star said:
I hear what you are saying but when you have close relationship with GOd and He is really Lord over your life.
Just for the record, I know very well that if God really wants something to happen, it'll happen. I learned that on the day I was in a car accident that, by all rights, probably should've killed me. I was driving a 1988 Chevy Nova and turning onto a curved street, and I didn't see the cement mixer coming at me from the left. It pretty much tore off the front end of my car; I walked away without a scratch. If nothing else, I learned that day that God must've put me here for a reason, determined as he is to make sure that I stick around. *g*
But as an ex-Jehovah's Witness, I'm all too familiar with "waiting on God" for all the wrong reasons. That's what I as getting at. It's what the Elders/Governing Body/Watchtower/Awake! told us to do every single week:
Armageddon's coming Real Soon Now, so you should be out preaching, not wasting your life on building a career or getting an education. Or else, God will kill you. Just be patient; you'll be saved from this awful world. See, we've got Scriptural proof right here, so you know we're right. You may not understand our rules, but ignore that little voice that tells you something's wrong. That's just "independent thinking," and we all know that "independent thinking" is from Satan. Let us do your thinking for you. What? You think God is speaking to you and telling you our interpretations aren't right, or that you need to get on with your life? I'm sorry, that's just Satan trying to trick you. If it were really God, that voice would agree with US.
That's a little taste of what I saw, heard and experienced as a faithful Jehovah's Witness. It almost wrecked my life. And it's not just the Witnesses, either. I've seen the same kind of confusion and paranoid fear in fundamentalist religion in general, even if those churches don't generally shun former members. I've seen it in people who are just like I was, trying to do The Right Thing. They believe in a specific "something" so strongly that they can't hear anything else, even when it's God.
Basically, I do believe that God can and does guide circumstances. You just have to give him something to guide, and you have to be receptive when he tells you what to do. When I was unemployed, I didn't find a job just by praying. I had to send out resumes and go on interviews. And I wouldn't have become a Christian in the first place if I'd just ignored it when, for all the world, it sounded like someone was whispering Jesus' name to me....
~R. :Rose:
