Marques, thanks for posting that! You know when you begin to learn that everything you THOUGHT you knew is bunk...it kind of throws you for a loop! I felt that way when I left the Seventh Day Adventist church years ago! For 8 years some friends and I had home church because we didn't know what else to do! I THOUGHT the Sabbath-keeping was right, but when I began to see the other things were wrong I was just lost! We kept worshiping God, but something was not right. WE became just a group of Adventist bashers after a while! Then we happened onto a Bible study and joined the group which led us to the Vineyard Church, which was a breath of fresh air after the SDA church (those initials could also mean: Stuffy Dead Alliance)
BUT after 8 MORE years I left there! Can we say maybe I am a slow learner?? (Left my long-time friends behind).
My friends thought it was awful and I still talk to them, but our time of sharing is over unless God intervenes! I realize after feeling that God was just shoving me around that He was doing it for a reason! I didn't belong anywhere! I had been reading Ray's stuff for awhile but then I went back and started printing everything out. I have almost everything on BT in print! I even joined the forum back in 2007, but never could get signed on for some reason! So I thought that God didn't want me here!
I kept trying different churches, but nothing! Finally I just couldn't wait for all the parts of the LOF series to be out!! I read and read and THEN I understood what was happening to me! I realized that God was CALLING me not PUSHING me around He was DRAGGING me here! To this forum where everyone has a very similar story!
SO last June I decided to try the forum again and this time it worked!! I got signed on and have been here ever since! So many of the things Ray has taught absolutely sparked a fire within me! I knew that this is truth, when you are a seeker of truth you are a finder of truth! So NB, you will find that way to love God again! You will know that He has been right with you the whole time and now is bringing you to this new place. The reason we fall away is to find our way! God is in it all! Until we have our moorings completely stripped away and we are adrift in an ocean of uncertainty we will not be able to hear God calling to us! God is the one who does it in us and through us, we HAVE to know that!
The teachings we grew up with were tainted with falsehoods for sure, but God is true! God is real, and His love Never Ever falls away from us!
Kathy