GOD IS IGNORING YOU

The constant prayers you’ve sent off to God seemingly are missing his front door entirely or read with laughter.

For you there are no other options…as nothing is happening.

You never expected for life to be easy. You knew it was going to be difficult and chaotic. You expected to lose loved ones, fail tests and miss out on new job opportunities. You expected it to seem unfair and unequal. You knew that just because you’re a good person…bad things will continue to stalk you.

What you did not expect is getting ignored from The God you worship. This was not part of the plan. This is not what he said. He clearly informed you to come to him for your problems…that he can somehow make things better. You do not expect life to stop having issues, but you do expect God to assist you with guidance and direction.

At times your faith in him was seemingly invincible. It was passionate and courageous. The feeling of waking up in the morning with a God on your side was calming to your screaming thoughts.

“the good ol days” are all that remains of this…as that same faith has lost its foundation. Even when you pray for more faith…nothing happened. When you prayed for any miracle for help…nothing happened.

Nothing is happening.

It’s been months and months of heartfelt prayer with no response. You question God at this point. “Imaginary friend” recycles in your mind from your past experiences in life. “Maybe they’re right…” as the self-pity absorbs the little pride you cling to.

Jesus stood alone

When Jesus was walking with a group of followers that had gathered from his miracles, he began talking to them in regard to the purpose of his supernatural abilities. He wanted to make it clear that miracles had a specific motive…and it wasn’t to toss evidence to unbelievers.

It was received with shaking heads and faithless minds. The followers began to argue about these new teachings. The crowd began walking away, most likely annoyed or bored by Jesus. After the crowd left, only a few men were left standing: the apostles.

Jesus looks over at one of them, Peter, and asks a powerful question...”Will ye also go away?” to which Peter replied “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life”

I imagine that Jesus couldn’t help but smile, as the sarcasm from Peter was based off the presumption that he and the crew obviously knew Jesus was the Christ. How wholesome a situation…the apostles standing firm as the crowd walks away? To stand with Christ is peak beauty in this existence.

If you have enough faith to pray passionately, on a consistent basis for something, then your faith is sufficient to accept that he is in fact listening…but not acting in a way you can see. As each day passes with nothing to show for your time on your knees…you still are forced into the same response Peter gave. Where else are you to go? Can you just force yourself into atheism by choice? Can you reject God and go sin like he doesn’t exist anymore? Can you start believing in another God of some sort to get back at God?

The alternative responses to Peter’s are not things that happen overnight. They take time and effort to do. If you have faith built up in God, trying to forcibly reject him is unnatural and disorderly to your soul. You cannot choose to openly reject the same God you’ve had faith in all your life and not lose the spirit in the process. This radical loss from God is the medication to your soul…and if rejected will give withdrawals that never stop.

God knows that the beautiful worldview you’ve created with him cannot be clicked off like a remote control. You accept a creator, so now you must live your life accordingly. In these difficult times, our response is to live with the frustration, confusion and lacking evidence for a time. God knows what’s like to be a human, he himself was one…so he understands every tear that you shed. He knows why you’re upset, afraid and anxious. He knows you more than you know you.

The whole experience of feeling rejected by God is nothing new. In Psalms 22, we see a man crying to God above for help…with no response. “O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not…” are the words written on the feeling of frustration and rejection. Just like you, this individual was confused by his creator’s stoic position to his prayers, yet we can see that the idea of giving up or rejecting God was not even a consideration. The individual was going to push with nothing to put his faith in… stand strong even with no response. “My God my God, Why hast thou forsaken me?” are the opening words to this chapter…the same words repeated by Christ as he suffocated on the cross. While many scholars have different interpretations of why Jesus repeated these words, I believe that Jesus needed to experience a full rejection of God and push through to finish his mission on earth. Could Jesus have changed his situation while on the cross? Of course he could have. If, during this short period of loss from his father he decided to change his mind…. he easily could have done so. As he hung on a cross, trying to take in oxygen for his dying body, his father left him alone entirely for a short time which forced Jesus into the deepest depths of darkness. Considering Jesus was also human, he experienced confusion by this loss. It did not stop him, though. The savior continued with his mission and pushed through the deepest darkest moments in the history of mankind. If there ever was an example to all of us on what to do when it seems God has rejected us, or left us, this is the moment we need to remember.

Keep moving forward with Christ. You know he lives, so accept that this spiritual drought is necessary for something in the future. Like Peter said…what is the alternative? To openly reject your creator? To run to sin, which in return will punish your already frustrated soul? No. Stick close to God and his word…and God will arrive with blessings from heaven on his time.

-Jarom

The Great Ethical Dilemma: Relationships and Standards

You finally meet the man of your dreams.

Finding him was impossible…until it wasn’t. He is everything you could have asked for…your checklist has no empty spots. It isn’t just his looks, but also his ability to communicate and his intelligence.

