I just wanted to say thank you because I have recently been struggling with this notion of what is causing the lack in my life. My husband and I could both relate very much to the premise of your e-mail so I got a great deal out of it.
Now, I recently met a self-proclaimed, born-again Christian woman who was quick to point out that the reason I was experiencing the pain I have been experiencing for some time was because (and she quoted Bible scripture at me) of the iniquities that we have that separate us from God. She said that since I wasn’t going to a church and I wasn’t tithing that God wasn’t listening to my prayer because God doesn’t listen to a sinner’s prayer — only when the sinner is praying to repent does God hear a sinner’s prayer, she said — and that what I needed to do was to repent and re-commit myself to God.
Needless to say, I’m confused about what I’m hearing and the scriptures used to "prove" my new friend’s points. I have had an uneasy feeling about reverting to Christianity, in the context of "church" to find the peace and prosperity I’ve been seeking and has so far been eluding me, probably because I had it shoved down my throat 24/7 as the daughter of Christian missionaries and I never saw it exemplified positively.
I realize I have been resisting making the mental changes required to implement all the great stuff I’ve been learning and now I find myself really resisting what I just heard from my new friend here because it feels like it’s a step backwards, and at the risk of sounding or being arrogant, I feel I’ve evolved beyond it. My horizons are much wider now and I have a much larger view of the world and the universe, and I KNOW that there is no such thing as Good without Evil, Up without Down, Sound without Silence, Light without Dark, Black without White, etc., and that these opposite pairs co-exist and are dependent on each other for their very existence. What bothers me about "Christians" is the over-simplification of what Christ actually did and said, and their black and white views about everything and the certainty that THEY have the only "truth" about life.
I’ve been studying this issue of tithing and because I am NOT convinced that going to church is something I want to do at present, and not only have I not been able to muster up the faith to tithe, I haven’t known where to do my tithing even when I’ve said, okay, I want to take the leap. I attended my mother-in-law’s church recently and have seen a lot of growth in that church and I felt spiritually nourished by what the Pastor there had to say one day, but I am not able to attend there regularly because it is out of town. So, should I tithe there? I have heard from non-religious prosperity teachers consistently that I should tithe where I feel I am spiritually nourished. Well, this presents a challenge because I feel very much spiritually nourished by the authors of prosperity consciousness programs when I listen to the CDs I buy, or read the newsletters I subscribe to, or the various books I buy on the subject of manifesting prosperity. There are more sources of spiritual nourishment than I can count! What a blessing, wouldn’t you say? How do I know where to tithe?
I also can’t figure out for the life of me why I can’t resolve the unconscious conflicts I have already identified so that I can implement successfully the things that are supposed to bring me happiness and prosperity.
I don’t know why I have felt compelled to address these questions to you at this particular moment in time, but if you have any insights on this that you would care to share, I would welcome your input on the points I have brought up.
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MN:
Norayda, I love all the wonderful truths alive in all the great religions. Every one one of them, at base, is about finding a higher source of Love, Surrender and Forgiveness.
What I find very disturbing, though, is individual interpretations of "God’s Word" (as if that’s God’s Word, itself). I believe anything that elevates and uplifts is of God, and that which engenders fear and division is not.
Discover the truth inside yourself by simply asking yourself "Does this fill me with warmth and love, or fear and foreboding?"
Your inner response may be very different from someone else’s to the same situation or words.
And from that context, find God’s truth inside of you.
