Thank you guys for commenting because it gives me someplace to go, and helps sharpen what I'm trying to process. I respond as best I can.

Might I be so bold as to say "hold on a sec"...if....you're legit wondering if God loves you as much as he does somebody who has a ministry or somebody fabulously wealthy.. shouldn't we clear that sort of überbasic thing up before worrying about tithing junk? My opinion is - let's get that one settled before talking about money.

OK - that sounds good to me. Let's get that nailed down first.

You seem to be looking for an answer and don't know the question to ask. 

Yeah - that sounds about right. 

Next time the pastor preaches on "return" ask him for a $1,000 loan. Jesus said to give to those in need, give and don't expect to be paid back. Try that and see what he says. I am totally serious. 

Yeah - this has been something I've wondered about. See, the people who have talked about tithing and giving to God have never once come to us and asked us if we have enough gas to get to work (or even home) or if we've had enough to eat that day.

I don't intend to blow my own horn or promote myself in any way, but I've given away money to people that needed it. I've bought lunch for people I knew were hungry, bought clothes for people who were cold, given gas money, fixed cars and done yard work for folks that needed it done. I never asked for anything in return either, but I ate the food I was given and accepted anything offered. It's hard to give money when you don't have any, especially when you know the people telling you to do it are rich beyond anything I can comprehend. 

I always gave money to CTCC (gladly) because that church has given me a lot of financial support, from food to gas money to "free" (because somebody else paid for it) professional counseling that kept my marriage together and probably kept me out of jail. CBC took care of me when I needed it, too. Whenever I had a big order (say a few thousand, and especially anything over $10K) I always gave at least 10% to whatever church I was attending, if not more. But in truth, I haven't had enough money to even give my family a place to live. When I've had it, I've given it.

And it's not limited to money...it's time and energy and other resources...whatever God has blessed you with, give of that to bless others.That makes me think of how God has blessed you with the ability to play the trumpet and to write.

I'd love to do either of those things. The problem is this: most every church worship team has zero room for a trumpet. Generally, they have a hipster-looking guy (or two) playing acoustic guitar and a girl (or two) holding a microphone, a drummer in a plexiglass box, and a middle-aged guy playing bass. The instrumentation generally just isn't there, and generally, nobody wants to change it. IF you can find a black church you might have something to work with - otherwise you're stuck hoping maybe the music director wants a big Easter or Christmas production. At the end of the day, I play an instrument that's vastly unpopular with the current trends in worship music, and isn't "cool" enough to put onstage with the hipsters or the American Idol oversingers. (I have names for all their hand motions, by the way.)

Nobody has ever asked me to write anything - ever. Truth be told, I think most of what I write would send the congregation looking for two big boards and some railroad spikes to punish my blasphemy.

if you're giving simply to receive in return, that "sacrifice" will be a stench in God's nose.

I get that, but I always figured could still use my dirty money anyway. I don't think I've ever given with the intent of getting back at all; I've just been told it would happen, and it hasn't yet, and I feel a bit let down that a pastor would say something that wasn't true. That hurts every time it happens; sometimes more than others. Aren't you supposed to trust your church leaders to tell you the truth about what God says? Hell - I can make up shit, too. Maybe I'll start the First Church of What I Think.

Anyway, that's it for tonight. 

I found this - I'm posting it for my brother. I hope you like it, man - listen to the end. I was in tears by the end of it. I'm hoping it was the music and everything I know that goes into it and nothing else.  

Does God really say this?

So now let's talk about giving and tithing.

As of late, I've been more and more conflicted about this. I have three schools of thought here:

#1) Give your way out of poverty - give all the money you can to God so that He can return your tithes 30, 60 or 100 fold. Give the firstfruits of your labor; the first check you write, even before your mortgage - and sacrifice it to God to show that you trust in Him to provide for your financial (physical)  needs. Test God on this and see - this is the only time the Bible says to test God, right? Trust in God and believe that investing in His kingdom can supernaturally bring increase to your financial holding here on earth as God rewards your faithfulness. You can't take it with you, but you can send it on ahead and reap eternal rewards for your obedience.  (I've heard this from at least two different pastors, not to mention a lot of very shady televangelists.)

Now, personally, I think this is GREAT  - *IF* - you are doing OK financially and you have enough to pay your bills, etc. When your paycheck doesn't even come close to paying off what you need to survive, much less get out of debt, this gets a LOT trickier.

Also, on a personal note, I tithed just a bit over 10% of what we got paid on Sunday, and now I'm $60 overdrawn. I'm just not seeing the return the pastors have promised me, man. That little thing called MATH seems to be getting in the way. God created MATH, right? You can't get around MATH. It seems that the natural consequences of giving your money away are fairly inescapable, like gravity or physics, and God doesn't seem to be bending those laws for me at the moment.

Except the Bible very clearly teaches us that Jesus tithed, and seemed to be a be a big fan of tithing, and told other people to tithe, and if I want to be like Jesus (and I do, for whatever that's worth) then I should tithe as well - right?

#2) Take care of yourself and your family as best you can, pay your bills and do your best to get out of debt whenever you can. God can get by on whatever you can spare because He's God and can do more with your money than you can. When you are blessed financially, share that blessing.

#3) Put EVERY penny you have towards getting out of debt. This is the moral high ground, right? You can't give financial offerings to God when you're not right with others financially, right? God can get by without your money, and it wouldn't be ceremonially clean money anyway - right?

