On failing the "stuff"...

I'm angry at God lately and I couldn't figure out why. I don't understand why He couldn't have laid out this faith thing in such a way that it fit every day life a little more easily. Instead, though random conversations with random people, I get to hear constant reminders about how absurd Christianity is and how ridiculously thoughtless its followers are.

Can you have God without the religion?

In theory, yes. But then if you believe in Jesus too, you get into the part where you ask yourself how it is that you know who Jesus is? You know Him through the Bible and the Bible preaches the structures and doctrines of religion.

I can't help but wonder if we're in a third era of the Bible. First, you had the sort of angry God full of rules part, then you had the redeemed by Christ part which negated most of the rules so people had to live differently than they were before under the rule of the angry God, and now we have this part. It's the post-Jesus, post-Bible era. It's the part where we've learned not only how not to live a life focused on appeasing the angry God, but also to take the new relationship with God through the sacrificing of Jesus for granted.

And I'm not sure that the way to fix that, the steps to improve this situation, are to revert to the practices of faith written in the Bible. We're not those people. We're not the ones who prioritize rules and decorum over God. Instead, we're the ones who seek constant freedom without realizing that it's from God. We're the ones who run away from God by excessively loving the gifts He's given us. We're the ones who actually love God already, but refuse to call it that.

As time progresses, I feel like I am losing my faith simply because I can't follow the rules. (And yes, "won't" substitutes nicely there, but I'm implying a stronger and more beligerant "won't" based on the fact that if I try, I doom myself to failure every time. Same goes for the rest of this paragraph.) I can't go to church. I can't read my Bible extensively every day. I don't look forward to the textbook slash ritual aspects of what to me is simply religion and not God.

Yes, we have to learn and yes, we need community. But what if our community is in a different form than the ones depicted in the Bible?

If nobody in my circles would set foot into a church by their own will, how is Jesus using the church to draw people to Him?

On the other hand, if we live in such a way that we can find way to integrate God into every thought and every action throughout the day, such that He becomes like breathing or any other unconscious function of the body, then we will end up presenting a picture to the world of a life with God that is actually doable and reasonable.

But maybe that's lazy. Right? Not going to church, not being bound by the rituals of religion, not forcing yourself to read chunks of the Bible every day, sitting at home listening to sermons in your pyjamas... It's laziness, right? It shows a lack of appreciation for God. But on the other hand, forcing yourself to do all those things shows a lack of appreciation for God's grace also. And really, if you believe in an almighty God of the universe who knows your thoughts before you think them and who chooses who has faith and when, then wouldn't said God be able to guide you to a rich knowledge without the religion? Couldn't He pepper our lives with situations that reveal to us our heart and the nature of God? Couldn't He move us in some way to get us to see His character?

If God chooses somebody in some sort of religious desert to have faith, then wouldn't said person have all the tools necessary to have faith and to know God? If the great God of the universe didn't account for the absence of resources when He chose this person, then He's not really a great God of the universe afterall.

So yeah, I am lazy. And I asked God to help me with that. But in the meantime, why shouldn't I be able to love God wholly and feel God with me? Why does it depend so heavily on the "stuff" and not the heart?

But then, if I read the Bible, Jesus basically says that- it is about the heart.

Then why do I feel like I'm constantly doing it wrong?

So I am angry at God. He created a situation wherein He'll love me unconditionally provided I do the "stuff". He explained what real love was in Luke ch 6 in the sermon on the mount, a pure and selfless love, and then made it all meaningless if I don't wedge myself into a pew every week for an hour of false love and false community torture.

Don't get me wrong- maybe your church is your community and you love the people there. That's great for you. But I don't feel at home in church, even in my favorite ones. It feels forced and contrived and entirely unnatural for me. And the fact that I've been made aware that the love often stops when you stop attending the church, that it doesn't transfer into real life, doesn't help. Sometimes, it does though. Sometimes, Christians do actually love people, regardless of circumstance. And in those situations, it reinforces in me that the church is apart from the building, that the community is my own and the knowledge of God can be shared rather than learned from a textbook all the time.

All I know is that if God knows who I am, then He'll know how I express my faith and when I need help with it. And He knows where my heart is. And He feels me struggling. And all I need is exactly that- to know that He's with me and to know that He knows me. If I can keep that, then I think I just may be alright.