As always, you have your emotional guard up. This time around though, it seems to be dropping far more rapidly than usual. He seems to say all the right things at the right time. The cold heart you handed him has begun the process of defrosting.

After several months of deep conversations and fun dates…you commit to him. A few days after your fairy tale beginning…a conversation comes up unexpectedly.

The smile falls off your face as soon as you hear it…“I do not want you to go off to clubs”.

This comes as a shock to you. No man in your life has ever cared about you going off…enjoying life (as you should). Your girlfriends all have boyfriends…and they seemingly could care less about it. The social circle you’ve created would immediately see this “perfect” man as a screaming red flag.

Your whole life has been filled with beautiful (at times chaotic) moments with your rowdy friends. The theme of your life is to be in the moment, to party hard but work hard. This sudden contradiction in ideas is a sucker punch to your excitement.

“Why does it matter to you if I go have fun? You already seem controlling.” The passive reply from your mouth is full of offense and dissatisfaction. The butterflies you felt were hit by a fly swatter and left for dead.

“I’ve never had a woman go off to clubs and I cannot believe this is an issue for you” is his firm reply back.

You hang up on him, hop on TIKTOK and watch as many bias videos as you can in regard to justification for this issue of yours. By the end of the night, you’re certain that he is a control freak and a narcissist. The idea of breaking it off has already begun and you’ve just started.

My opinion is right…yours is…wrong?

What started off as a cute conversation between to love birds has now turned into an ethical dilemma: Who is right when both parties create their own subjective standards for their relationship?

One of the biggest flaws within relationships is that of standards. We all have developed our own personal set of standards for ourselves and our relationships. What we deem to be fine to do in a commitment is very much personal for each one of us. To counter this, we also have certain matters we set that are wrong and unethical to do within a commitment. Ultimately, many commitments are swamped with anxiety, anger and resent from this conflict of interest. Ethics are already a sensitive subject…and two parties finding mutual agreement on them can skyrocket into many negative emotions. For many, negative emotions are just the nails being put into a coffin slowly…the end of their relationship is inevitably going to happen.

Subjective means varying, changing and not firmly set. If you are using the word subjective in regard to people…than whatever you are referring to would be dependent on each and every individual. A good example of subjectivity in humans is opinions. We all have opinions on different matters, and for the most part we are all valid in them. If I like pizza with no cheese, call me weird but I’m just as much valid as someone who likes extra cheese on their pizza. If I love pineapples on my pizza and you don’t…we both are right. I cannot tell you that disliking pineapples on your pizza is wrong, and if I did you would call me unethical and wrong. (as you should).

Let’s drag subjectivity over to our commitments and our standards within them. It’s no different than our favorite flavor of ice-cream. My set of standards are just as valid as yours. In the example above, the woman (I used you, the reader) is no more right or wrong than the man is in regard to the situation. If he says she shouldn’t go to clubs, he is right. If she says she should be able to…she is right. They are both right. They both have their subjective reasons based off their social circles and life experiences.

This creates an ethical dilemma, one that, if not fixed…can destroy a relationship.

The only way for two parties to come together and make sense of this would be to somehow find an objective standard somewhere, one that is firmly set and accurate. Since science cannot solve any ethical problems, there is no scientific peer review you can find that could possibly prove what objective standard is right for any commitment. Science has its hands tied on anything ethical…logic and microscopes do nothing within the world of abstract values such as these.

Whatever would create these objective truths would be something outside this realm. Something that would be outside logic, physics, time and space. In order to present anything ethical as factual for our commitments…it could not use science as its source.

If we all had one source of factual standards somewhere to go to, it wouldn’t matter what they felt or thought on something…they would know that following the objective standard is the only right way. What this would mean in regard to the club dilemma above is that one of these individuals would be factually correct and the other…factually wrong. Therefore, they could both look to this objective standard for assistance in these matters.

What could I possibly be talking about here?

You’re smart, I know you can figure this one out.

-Jarom

Blind Faith (a short story)

You’re in a dark cave.

You’re alone.

You left your phone in the car…no light or messages can be sent.

You’ve been yelling for hours in hope of some sort of rescue…all that’s heard is echos that seemingly mock you in return.

After hours of walking slowly through the dark hole… you sit down in tears. Hope has been defeated.

Your mind and thoughts are on the people you’re never going to see again. All the memories you will miss. “If only” is the constant phrase running through your chaotic mind.

To toss more wood to your mental fire…your prayers seemingly have been unheard. Absolutely nothing has changed. Based off your estimation, it’s been at least a day of turmoil. This unknown final chapter in your book of life was introduced with deep bouts of prayer to your “God” above. Hours of prayer in the darkness was your go to move at first.

