Quote:
Originally Posted by Unsure
I have been raised in the Lord's Recovery. I was surrounded by people immersed in the teachings of Witness Lee before I could walk, and had them drilled into my head ever since I was baptized five years ago.
|
Your main problem is not being in the Lord's Recovery; it is being seventeen. Think about this: if you were raised in the Methodists or Assemblies of God or Southern Baptists, you'd have the same problem: being immersed in a set of thoughts, teachings and practices which you have no way of independently verifying. You were told what was "real" and because you wanted to get along (to get fed & housed, get approval, to belong to something), you went along with the program.
Now you strongly suspect it is just a sham. But wouldn't you have the same predicament in the Roman Catholic Church or the Syrian Orthodox Church or the Islamic faith? You see all these people doing stuff, because supposedly it's the right thing to do. But when you begin to poke at it, you realize that maybe the "reality" which was presented to you was pretty thin indeed.
But the dilemma of being seventeen is that you don't know the alternative. If this is a sham, then what? An easy alternative is to find the current "alternative lifestyle", which is what I did. Booze, drugs, loud angry music. All the adults are stupid. "Don't trust anyone over 30" was the saying when I was coming up. So you have a bunch of young people in a room, doing bong hits or ecstasy or whatever and thinking that they've found the way out.
Which is, of course, a dead end. But what is the alternative, and how to find it? The only answer that I can give you is that if God is real, and you seek Him, you will find the way. Jesus said, "Seek, and you will find", and if you take Him up on this promise, and seek, and you don't find, then that is God's problem, not yours. You did your part - you sought after reality. God failed to keep His end of the deal and let you find something.
So challenge God - ask Him, "If you are real, show me". As Him to show you the way. He can and He will. God bless you in your journey.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Unsure
But having struggled with controlling my anger all my life, I'm not sure how much longer I can wait before I lash out at the LC and do something very stupid.
|
One of the things you'll have to overcome in life is anger, another is fear, another is shame, another is greed, and so on. These forces are real and they desire to control your life, and make you their puppet. If you "lash out" as you put it, you've ceded control. You stopped giving the Lord's Recovery program control, and gave these dark forces control instead. Not really an improvement. The way out is narrow, indeed, but there is a way out. It is attached to a name, the name of Jesus. He is the way back home to the Father, not Witness Lee or the supposedly "normal" church of Watchman Nee. Not God's economy or Bibles for America or the Christians on Campus group at your local University. But Jesus Christ, revealed to us in the Bible and in the testimonies of thousands, through the ages. Seek and you will find.