Deep philosophical, religious and selfish bratty thoughts

Great Debates
1

I suppose this could be in IMHO or even my journal, but I know there’s a lot of learned Corn fed Christian Bible folk on the boards who may be able to give a little clarity.

I’m curious as to why “God’s Wonderful and Glorious Plan For Me” (a phrase I’ve heard since I could retain memories) is all a big mystery. I don’t understand why I need to be put through such frustration for such a long time.

When M sends James Bond on a mission, she doesn’t just sit there with a big thick file and say,

“I’ve got all the details here, but you’ll have to figure them out on your own. This will require pain, failure, sadness, frustration and anger. I COULD bypass all of that by giving you this file, but I choose not to.”

God gave me a talent for acting (I hear)…and yet when I tried that as a career, I failed.

God gave me a talent for writing…and yet when I try that for a career, I fail.

So now I’m a secretary, working in a field I could not POSSIBLY care less about.

God put in me a burning desire to have children, a family, to be a good mom to a bustling household…and when I try to do that, I fail.

And yet, my pot smoking, X taking, drinking, no job cousin who’s boyfriend left her the minute she was knocked up gets to have a lovely, gorgeous healthy baby “on accident”, whom she leaves with her mother so she can have sex in hotels in Indiana.

I’m thirty years old now, and I’m just a bit curious. When does this big exciting plan come into play? When do I get to realize, “Oh, this is what I’m supposed to be doing, this is where I’m supposed to be!”

Because I can rock solid guarantee you it ain’t workin’ in a consulting office for six years.

I told my mother that my lack of success in the reproductive arena is really shaking my faith that God wants what’s best for me and she nearly fainted. I could hear her gathering up the Christian Troops on the other end. I suspect I’ll be receiving a lot of Chicken Soup books for Christmas.

But it’s true. I don’t get it. I’ve always been taught that I need to turn everything over to God, depend, have faith, trust, and ASK HIM for what you need or desire, ask for guidance or help. Well, I’ve been doing it all my life and I’m wondering when anything is going to work out.

Any thoughts?

2

Well, looks like you’ve been taught wrong then, doesn’t it?
You’ve been asking things from a big blue empty sky.

That’s one thought.

3

((((jarbaby))))

hang in there.
i know it’s really hard to, and i’m not going to say anything different.

but there IS a plan, it just might be on a different timescale to the one you hoped.
and yes, i know it’s a cliched and a fairly hollow platitude, but it’s what i’m holding onto for myself at the moment.

jar, if it helps at all, i really feel that your writings on the board have enriched my life, and i’ll be sending you good thoughts and prayers.

4

Well, thanks for the cyber hugs and thoughts, they are appreciated, but I guess I’m looking for a good, solid Christian theory. :smiley:

I suppose I am expected to be LEARNING something from this uphill struggle, but I have absolutely no idea what in the world it could be since my life is just so stagnant and relatively boring, and completely lacking in all the things I’d hoped and worked for (save the wonderful husband, which just fell into my lap)

I guess it’s the big question we all want to know, Why do bad things happen to good people? But it’s not so much bad things as NO THINGS.

My pastor uncle would say it’s because I’m not praying ENOUGH, and my mother would say Shut up and be grateful you have all your limbs…but I know the dopers have deeper insights.

5

There isn’t any “plan,” Jar, excapt that which you make for yourself. Was it part of God’s “plan” for 3000+ people to do die on 9/11? was the holocaust part of the plan? This “plan” stuff is just another word for fatalism. Fatalism is gutless.

You failed at acting and writing? Virtually everybody fails at acting and writing. You just have to be persistent. Don’t stop trying. Keep writing, keep submitting, keep auditioning. If you really have talent, somebody will notice. Don’t wait around for God to do something for you. God is a verb. God is action. God is now.

Oh, and don’t be too jealous of single mothers. It ain’t that much fun.

6

Jar-

for what it’s worth, this is coming from a dyed-in-the wool atheist.

If you have lived your life to this point believing in God, and trusting that he has a plan for you, then you should continue to do so. Nothing has changed. Either there is a god, or there isn’t, and you’re not going to get any proof one way or the other before it’s too late to make a difference. If you have received comfort and reassurance from your faith, then by all means keep it.

