If you email me, I will (with your permission) post your words anonymously... apparently the comments section wont work with this much text...
Anonymous poster wrote me this email after reading the previous post:
I was in your position about 10 years ago and had the same questions, some of them I still have, but they don't stop me from believing Jesus is my savior. When I was struggling with me faith I was hung up on all the questions and it became a stumbling block for me. It seemed I reached a turning point when I believed in what the Bible had to say. It doesn't contradict itself. If you read it in context of the time and in light of other books, it compliments each other. Other religions contradict the Bible and so you cannot believe them and be a Christian and vice versa.
I don't understand it all, but at least I could learn about God and Jesus by reading it. About that same time I took into consideration who Jesus was/is. When he walked this earth he claimed to be God. To use C.S. Lewis's words this made him a Liar, a Lunatic or Lord. He could not have just been a good person who walked the earth. he had to be one of those three things. I chose to believe that he is Lord and therefore can follow his words. If he was Liar or lunatic, there would be no point in following evven a fraction of his words. I also read in books, other than the Bible documented cases of people seeing Jesus after his resurrection- thus cementing the fact that he was God.
After I got those things down, I started to slowly answer the big salvation questions.
As for hearing God, I cry out too and feel as those he isn't there, but then there are moments of clarity and I can see him in my answered prayers. It is frustrating not hearing or feeling him. As for your experiences in the ocean and jungle- I think that is God. It says is the bible his creation will call out to you. As for it being the "universe" or cosmic energy, I don't believe that. It just doesn't make sense to me. What does the universe care about me? How did the universe create people? How did the universe create my path in life? Who keeps track of Karma? To me it just makes sense that there is one true God that created everything. After having a couple of babies it is hard for me to believe that they just evolved or happened to grow correctly inside of me and come out a human being. Everything has a creator whether its the universe or or a computer. Someone had to create it and with the universe I believe it was God.
What it does come down to is faith no matter what you believe, you have to have faith in it because there will always be questions. For example you have to have faith in what Buddha wrote about, you have to have faith the Bible is trues, you have to have faith even to believe that there is no God at all. The answers won't all be there, but like I said Christianity makes sense to me. I don't want to rely on a person- people are subjective and messed up.
Oh, that verse you were asking about is Proverbs 3:5 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your understanding"
