Further Cogitations

As I reflect on what I thought and said earlier, it seems that the root of all this is a lack of faith that God desires what is good for me, that what pleases Him is what is best for me and what will result in my being happy.

Now, how do I develop faith that what God desires is what is best for me. I would imagine someone saying that I should read the Bible. However, I face the problem that I find my judgement untrustworthy as I read. I mean, there are some parts that seem relatively straightforward, but the promises that those parts make seem to only apply to believers, and I am not sure about what is true about the church and the faith that Jesus gave to the apostles.

How about talk to friends or family? Well, I face a few problems. First, I get skeptical when people tell me things, so I have a hard time accepting what they say. Second, if I were to discuss this with someone, my depressed side would probably come out, and generally that drives away my friends or confuses my family. Do you know how intimidating it is when someone you are talking to is crying about something you really don't understand. Well I don't, but I have experienced this from the position of the crying person a few times recently.

Prayer? Well, I struggle with doubts that God is really listening, that he cares about whatever I say. I know that that is dumb and wrong, but ... i dunno. It's just hard. But I do try. I pray a lot. As I am biking to class, as I am going to sleep, as I am taking a shower - whenever I find myself with some spare time and mental space, I try to pray.

So, I don't know exactly what to do. But I'll continue to pray.

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My depressed character is self-supporting. I mean, if I were to get something good, I would have a hard time getting happy or thankful. I would just get depressed about its failures, or its transience.

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School. School is really hard when you have no hope in anything really good in life. I mean, in school, you are asked to work hard. Why? So that you can get a good job. Why? so that you can support yourself and your family. etc.

So, I don't really believe I will find a good job, or that I will have a family. And that makes school a really big burden.

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Not just school, but other things too. For example, interacting with others. Interacting with others in hopes of developing friendship is difficult when you believe that all friendships will simply be transient, that they will just fade away eventually. Interacting with members of the opposite sex, in hopes of finding a GF or wife, gets hard when you don't really believe you can get a GF or wife.

Even reading the Bible is hard when you don't think you're really growing spiritually at all. I mean, sure, I am developing a lot of knowledge, but I know not if I am really growing in my faith. If anything, my faith is shaky and weak, as this entire episode about doubt and other flavors of Christianity shows.

I mean, its all really hard. I just live each day with a thought whispered in my head: None of this matters. Come tomorrow, none of this will have mattered.

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One other thing that really gets to me is that, with a lot of the things I struggle with, I am afraid to share it with others, because I don't want them to struggle with the same stuff too. How horrible it would be if my discussion of my doubts makes others doubt too, if my thoughts are wrong.

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You know, there aren't very many Christian songs that deal with doubt and depression. Most of them are all happy and, well, fake.