beginning of faith; and in this they were heretics, because they wished this grace to be such that the human will could either resistor obey.
     *Declared and condemned as false and heretical.
• 1. It is Semipelagian to say that Christ died or shed His blood for all men without exception.
     *Declared and condemned as false, rash, scandalous, and understood in this sense, that Christ died for the salvation of the predestined, impious, blasphemous, contumelious, dishonoring to divine piety, and heretical.

*Source: Denzinger The Sources of Catholic Dogma 1957 - Dz. 1092-1096

rosarychurch.net/history/1653_Innocent_X.html
patristica.net/denzinger/#n1000
newadvent.org/cathen/08285a.htm

 

[BobCatholic]

+JMJ+

And that is the point: you do not know what you are talking about. You cannot just blindly interpret Jesus’ words the way you want to without any guidance, especially when you are most likely in spiritual desolation.

Read again that Scripture quote, but in context of the surrounding story. When Jesus said that, He had just rebuked Peter for thinking wrong:

31 And he began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 And he said this plainly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter, and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not on the side of God, but of men.”

34 And he called to him the multitude with his disciples, and said to them, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? 37 For what can a man give in return for his life? 38 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of man also be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Mark 8:31-38

The context is suffering and dying. The self does not like suffering. That’s why the self is evil.

In other words, to “deny yourself” is to deny or abandon how you usually think, the way of thinking that has been influenced by sin. You must stop seeing and thinking like men and start seeing things and thinking as God does. Only then can you see that picking up your cross is not folly, and then you can start following Christ.

It also means to suffer. Horrendous suffering.

Life is not meant to have happiness.

 

[BobCatholic]

The self can’t be evil, for God created it, and He created all things good, and man very good (Genesis 1). The problem with our selves in that we are fragmented: that different parts of us wage war against each other (emotion vs rational).

We are to give up sin. Sin is evil.
We are to give up the self.

What do both of these have in common? We are to give them up.

Sin is evil. Therefore, the self must also be evil.

 

[BobCatholic]

Through several references it is clear, and it became more clear over the years after I started studying the Dark Night and other mystical phenomena to try to explain what was happening to me. If you want to explore it more I can look them up but if you plan to reject whatever I come up with, there would be no benefit so if you really want to discuss it I will come up with examples.

Before one goes through the Dark night of the soul, one goes through the dark night of the senses. Before one goes through the dark night of the senses, one gets some nice consolations (look at Mother Theresa’s story, or the story of any saint)

I never got that consolation, but I got a dark night kind of situation. Clearly I don’t have a dark night, I have a true rejection from God.

God does not want me.

Jesus said the one who believes in Him will do ever greater works, than the “miracles” that Jesus was doing to show that He had authority.

I never can do better works therefore my belief in Jesus is not enough, no wonder God does not want me.

Jesus said not to worry. You say you have to worry.

Yes, because I am not exempt from suffering and am required to suffer. God’s providence is great in some areas of life, and in other areas is completely absent (so it is not dependable)

I must always worry. The future is horrible.

 

[BobCatholic]

+JMJ+

Or you can use your hands to crawl until Jesus in His mercy picks you up and brings you to the finish line.

This is St. Therese of Lisieux’s Little Way.

He has never done that. Therefore, He won’t do that.