From reading your writings on the board, I know that you have a loving husband, good friends, and many other things in your life to be thankful for. Since you believe in God, then thank him for those things.

I guess, from my outsider’s perspective, that the whole point of faith, the very essence of the thing that I do not get, is that faith is just that- faith. There is nothing supporting that faith. You can’t support it, or prove to someone who doesn’t believe as you do that they should believe. It isn’t like a contract, or an if/then clause. You have it, or you don’t. So, if you’re going to have faith, then have faith. For its own sake.

Not to be too harsh, but what reason do you have to expect that your faith will be rewarded? What does God owe you? Either you believe in God because you believe in God, or your faith is conditional on something else. If your faith is conditional on something else, then is it really faith? I don’t have the answer to that one.

Strangely, I guess the point of my ramblings is that you should keep your faith in God. Your faith has led you to be the person you are today, with the gifts and blessings that you have. Either you have children, or you don’t.

But you have much to be thankful for, and you should remain strong in your faith.

blanx

7

Not a particularly devout, scholarly Christian here, but from what I remember, the idea was that when Jesus came down and spread the word, that was a really big deal, and the info-dump he provided at that time was supposed to be enough for everybody, till the end of time. God’s really gotten out of the burning-bush business and, outside of the guidelines provided by Jesus, leaves us pretty much to our own devices.

I believe you ARE learning from your struggle, and I believe you will find solutions to your problems, and I believe you will be a fanastic Mom.

That’s faith. Sometimes you have to believe in your friends, sometimes in God, sometimes in yourself.

8

My view of God’s plan for us isn’t anything as elaborate as “I was born to be a doctor or a lawyer or become president”. Rather IMHO I see God’s plan as being the same for all of us, for all of us to come to love one another and become his children. That is God’s plan for all of us plain and simple. I don’t think that God really cares if I’m a doctor or a hairdresser or in what esteem other people hold me as long as continue to love my brother as myself.

The things that happen otherwise in life is little more than the results of our culture, environment, and genetics. I do not think it is really in God’s plan that you should be having a hard time having children, but some of us will have a harder time than others because of genetic predisposition or an ill-timed groin kick. That is life, not what I tend to think of as God’s plan.

9

It’s the good old Problem of Suffering, that classic insoluble companian to any theology built around a theistic 3-O God. Cue refrains of Gotta Have Faith and Mysterious Ways.

Personally, I suspect it’s only a problem in the way that precise mapping of the epicycles that planets move in in their larger perfectly circular orbits is a problem–which is, not a problem of facts at all. There is no Problem of Suffering–only a Truth of it. A plan is a list of things that don’t happen; people make and remake their own plans, glorious to foul and the more routine troubles in between.

10

I will keep my faith in God because he has shown me great things, and helped me in times of trouble. He brings peace and clarity…

except when i really really need it.

Diogenes, I’m not ‘jealous’ of my single mom cousin, I’m downright MAD. And this is where the selfish bratty part comes in. It’s not fair. It’s not FAIR that she was upset to find out she was pregnant, and doesn’t have any way to support this kid and she smoked and drank and did pot the whole time she was pregnant, and he’s perfect. NO CONSEQUENCES for her…at all.

I beg every night, in tears to get pregnant. My husband and I have good jobs, are healthy, loving, prepared…and we get nothing.

I don’t understand why I have to suffer like this.

When? WHEN WHEN? What the hell was this first thirty years of my life for besides learning how to walk and wipe myself?

11

Well, y’ain’t gonna get one from me, toots. Like the WWI song goes, “We’re here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here . . .” I’ve never understood why some people think we’re here “for a reason” or to “learn things.” Life is not a sitcom, and we don’t get a moral at the end of our 30 minutes.

12

Unless there moral is, “Folks, the moral to the story is there is no moral to the story.”

13

Life is a sitcom! You’ve never heard the laugh track after a hilarious situation occurs? :smiley:
As to the OP, all I can say is that if you think there is an ultimate plan for yourself, then go with it, since deity is metaphor for the self anyways.

