please explain this superstition

[third_servant]

Augustine:

Ask Him. He doesn’t really need your permission, as He is your Father and you are His child.

I didn’t say he needed my permission. Christ’s suffering meant something because he willingly gave permission, it was not put on him.

My suffering is worthless because it is imposed on me.

He may use even suffering to teach you. We’re typically not good students, so suffering helps breaking our pride and bringing us humility to trust in God in all things.

How can I trust God when he doesn’t want to help me? He avoids telling me what to do to fix things, he avoids helping me in temporal needs.

 

[third_servant]

Augustine:

He does want you to use your strength serving Him, not the other way around.

He doesn’t want to give me strength. Just wants to hurt me.

 

[third_servant]

SPOKENWORD:

Hi Third servant. Are you seeking the Face of God? You have to be honest with yourself. Are you putting God first in your life? Are you obeying what He tells you to do?.

Yes.

What action are you taking when God speaks to You?

First, he has to talk to me so I can hear him. When he is silent, game over. he expects me to read his mind.

 

[third_servant]

You say it’s evil, but God is doing you good. A good parent will admonish or punish a child, as hurtful as it is, but it’s for the child’s good. Why do you think that your Heavenly Father would be less than an earthly parent? He’s got His own plain to save you, it’s not yours. So shut up and fall to your knees in thanking for God’s love.

The difference between a human parent and God is that a human parent will say WHY he’s doing something, and talk to the child. God is not talking to me, he expects me to read his mind and holds me responsible (by punishing me) for failing to do so.

 

[third_servant]

Augustine:

You lazy person! So you want it the easy way, don’t you?

How completely stuck up you’re coming across.

I do too, but, as you said, it doesn’t work. After “making a wish”, what did you do towards that wish? You can’t take the first step without a wish, but not taking you is a sure way that the wish will be nothing more than that.

I didn’t just make a wish. I had 4 years of trying to figure out God’s will and he refuses to speak. It is God who is getting lazy! He won’t tell me what I’m supposed to do, it is God who doesn’t want to help me in my temporal needs, it is God that expects me to do his will without telling me what it is and providing. LAZY!

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Wow, I am sorry that you are experiencing all this. It stinks, doesn’t it? It’s no wonder that it is hard for you to “hear” God when what it looks like He’s doing is ignoring you or punishing you because you aren’t getting what you want. And it’s not like you’re asking for more than anybody else. . .I don’t see you asking for incredible wealth or power.

I’ll tell you what, though. I’ll pray for you, too. And I know a lot of posters are praying for you. I have faith that God will answer your prayers. I have faith that you have a purpose. I have faith that God loves you.

If right now it’s extra hard for you to have that faith, maybe knowing that you have friends who will carry that faith FOR you when it is rough will help a bit.

God bless you, and I’ll say a novena of Divine Mercy just for you, starting right now.

Be not afraid. . .
He will hold you in the palm of His Hand.

 

[third_servant]

4 years out of a 80 years life span? That’s nothing! He’s got all the time in eternity, but you’ve got just your life span.

Right. God can wait forever. I can’t. That’s why I’m complaining that God is taking too long to help.

And if I’m supposed to have a 80 year life span, how am I supposed to survive if God doesn’t want to help?

When God is for you, who can be against you? When God is against you, who can be FOR you? Typical.

 

[third_servant]

serendipity:

This sounds like condescending rubbish.

Yeah, you’re right.

God works through people, if they are open to him.

God doesn’t do anything, he expects us to do his work for him.

 

[third_servant]

serendipity:

I agree with you, in this sense. Hope is a virtue, and as such somewhat of a gift.

A gift God refuses to give me.

Supposedly there are options every where, we just need to learn how to see them. I still believe that.

Unfortunately, all the doors are closed and God won’t help me open any of them. I’m stuck.

 

[third_servant]

Tantum ergo:

Wow, I am sorry that you are experiencing all this. It stinks, doesn’t it? It’s no wonder that it is hard for you to “hear” God when what it looks like He’s doing is ignoring you or punishing you because you aren’t getting what you want. And it’s not like you’re asking for more than anybody else. . .I don’t see you asking for incredible wealth or power.

You seem to understand me.

I’ll tell you what, though. I’ll pray for you, too. And I know a lot of posters are praying for you. I have faith that God will answer your prayers. I have faith that you have a purpose. I have faith that God loves you.

Thanks.

Be not afraid. . .
He will hold you in the palm of His Hand.

Assuming I’m still in his hand.

 

[grotto]

Third Servant - I will pray for you today that you will stop having a tantrum over your lot in life. You are making yourself miserable so how can you be pleasing to Our Lord? In this earthly life we have to toil and struggle. I bet you can get some kind of job, maybe not the one you have hoped four years for, so maybe you need to pursue something else. You will probably be successful at that and what will happen to your sorrowful lot in life? You will probably say, I don’t know why I didn’t make a change sooner! God has let you rely on yourself as he does all of us - just gives us help we need when we ask - all that we need. Good luck (thats a superstition).:tiphat:

 

[msh]

“if you think positive, things will get better”

Frankly, this looks like some kind of superstition, as if “positive thoughts” are some kind of talisman that wards away evil.

