"Whoever does not love, does not know God. Because God is love." 1 John 4:8
Were you aware of that scripture? For years, I wasn't aware of it.
I was raised on Hell-fire and brimstone sermons. And waiting for the rapture. I was given the impression; as so many were, that God was this great big, giant "punisher." That I had to be good or He would "Get me." That I needed to be in a constant state of repentance and sorrow. And the only way out was when I either died or Jesus came for His church. I remember the elders of the church were ALWAYS praying that Jesus would come for His church - TODAY. And that scared, frustrated and upset me.
Number 1, because I didn't think life was all that bad and because I was young and wasn't "done" experiencing life.
Number 2, because I thought I wasn't remorseful enough about life to make it to heaven and I was terrified of hell.
Number 3, because, honestly - I was upset that this "terrible, angry, and punishing" God would strike me dead for having fun, making a mistake, or not praying for Him to come back soon.
I was afraid of God. I wondered about old testament Bible stories. What happened to the God that saved all the animals on the ark? What happened to the God that saved Moses by having his mother put him in a basket in the river (when Pharaoh had ordered that all male babies be slaughtered)? What happened to the God that gave Sarah a baby at the age of 90? What happened to the God that was in the fire with Shadrach, Meshak, and Abednigo? What happened to the God that split the Red Sea to save the Israelites from Pharaoh's soldiers? What happened to the God that saved Jonah by having a whale swallow him during a storm in the sea?
And I wondered about the things Jesus did while he was alive. If we are all so bad - why did he feed over 10,000 people with 2 fish and 5 loaves? Why did he heal the leper, the blind man, and the woman with the issue of blood? Why did he tell grown ups to become as little children to enter the kingdom of God? (Most grown ups I knew were far from having the mind of a child when it came to God).
What happened to that God? The one that loved people? The one that took care of people? The one that gave people their dreams? Why was he so mad at me/us? Was it because bad people put His son on a cross? (Well, I didn't put him there, I would never hurt anyone like that).
You see, it was quite shocking to go from my Sunday school class, where I was taught all the wonderful things God did for people - to "big church" and hearing how bad we are all and that God was so ANGRY with us all. That no one is worthy to be saved, so we better get on our knees and cry and pray that He comes now and takes us out of our misery. It took me years to get over that fear and frustration. I didn't know how to comprehend God's anger.
I admit, in my late teens and early twenties, I flirted with the idea of atheism. I reasoned that the god I was raised on was too contradictory and therefore; must be a fairy tale. The problem? How did we get here? Where did the earth come from? If there was a big bang - how, who, where did it come from?
Theory of evolution? - as Steve Harvey said "if we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" - and again, WHO created the monkeys? I searched high and low for answers. Every search led to one answer - there has to be some "being" that created all this. But, if there is really a god, which one?
Buddha - he didn't make sense to me at all, just a man and no god in the religion per-se. Hindu - again no explanation of how we got here, just everyone perpetually reappearing thru reincarnation. Shinto - based on Buddhism. Islam, well I knew VERY little of Allah and what I saw from the Quran was Muhammed, a giant bully that forced people to believe his way or killed them. But, what about the God I was raised on? Didn't he kinda do the same? And, didn't he say he formed us from the start and knew our thoughts before we did? Doesn't that make us like robots?
Questions, questions, and more questions. My search for the real answer was years long. But somehow, I always had this unexplainable hope. I had hope that there was a god that loved me and didn't desire to hurt me. A god that wanted me to express my thoughts and fears, but didn't see me as a "bad" person because I saw good in this world. A god that respected my thoughts and didn't make me think only His thoughts. A god that wanted me to be unique.
By this point; as you can see, I no longer flirted with the idea of atheism. I knew that something or someone created all of this. The possibility of just nothing...wasn't even a possibility.
I will discuss my conclusion to these questions in part 2.