Seeing the Same Things Part 1

I read something last week that stuck to my mind, the gist of the comment or post (I forget what it was) was that it is no wonder that people who read the Bible can come up with totally different ideas as to what it is really saying.

I came from a fundamentalist Christian background and was taught to see the Bible as "God's Word" - this meant that it was God's only way of speaking to me at this day and age. If I could support my idea or action by a verse or passage then I was on solid ground, I was correct. As a person with OCD it was so easy for me to be confused about religion, about the demands that God is placing on me. This idea was good for me because it placed authority outside of me, meaning I could bypass all emotions and inner voices and look at a written book and say "Aha! This is the ultimate guide". But it had it's downside, it was only a short time before my view of God was colored by this idea of Him being holy, so holy that He could not tolerate me as I was, I had to be a certain person to be safe with Him. This person was someone always "winning souls", always reading theology, living for the church 24/7. In this mindset, I feared God and really wanted to be away from Him, I just behaved like this because it was the only way I could be safe. I remember it was a praiseworthy thing, in those days, to shout in the middle of your sermon because it showed passion for the Bible.

It is predictable enough that I did not last in this environment, I was in my teens and moved to the USA during this part of my life. The pressure of being 17 was so intense: my desire was to be accepted by my peers. I was also adjusting to a new country that was so different from my own, a dangerous place where I was practically lost. I gave up on it all eventually, the God I learned about was impossible to please in my situation and I said I no longer believed. I gave up on faith.

Funny enough, my life took off after this. My departure from religion brought about a new sense of freedom and this included freedom from the voices of my OCD. I became good at my job, confident, eager to overturn all ideas that people had of me. I was awesome! Except I was afraid when I was alone, correction, I was afraid that I was alone. It was probably an existential fear, if there is no God then I could only only rely on myself and my machinations to make it in this universe. And that was not really much to hold on to.

My fears eventually led me to a place where I asked God to help me. I somehow came to the end of myself and had to have something more, had to believe in something more, simply had to.