Taking this from the standpoint that all we are is what God made of us, and our evils are our human failings - Positive thoughts would be God’s gift to us, right? Think to what circumstances have downtrodden you, think to why you feel so alone, and away from positiveness. Now think about God. How does He appear to you? Do you see Him as being a tormentor? Do you see Him as being a guiding light?

I have fallen so many times from His grace. I have been beaten down, and have looked around me and screamed out “Why do You do this to me?”, and I would ignore Him, and criticise Him and His actions. I refused Him for a very, very long time.

One day, I arose from sleep, and took an honest look at my life. Had I done as He asked, and followed His voice? Had I persisted when the world gave me doubts? Wasn’t I the one to refuse His love, not the other way around?

When I realized that I was the one who had let down Him, and not He me, I began to see why God “was not showing me positive things”. I couldn’t see them. I wasn’t able to take pleasure in the world around me, because I turned my back on Him. I wasn’t able to truly love, because I twisted the love inside myself. I wasn’t smiling, because I turned away from every one of God’s outstretched hands.

If you believe in God, if you have faith in God, if you follow what God has shown us, things DO get better. If you confess to God, if you pray to God, if you honestly believe in God, your world DOES change. You see the beauty He gave to the world, the shadows over your perception will life and reveal the light.

When we are born into poverty, or with abusive parents, does this mean God foresakes us? No. This is a human failing of our parents, or another person who is connected to our parents - there is a human failing somewhere along that chain. Does this mean that He does not help us? No, He does! He gives us our hope, He gives us our drive to educate ourselves, to find others who follow Him, to pull ourselves out from under the sins of another’s past.

This is what I have come to see through God.

 

[third_servant]

grotto:

Third Servant - I will pray for you today that you will stop having a tantrum over your lot in life. You are making yourself miserable so how can you be pleasing to Our Lord?

I am not pleasing to our Lord since he hates me.

I bet you can get some kind of job,

You’d lose that bet. I don’t have good fortune.

 

[third_servant]

msh:

Now think about God. How does He appear to you? Do you see Him as being a tormentor? Do you see Him as being a guiding light?

I see him as a bystander in life who doesn’t want to help.

One day, I arose from sleep, and took an honest look at my life. Had I done as He asked, and followed His voice?

Yes. But I’m punished for doing so.

When we are born into poverty, or with abusive parents, does this mean God foresakes us?

When I ask for help from God and he doesn’t, that’s not a failing from him? He’s abandoned me.

 

[msh]

third_servant:

I see him as a bystander in life who doesn’t want to help. Yes. But I’m punished for doing so. When I ask for help from God and he doesn’t, that’s not a failing from him? He’s abandoned me.

Place the circumstance like this:

God gives us legs to walk with, eyes to see with, hearts that beat, and fingers that touch. If we lie on our beds, and do not use what God has given us, does that mean He has abandoned us? No, it means we refuse to use what He gave to us. If our legs fail to walk, do we pray for God to intercede, or do we use God’s gift of knowledge and seek out therapy to aid in our walking?

It would help to know what you ask of God. I see by your signature that you have given up looking for a job so that you might instead find hope. Are you not indeed giving up what God has given you, and instead are choosing to ask him for what you already have?

I too am unemployed, and this is by MY doing. My failure. God gave me my gifts, and I misused them. God is showing me new ways to use those gifts as long as I honor what He gave to me and do not abuse them. I don’t blame God for my unemployment, I thank Him for opening my eyes. I look at my faults, and I study hard to see what is expected of me. I stumble and I fall. I learn, most importantly.

When I have learned what I need to fix my failures through God, He will open those doors for me once again. Now is not my time, and He has provided for me in my time of need. He opens the way for others to take care of me, while I get back on the right track with Him. What you need to do, is to trust in Him. That’s sometimes a very long, rocky road.

I do sympathize with you, please believe me. I know it is very hard, very difficult to see any light when you are down a dark well of despair and hardship. It’s not been so long that I have forgotten my own fear, my own anger, my own rejection. I hope I never forget that period in my life, because through that fire, I have come to understand what God is to me.

 

[third_servant]

msh:

God gives us legs to walk with, eyes to see with, hearts that beat, and fingers that touch. If we lie on our beds, and do not use what God has given us, does that mean He has abandoned us? No, it means we refuse to use what He gave to us. If our legs fail to walk, do we pray for God to intercede, or do we use God’s gift of knowledge and seek out therapy to aid in our walking?

And if God doesn’t tell me what we are supposed to do, and I’m too stupid to figure it out, and I get punished for not doing his will, how is that fair? How is that just?

It would help to know what you ask of God. I see by your signature that you have given up looking for a job so that you might instead find hope. Are you not indeed giving up what God has given you, and instead are choosing to ask him for what you already have?

