Growing Closer to God
I have many ideas about god and who he means to me, but there is no other image that strikes me more positively than God being the one who has created the earth and all its inhabitants, and through all this blunder took the time to create me and allow me to have life and experience all that there is to experience in this world. God to me the awesome father figure who watches over us all to make sure that we are all under his wing and follow in the ways of his son, Jesus Christ. It is through his example that we can get closer to God and ultimately be with him in heaven.
I do not know when I first began to believe in God but I assume that my parents were the first to introduce me to the belief. In the above statement I outlined my most striking image of God, but for the longest time I have not thought of him in this way, I have lost some of my faith. I am not sure why except that in the past three years I began to examine other ideas on how we might have come to be and how we are going to end.
This does not mean that I do not believe in the presence of God I just have a big problem with blind faith. For some reason I cannot trust in the fact that there is truly a god and he created the earth and all that lives on it. My ideas are based on the scientific evidence that has been present for years, which are bases for theories on our creation and the evolution of life on this planet. With all that we know about the earth today and how evolution works I have problems with my faith. Do I truly know if there is a god of not? No. But for the sake of myself and the rest of the world I truly hope so. I believe that deep in my heart lies my faith and my mind needs some sign to let me know that there is a God and he watches over us.
Within these hopes and believes I have another ideology, and that is my take death. I have never truly sat down for hours at a time and pondered death and what it is all about and why it happens, but there have been times at night where I have thought about it for at least two hours and what I was pondering began to scare me.
It is quite easy for me to think of a God of love mainly because I grew up in a family where love was central and where lovely relationships were ever present. It is quite easy for me to think of the universe as basically friend...
God is the great I am. He is holy and the creator of all things. He provided the ten commandments (Exodus 20) with the first one that started out as “I am the Lord your God” (Iozzio, 2006). He created mankind and
Just because there is not evidence does not mean that is evidence he does not exist. I do not believe that people believe in god, just because they do believe that god exist, but because it gives them something that others cannot. It brings people together and gives people hope in the worst of times, and it can fill voids in peoples lives that are rather impossible to fill. It also gives them a reason to live, and live moral ones at that. However, this is also a problem in the discussion of th...
Having faith is believing in things that you don’t see. According to the Meditations, Descartes gets rid of beliefs that he isn’t certain of and keeps the ones that are undoubtable. He tries to prove that God has must exist since we have such a clear and distinct idea of him. I believe it is impossible to prove without a doubt that God exists.
The Souls of Black Folk are a collection of essays composed by W.E.B Du Bois’ highlighting the problems that the African-American race faced in American society. Du Bois describes the feeling of being “shut out from the[ir] world by a vast veil” (4). The veil is a metaphor that Du Bois presents representing a symbolic wall that separates the “whites” and “blacks”. To Du Bois, the veil emphasises the racial boundaries that the African-Americans faced, as well as their invisibility within society in U.S history. Throughout the text, Du Bois makes it evident that the most important issues are education, economic opportunities, as well as the emotional journey being shared. Du Bois states, “He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both
At the age of 14 I had already doubted if there were a god. I had happened to be brought up in a quite religious family, and so being a child, believed in what they believed in. I had tried praying, watching for a sign that there was some sort of powerful entity there to help through hard times, and everytime I tried I heard nothing, I noticed nothing. The so called “God” wasn't speaking to me, so I took my life into my own hands. Who better to be in charge of my life, my way of living, than me. I even tried to speak to Satan, during an edgy emo phase of my life. Nothing from that end either. I do not believe in anything but death, and death only. We have all been dead before life, and I have no memories of wandering the Heavens with Jesus
Religion and faith have been a part of my life since the day I was born. My grandfather has been a pastor at Selma Church of God for 39 years and my mom, along with my grandmother and aunts, run our churches worship team. One could only assume, I have spent much of my life in the church. From years of children 's church and Sunday school, I learned of God 's unconditional love for me and His constant willingness to forgive me of my sins. My family and teachers explained the crucifixion and resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ. As a child, I knew all these things, these wonderful things about my God and my religion, but it was not until my early teens that I began to thirst for more.
Gerald Bray shares, “The Christian doctrine of God contains two distinct, though obviously related aspects. The first…what is God like? The second…who is God?” These questions impact the way I view God personally and practically, and the impact it has on my ministry application. The nature of God and how He is viewed from human beings’ perspective could have grave implications. More than often, our view of God limits His overall splendor, glory, and His association with the universe. From a personal standpoint, I have always viewed God as omnipotent, omnipresence, and omniscience. My limited mind cannot fully comprehend all there is to know about Him. However, when I open my mind to understand certain aspects of Him, His purpose and plans
God, a simple 3 letter word. For some of us, we immediately put a face or a name to this simple word. However, for others, much like myself, I place no weight upon the word. There is no meaning in my eyes. As an atheist, I do not believe in a higher being. In order to properly asses this, you must first question: What is god? Where did the concept come from? Philosophers have been in a very heated argument over religion for centuries now, and to today, there still has not been a conclusion. Philosopher David Hume is said to have been undecided as either an atheist or an agnostic. However, another philosopher, Saint Thomas Aquinas, is on a completely different platform. He believed that God is real, and that humans MUST believe in him. For this, I’ll let you be the judge, as the facts speak for themselves.
