I Didn't Know The Rules

Most of us Christians, if not all of us, have grown up not actually knowing the God that we professed to worship. We had been taught one way, believed one way and still we have known that something is missing. The expression ‘fake it till you make it’ has reigned among Christians since before I was even conceived. The problem is… who ever makes it? I never saw anyone within that restrictive paradigm of religion exude anything but humanity thinly cloaked with a veil of love. Indeed, most Christians will tell you that they love others because the Bible tells them to do so. 

This is not a bash piece. I grew up deeply embedded in the religion of Christianity. I know that no one that I met knew what the heck they were actually doing. People would debate the Bible for fun, trying to convince the others of their beliefs of its words. They also knew that these debates would hardly convict the listeners and yet they continued… we continued. 

I cannot justifiably remove myself from this toxic environment because I did the same thing. I thought that saying that I had a relationship with God meant that I actually had one. I thought that saying that I believed God meant that I actually believed God. I also thought that by sharing my convictions with others was how I was winning people to God. Even more abhorrent was the fact that I thought that by prayer, fasting and faith, I would remove this “scourge” upon my self: homosexuality. I believed that God would simply because I asked THEM to, but I now know, that’s not how it works.

The truth is that those of us raised in our Christian communities aren’t actually guilty of the sin that we commit. We don’t even know that we are committing sin. We do things like look at a sexy person and “lust” or complain or get angry, or whatever and want to beat ourselves because we think that we have sinned. That’s not how the rules work, but you wouldn’t know that because you simply didn’t know. When the Bible says: “the times of this ignorance God winked”, it states the truth. We cannot, as offspring of those who did not know, be held responsible for our ignorance. Jesus also stated: ”If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin”. So, it is now. If the Holy Spirit has not opened your eyes, THEY who was sent of Jesus upon His ascension, then you have no sin. That is, your sin cannot be counted against you, and there must be some holy law indicating as such of which I am currently ignorant.

I also know and am discouraged by the fact that even though I write this, no one can even attempt to understand if God does not open their hearts to it. You may go to Church as much as you desire and read the Bible five times a day and you will still know and understand nothing. The Bible states: “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: For they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned.” Try as you might, study as you might, profess as you might, you can never penetrate the hidden things of God, though they stare you right in the face. 

Even so, I will write the rules of this life as I have learned them. They are not complete I am sure, but they are far clearer than when I heard about them here and there. This last sentence may not make sense to you until you begin your walk with God, then you will realize that even though you didn’t know the rules, you heard whispers of them here and there. 

The first rule is: Know God.

Easy? No. God is in Heaven and you are on earth. We have been taught to rely on our 5 physical senses and to count as lunacy anything else. So, while God can be easily accessed because THEY exist all around us you do not know this and you can not discern THEM. Albeit, from time to time the Spirit may verbally address a certain few using one of those 5 physical senses, but you will have to learn not to rely on those senses alone.

How does one get to know God? It’s easy. Desire to know God in your heart. Is that easy? Nope. You may have a heart that honestly wants nothing to do with God because of all the horrors that you have seen in your life or on T.V. So, if your heart has a disdain for God, desiring to actually know God is going to prove impossible. Except, I believe, that those who have a disdain for God are those the easiest for God to speak to. Why? Because those who acknowledge their disdain for God have less fear, perhaps, to tell God about how they actually feel. And if that last sentence made you question it is good because in order to desire to know God in your heart means that you have to be willing and desirous of being 200% honest with yourself.

Being honest with oneself is, quite possibly, the hardest thing a human has to do. And if you do not want to be honest, then you will never achieve honesty; oh what a tangled web we weave. But God. You may panic and become desperate in thinking that, even with the bar set so low you could never hurdle it, there’s good news, you can’t. You can’t hurdle that bar. You can’t hurdle any bar to reach God. Nothing that you do will be able to get you to that point… but God. Hopefully now you begin to understand, there is a void between humans and God and nothing humans can do will ever be able to cross or even circumvent that chasm. That is why I say, but God. God’s intervention doesn’t require a sacrifice, or a Church membership or any amount of good deeds. God’s intervention just requires the tiniest bit of some sort of desire, and you can’t even produce that. But God.

The Second rule is: Believe God

Without truly knowing God, you cannot hope to believe God. Of course you can say that you believe God, and humans will believe you, but you will know that you doubt or that you don’t believe at all. So, even if you have other humans looking at you in awe, if your heart panics when you are trying to put your faith in God, then you are a liar. If you are ok being a liar, then enjoy your little bit of whatever you have on earth, because liars cannot hope to gain access to God’s blessings.