God didn’t give me a job. God hasn’t given me hope.

I too am unemployed, and this is by MY doing.

My unemployment is not through my doing. It is through the failure of current employers who won’t hire me.

Now is not my time, and He has provided for me in my time of need.

He’s not providing me now.

What you need to do, is to trust in Him.

how do I trust in a God who refuses to help?

 

[msh]

I don’t think you’re too stupid to know what God is asking of you. I do think that your pain and depression at not being hired is what is superceding your trust, though.

Maybe you are asking for positions of employment that do not fit with these employers criteria? Maybe you’re too qualified for their positions? Maybe they have their own bias. Review who you are applying to, and review how you choose to interview. We cannot expect others to accept us, when we go out into the world with our fists raised in anger.

You do sound angry, and rightfully so. You percieve the world and God to be against you. When Jesus led his apostles on their journey to witness His teachings, did He not ask them to not take any extra clothing, to leave what they formerly treasured behind, and just simply follow Him? Are you leaving behind your anger to trust in God? Are you leaving behind your grief at being turned down for job, and not using your God given gifts to give to others, to share your love with others?

Have you considered volunteering? Have you considered taking a lesser position, and working your way through the lower eschelons in order to have employment? Have you considered sacrificing comforts in order to have necessities? Have you reached out to your local Church, and asked for their assistance? Have you gone to employment agencies, and asked for their guidance? Have you taken your lawnmower, and walked door to door aksing if anyone would like a 10$ yard cut?

God gives you the ability to walk on two feet and ask for the things you think are beneath you - but are simply the means in which to survive. Try volunteering at church, try reaching out to organizations which help employ people. Though those hands, you can find people who will help you.

 

[montanaman]

I think I’m sinking back into the manageable misery of a few years ago. I recently came back to at least weekly Mass attendance and decided to start living up to the things I believed in. I prayed, maybe not as much as I should have, but a lot more than I ever did. I confessed regularly, went to Mass as often as possible, and tried to “trust in Jesus.”

I’m not saying that all that is worthless, but as far as relying on answers from above, forget it. The blessings I have in my life may or may not be from God–I don’t know. The total emptiness I feel whether I’m “trusting in Jesus” and “living the life” or when I’ve basically given up is the same. Ultimately, we have to get through this life. God may be intervening, he may be testing–I just don’t know. I DON’T KNOW.

I’ve been active in the Church–I started an apologetics group that basically flopped. It wasn’t bad, just a few older folks whose numbers dwindled every week. I’ve kept up the prayers even if I didn’t feel like it. I’ve tried to empty myself of my own will. I’ve tried to accept what might be gifts (like my job) even if they make me miserable.

How many more years of this uncertainty, emptiness and doubt? You’ve got to be kidding me.

I’ve been out there in the darkness, and it has at least one thing going for it–ultimately, you KNOW you’re going to Hell. Trying to live a faithful life, trying to love an absent God while not believing for a second that it matters one way or the other, well, that’s Hell, too.

But hey–think positive!

 

[third_servant]

msh:

I don’t think you’re too stupid to know what God is asking of you. I do think that your pain and depression at not being hired is what is superceding your trust, though.

I think it is because God is not providing, that’s making it hard to trust.

Maybe you are asking for positions of employment that do not fit with these employers criteria? Maybe you’re too qualified for their positions?

Even when I dumb down my resume to get a lower paying job, I never get past the person who accepts my application. I apply with a + attitude and a smile, application is professional, resume polished, and no job.

Are you leaving behind your grief at being turned down for job, and not using your God given gifts to give to others, to share your love with others?.

How can I help others when I can’t help myself? That’s hypocrisy.

Have you considered volunteering?

With what money do I use to pay the transportation costs? Oh yeah, the non-existent money God gives me.

Have you considered taking a lesser position, and working your way through the lower eschelons in order to have employment?

Yes! I’ve dumbed down my resume. Scratch degrees/experience and made the remaining look like I’m an ordinary Joe schmoe. No dice. Not one iota of a job.

Have you considered sacrificing comforts in order to have necessities?

I’m living a demilitarized war zone. What comforts do I have? NONE.

Have you reached out to your local Church, and asked for their assistance?

Church has no jobs.

Have you gone to employment agencies, and asked for their guidance?

Yes. They can’t help me find a job. Not one of the dozens of employment agencies helped me get a job.

Have you taken your lawnmower, and walked door to door aksing if anyone would like a 10$ yard cut?

I don’t have a lawnmower and I tried that - most people here can’t afford to have their lawns cut or don’t have lawns to cut.

God gives you the ability to walk on two feet and ask for the things you think are beneath you

so he can say “NO” and laugh in my face.

 

[third_servant]

montanaman:

I’ve been out there in the darkness, and it has at least one thing going for it–ultimately, you KNOW you’re going to Hell. Trying to live a faithful life, trying to love an absent God while not believing for a second that it matters one way or the other, well, that’s Hell, too.

Hell is bad. So is life.

But hey–think positive!

sigh