One common perception of God is that God is not so much a being, but according to seventeenth century philosopher Benedict Spinoza, that "God is everything, identical to the universe itself." That is to say that God is a part of all humans, all animals, all objects, and all matter in the universe. This particular view is called pantheism, which is literally defined to mean that there is no God, but only the combined forces and laws that are manifested in the existing universe. According to Spinoza, we are each and all an integral part of God, not as individuals or even humanity as a whole but as an integral part of what Spinoza called the "One Substance." He also believed that we are each and all components of some greater being, a being so unimaginably large that we are each nothing more than tiny parcels of matter in that being's blood.
There are many different characteristics that could be used to describe God. I think one of the important characteristics of God is the Trinity. God is three persons in one, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Grudem states that there are three statements that summarize the Trinity, “God is three persons, each person is fully God, and there is one God” (231). The smaller understanding of God means the less that we know about Him. I think that this is a true statement because we tend to only know a little bit about God, yet there is so much more to him then what we actually know. You may have grown up in a Christian home your whole life and know all the “church knowledge” about God, but the likelihood that we know everything is not likely true.
Which brings me to Fowler’s Theory of Faith Development, specifically Individual-Reflective Faith which occurs in early adulthood. Growing up as a family we went to church every Sunday and sometimes even twice a week, everyone in my family was a catholic and that was expected from all of us, no questions asked. I even got baptized as a baby and did my first communion when I was about nine years old. I did not mind the expectation from my family when I was little because I loved church, especially the singing. Then came a time where both of my parents started to work on Sundays, so did my sister, and so my brother and I helped out at my parents restaurant. Ever since then we really have not made church a priority, I believe this is what effected my encounter with my mother when I was eighteen years old. I was currently taking a class called “religion in the modern world” and learned about all rituals and how different religions support different things than others, and it got to me to reflect on what religion I grew up learning about. Some things I liked and some things I was horrified by. So talking to my mother, I was telling her my opinions and what I believed in and that there is not just one way to believe or think. She was furious, I was stepping out of the norm, but it had been because of my Individual-Reflective Faith than lead me to this stage. I am very thankful I was able to reflect on my faith, I now have a stronger bond on my beliefs and now my mother totally supports me on it, so it was all for the best that I went through this
... my life and influences from other people may alter my ideas, but my beliefs and faith will never falter. I will always believe in God. I know that God is with me every step of the way throughout my life whether it is good or bad. I believe that everything happens for a reason and that if God wanted or wants something to happen on purpose, he would make it happen or he would steer me in the right direction so that I can make it happen on my own.
Do you like to talk out your problems with a friend? Do you like to hear other people’s problems? Why do we always need to share our problems with someone? The truth is, humans are weak. We’ve always known that we can’t live by ourselves. So, it’s not a question that we need to share our burdens with someone else. We want someone to feel what we’re going through. And we’re hoping that that friend of ours has a way out of it, right? Whatever it takes, we want our problems to be solved. Unfortunately, it’s not every time can we find someone who wants to hear our problems L. Well, that’s the way humans are. We’re not perfect. But our Father in heaven is. He will faithfully listen to everything we’ve got on our minds. He is the only one who has the way, the truth, and the life. Of course, He knows how to solve our problems and He will help us with them. Now, doesn’t that sound good? Well, don’t you want to learn to hear God’s voice? The question is…how does He talk to us? Here are a few ways:
"Who Is God To Me" God means many different things to many different people. There are a lot of people who believe that there is no such thing as a God. There are people who believe that there is no God because no one has ever seen him. I personally believe that there is a God because of my faith. I have faith in God and I feel that God is real. I have many reasons why I believe in God and who God is to me. But I have three reasons that stand out for me about who God is to me. They are the following: God is always there for me, God is my friend, and God is my creator. These are my three most important reasons of who God is and what God means to me. God has never let me down in my life. Sometimes I feel that God has let me down or that He did not answer my prayers in times that I most needed Him. But I have to realize that everything that God does is for a reason. God has taken a few friends of mine from this Earth at a very young age. I have prayed to God and asked Him why? But I have never seemed to fully understand why. I have come to the conclusion that God works in mysterious ways. I do not think that anyone can fully understand why God does what He does. So for this, I do not feel that God has ever let me down. He just does these things for a reason and if you believe in Him, He will never let you down either. God is the longest lasting friend I have ever had in my life. He was there for me before I was born and He will be there for me after I leave this Earth. God is the best listener also. I can talk to God anywhere at anytime. Every time I want to talk to Him or ask Him a question, He is there for me. Most of my other friends are at least a phone call away, but not God. He has always been there in time of need, even though sometimes I feel like He is not. Even when I do something wrong, He is there to forgive me and set me straight.