This concept is funny too, because everyone is a liar at some time or another. Yet, there are those who lie who will be abundantly blessed and there are those who lie who will live and die without a full heart or hope of a next life. The difference here is an actual belief in God. The belief in God, just so you all know, is not an overnight thing, nor does it happen the day you say, “I do,” or whatever you are going to tell God. It is a slowly building up concept that will have you questioning literally everything. You think you doubt now? Wait until God starts working with you, you are going to doubt EVERYTHING! And you will wonder at this because, wait didn’t Jesus say “Believe and doubt not” or something like that? I mean yeah, He did, but how do you expect to attain that if the Holy Spirit doesn’t teach you how to not doubt?

And not doubting doesn’t just come, like I said, it is a learning process. You walk with God and God teaches you to understand and believe. You don’t just say, I don’t doubt, you learn who God is and God causes you to lose your doubt. And when I say causes you, what I mean is… something like suddenly, you just will stop doubting. It will just happen on a day, because you will know that even though God is showing you things and teaching you things, for some reason you can’t make it concrete in your soul. But when the soil is ready and the seeds have sprouted, you won’t doubt. And please don’t think that you suddenly won’t doubt anything. No, no, no. You will doubt a ton of things, but over time they will dwindle one by one or a group at a time; honestly that all depends on you and God.

The third rule is: Patience

Unfortunately, we were born and raised in a world where we learned to want things now or yesterday. You have probably learned to be impatient with everything. That’s ok, but know that God will necessarily teach you how to wait. It will be very painful, you may even be vividly angry but God will keep you. As I’ve stated above, all of these things take time. The Bible even alludes to this in Psalms 1:3 and Matthew 4:26-33. These things happen and you just simply don’t know how, they just do.

This doesn’t mean don’t fight God, in fact I encourage yelling at God if that’s how you feel. It is because being absolutely honest with God and not acting like you have to be “respectful” or honor THEM, is the best way to open your heart to God and let God teach you. Think of God like a Father and Mother. Kids yell and scream at their parents but usually because they simply don’t understand. Why is this happening? I hate it! Why didn’t You do that? You screwed me over! Tell God the truth and God will ride out your anger or frustrations or depression and will heal you from the inside out. And all of that happens over time. I mean, how is it that you expect to have a relationship with God if you have no history with THEM?

The fourth rule is: God Grants the DESIRES of your heart.

This rule is hard for people to understand, including myself. Humans are looking to society and then pray for things that they think that they should have in reference to society. God doesn’t care about society, especially if it’s destroying or hurting you. So, if you are asking for this or that job because you are freaked out about not having the money to live, know that you are more than likely suppressing the desires of your heart. Everyone, for the most part, wants to be able to eat and be clothed. You don’t know how to believe this yet, but you soon will. God will always provide you with food to eat and somewhere comfortable to lay your head. You don’t believe it now because you see all those homeless people or you hear how society threatens your current way of living.

As a living witness, to date, I have never starved or lacked nice looking clothes or a comfortable place to lay my head. I have never even had to beg for these things. Usually they just appear. Sometimes, I will tell God that I wish to have a certain type of food or a certain clothing and I will receive it at some point. So the actual desires of your heart are really what you should be focusing on. Those are the things that will come with facility, even if you have to wait a bit for certain things. Ask God for them as many times as you desire, each time they come up in your mind. God will grant them to you, if you are walking with THEM.

That’s all I have for now, but as I said, I’m sure there’s more to learn. One last thing that I wanted to write here is, we often become scared when we see what happened to other people. I am persuaded we see such tragic things happen to people because literally no one believes. Those who believe should be able to stand against a whirlwind, obviously thanks to God. Those who believe should be able to do whatever they desire, even if the world is against them. The scriptures say: “I, even I am He who comforts you. Who are you that you should be afraid of a man who will die, and of the son of man who will be made as grass?” If you are afraid, then that is an indicator that you don’t believe. This is good news, if you admit it to yourself and God. God will walk with you and teach you not to be afraid. No amount of reading or studying can do that, though it shouldn’t hurt. Having an actual relationship with God, will re-establish those things that you learned and teach you not to be afraid. 

So, all in all, just go talk to God as honestly as you can possibly be. Tell THEM of your jealousies of your angers and disappointments. God will do the thing and you will not see it happening but you will notice when it happens and you will smile and laugh. Slowly but surely, your joy will be filled and you will walk upon the high places of the earth.