You come to the ultimate conclusion that if you had never prayed in this cave…you would be in the same situation. In fact, all the prayers you had in your life for direction seem meaningless to you, in the moment. The faith you built for years was pointless.

You cry harder than you’ve ever cried before. The last time you whelped this bad was decades ago.

After some time, you decide to get up and start walking in hopes of finding an entrance or hear another voice. You’ve yelled for so long you cannot get any noise to come out. Tears have dried up on your face.

As you slowly walk through the physical nightmare, you trip over a rock and hit the hard ground like an acorn to a car. The fall is dead weight. You are, at this point, numb to emotion. You’ve given up on yourself. God, the one whom you gave your all to in your existence…seems to follow suit.

You have been walking in a physical nightmare now for hours and hours…nothing.

Nothing is happening.

God forgot about you. He either isn’t real or doesn’t care. There is no in-between.

Your hope is gone. There is absolutely no reason to continue trying. It’s over. You ‘re starving, afraid and depressed.

It’s all over.

You find a soft spot of mud, or what seems to be mud…and lie in it.

“This will be my grave, right here” you whisper to your broken ego.

its over.

its all done.

You tried.

Your whole life of building up your career…a waste. Your relationships? worthless. Nothing mattered. It’s done.

You stare at the darkness. It’s so dark, when you close your eyes nothing changes. All you can hear is the drips of liquid hitting the rocks around you. Oddly, you feel slightly relaxed for the first time. The adrenaline is wearing off. Exhaustion has somewhat of a calming effect to your hurt conscious.

As you lie alone in the cave…You suddenly feel a unique feeling of peace. It’s a beautiful feeling of comfort…of hope. The irony of feeling comfort in such a horrific time makes you giggle.

The feeling forces hope back into your hopeless mind.

It could be what you used to call “God”…but you’re certain it’s just another brain chemical. Regardless, this comfort gives you a potent boost to keep going. To move forward.

To put one foot in front of the other. To stay alive…just a little bit longer.

You stand up like a toddler learning to walk. You’re exhausted and drained.

One foot softly is put in front of the other and you slowly push forward. Pushing through the sadness and anger.

You walk… with zero evidence of getting out. All you have left is a sprinkle of hope that came from within.

You have, at this point in your chaos, blind faith with no results or evidence to lean on. Nothing to see…nothing to hear. Just walking in the dark once again. For whatever reason, you feel it’s worth the extra effort…and you don’t understand why. So, you just keep on walking.

Another hour of walking is your guess…then you’ll find your natural burial ground.

Then something happens.

You see a small speck of light far off in the distance. The distance away is monumental, making it look like a tiny star in the galaxy.

“hope”.

The drip of hope you had turns from a Prius to a Lamborghini. It skyrockets into certainty. Though far away, with numerous rocks and crevices ahead…that little speck of light is waiting for you.

You start walking to the itty-bitty light with new direction and motivation. As you walk…your eyes are hyper focused on it. That tiny dot is your entire future. Though small…it alone is all your hope, joy and peace. Your family…everything is on the other side of it. It is freedom and life.

The ultimate value of something so small comes across as ironic.

You trudge through foot deep water…at times going faster than you know you should. The fact you cannot see anything except the light makes it convenient to walk towards, at least.

Every so often your conscious becomes aware of the minuscule light growing bigger. With each passing step closer, the light fills out more and more.

Finally, after tediously walking through crevices and dirty water…you make it to the light. It had to at least been an hour of walking.

You stop.

The eyes that were blind the past day stares at the opening. You See trees and a cloudless blue sky. The siren from a paramedic is heard from miles away. Birds chip like they are cheering for you.

It turns out this is the same entrance you went in at…and your shiny blue car is parked. The anxiety that has been harassing you disappears as you run to the car.

“My phone!” you scream. “Nine missed calls?!” You’re too tired be anymore stressed…so you put the phone down and exhale.

The moment is absorbed slowly.

You made it. Pain and aches from the fall prick your peace. The nearest Emergency room should be the next destination, as frustrating as that sounds.

As your mind destresses…something clicks within you.

you step outside the car and fall to the ground in tears.

God, the one whom you rejected in what seemed to be your last moments…had to be there all along. The expectations you had in your mind were not his…but the end result was identical. If you would have died on the floor of that cave, given up then…the light would have never been seen.

You ponder why you walked from your burial ground earlier. Why would you robotically walk with blind faith?

Nothing was happening.

All you can ponder is the word “nothing” in your conscious. The feeling you had on the ground gave you a sprinkle of hope…but it took blind faith…and lots of it….to discover the blessing you wanted.

Without that blind faith, the final push…seemingly alone…you would not be here right now.

The scariest moment of your past journey was blindly walking without anything to see, feel or hear…but it was crucial to aligning your will with your creators will.

It was only then that your heartfelt prayers could be answered.

-Jarom