14

In other words, it’s what I’ve always thought:

I AM GOD

15

On a lighter note …

She? SHE??? You’ve been watching too many late reruns on the tube. That’s like learning your social skills from Dilbert.

Seriously, all through this thread, your respondents are talking about faith, and this is a very important aspect of these discussions that’s so often overlooked. We have faith in a Higher Power because of, not in spite of, the lack of proof. If the existence of G-d could be proven, there would be no need of faith, and anyone who denied it wouldn’t be an agnostic, s/he would be a fool! Since I’m not a Christian, I express it in this way - I have faith in the Holy One, Blessed Be He. I’m not wise enough to understand everything that happens in this world, but that it happens for a purpose is central to my faith.

If your life is lacking something, then you have to have faith, firstly that there is some deeper meaning to this, and secondly that your importance in the overall scheme of the world is not lessened by it, but strengthened.

16

Shhhhh! Don’t let the secret out! :wink:

17

What really sucks is that sometimes you pray to God for something, and He says “No.”. Or “Wait.”.
Conversely, you may just need to a)get up off yer bum and start working, or b)continue to be off yer bum and working. God isn’t the Magical Wish Genie, as much as we’d like Him to be. You are a part of this process.

All of the above being IMHO, and therefore subject to error.

18

Of course, I haven’t just been sitting around waiting for the Magical Wish Genie. I’ve been working my proverbial ass off, through heartache, depression, injury, poverty…all of those things…

and I’m still a secretary in a field I absolutely detest.

Please don’t assume I just sit around waiting for things to fall in my lap.

19

First of, a little background about me. I was raised heavily catholic, but have since renounce all organized religion and instead, I have my own little spiritualness. Still, I think I can offer some points that might help you.

There are things we want, things we need and things we can’t have. The trick is, learning to be happy with the things you need.

Personally, I want children. After raising most of my younger siblings and many years of baby-sitting, I love children and I would greatly desire to have them. But, I also have an inherited mental disorder. My grandmother was in mental hospitals for most of her life and my mother is on constant medicination. My life has been very difficult because of this disorder. If I were to have children, I would pass it on to them. I know that my situation is not the same as yours, as not having children is something I had to chose not to do. But I have experienced the intense desire for children while not being able to act upon that desire.

It seems very unfair to me, as there are all these abused children in the world, and I, who have had lots of experience with children, can not have any.

I know that adoption isn’t the same, but you should at least consider it.

I’ve found it’s helpful to also work or volunteer for organizations which involve young children. I’ve helped out at the children’s hospital several times. I’ve also taken to working at animal shelters. I’ve raised a few kittens who were abandoned by their mothers.

I think several people think “if I do good things, I deserve to recieve happiness” I think that’s destructive thinking. First of all, doing good should not be done because you expect reward, but because it is the right think to do. Secondly, you blame yourself for things that go wrong. And thirdly, happiness is not something that is just given to people. It is something that must be worked for.

So you like acting, but you can’t make it as an actor… perhaps you could work with children’s theater or just make acting something you do on the side.

I don’t believe that God made me unable to have children so I could use my experience to help out children without families, but I can see how a religious person with a similar problem as mine might believe that.

Good luck. I’ve heard of people who’ve had children after years of being infertile. Have you seen a doctor?

20

I seem to recall Sarah having a complaint much like yours, except she was much older.

Jacob was pretty horny after working six years for Rachel.

And Moses was bitching a lot after 39 years in the wilderness.

It sucked being Joshua on day six at Jericho.

And I imagine Jesus got pretty damn hungry on day 39.

Not to mention hanging up there for six hours.

Being temporal sucks. It’s not natural.

And FWIW, I’m absolutely with you. I’m 32, still a year from finishing grad school, broke, taking 3 pills a day to keep from putting my head in an oven, and sick of waiting for Miss Right.

(Come to think of it … are you free this weekend?)

If you’re into reading, The Power and the Glory by Greene helped me a lot.

But there is no “answer.” Just faith, and, if you’re lucky, the knowledge that others carry the same burdens…