 I mean, if you're not paying back the debt you owe you're STEALING from the person (or entity) you owe money to, right? And in order to keep from STEALING money, you have to pay it back as fast as humanly possible - but to what extent? How much do you take away from yourself and your family to pay off debt? Do you skip out on vacations to pay off debt? How about eating out? How about eating at all?

But wait - isn't it all God's money anyway? So if we don't tithe, who are we stealing from?

Is it more or less OK to steal from Capital One -or- is it more or less OK to steal from God by denying Him the first 10% of what He says in His book to return to Him to further His kingdom?

And if you only have $20, who gets it? God, the creditor, or do you buy food and a new tire so you can continue to drive to work?


Answer me these, please.

stuff from Easter 2012

Those wolf pictures make me laugh. He's so mean.

Anyway, today was OK. The best part was sitting and watching two hours of Mythbusters with Toni. 

I had to drop my daughter off at her Mom's parent's house, which was nice because it saves me about two hours and about $15 in gas. Easter always stings a little because I remember (quite vividly) that I proposed

to my ex-wife on Easter. Quite obviously "happily ever after" didn't materialize, and it's just a reminder of something bad happening. Fortunately, she managed to taint Easter and Christmas, so the two holidays that commemorate God have that stink on them. On a scale of 1-10, though, it's down to about a two, like an ant bite from three days ago.

Today our pastor said two things that really struck me in a good way.

#1) The more you get away from the Bible the easier it is to start believing squirrely things.
#2) The Resurrection proves that God is real and Jesus was who he said he was, so that's cleared up.

My brother asked a question that stuck with me, and that was this: how well do you know God? My answer, I think, is that I don't think I know God from a hole in the wall. I think I know a crapload about God, but that's not the same thing.

I figure I should probably read the Bible. I can say with absolute authority that I have read "Jurassic Park" many more times than I've read the Bible, so I guess it stands to reason that I really don't know God all that well. I think I've had some pretty good glimpses here and there, but nothing really permanent.

Our pastor was telling us a story in the Bible about a blind guy that Jesus was healing, and after praying a first time Jesus asked the guy if he could see, and the guy said he could see men walking around like trees. Jesus prayed again and the guy could see fine afterwards. I feel like the blind guy after the first prayer - some exposure, some experience, but no real clarity.

Then he told us the story of Peter, when Peter stood and very boldly spoke to all those people in the book of Acts. It was like Peter already had all the knowledge, he just needed the final key to ignite the conviction behind it, and after that there was no stopping him.

Toni says that she's glad we're going to this church. She says it's the first time she's really seen me try to dig in, even if it stems from me getting mad. She thinks that God is tilling up the soil in my mind (or heart, or something) and getting all the rocks out so He can plant some good stuff. Evidently I have a crapload of rocks.

Anyway, that's it for tonight. More tomorrow, I hope. I want to go into the concept of increase and make sure I'm not thinking God is promising me something He's not. I'm wondering if God doesn't want me to be poor but He doesn't have to give it to me - maybe that's closer.

Does God Play Favorites?

I really struggled with this all week. It seemed to me that God seems to like a lot of people much more than He likes me. I have to confess - it's fairly demoralizing.

I'll use a few examples, if I may.

I know a couple that's very well off financially, they are founding members of a church, she has her own web-based  video-conference style ministry. They give all the credit to God and seem  fairly happy most of the time. I think her theology is a bit squirrely at times and occasionally feels a bit self-aggrandizing to me, but hey - from all outward appearances they have it together. Should I give these people's input more weight, more consideration because they seem outwardly blessed financially and they've founded their very own ministry? I mean, doesn't it seem like God seems to like them well enough to give them what they've asked for? (Whereas I feel like I can't even get God's attention at all.)

Secondly, I know another guy that holds a very high position within his church and has given some very detrimental counsel in the past. Since that time, he's been promoted to an even higher position - does this mean the bad counsel (he said some pretty terrible things would happen if I got divorced) will come true? I mean, GOD seems to have put the guy in a position of spiritual authority - does that means the guy has God's favor, and if so, does that make him right?

I have to confess getting rather worked up about this earlier in the week, going so far as to write some really brutal (and probably blasphemous and heretical as well) things. I felt (and still feel) like I was having a pretty big crisis of faith, as it were. I had REALLY started to doubt if God was real, if He existed at all, since apparently He wasn't answering any of my prayers, and in fact seemed to be doing the opposite of what I asked. I felt like I was getting stones and scorpions. 

I think by Tuesday night I was so mad I was planning on skipping all things church this weekend. I mean, it's Easter weekend, of all weekends.  Unfortunately (or fortunately) I have my daughter this weekend, and I didn't want to drag her into my spiritual funk, so I was prepared to smile,  nod and fake it. Now in the past few days I feel like I've gone from hostile and angry to grudging acknowledgement to apathetic ambivalence to being willing to listen, but feeling a bit hollow and now, a bit skeptical. I've never really questioned it until now (my faith in God, that is.)

We're supposed to look at the fruit of other's lives, right? Isn't that a good indicator of how much favor they have with God? (At least, that seems to be what the couple I mentioned earlier seems to be saying.)

And if God does play favorites, how can I get on His good side? Apparently I've been doing it wrong. Evidently, if I follow what these people I mentioned are doing, He'll give me financial independence (if not wild abundance) and a high position in some kind of ministry, though I could really care less about that. Truthfully, I was happy counting the collection at the 12-step meetings and directing traffic on Sundays. I don't want my name on the marquee, ya know? 

So.....am I wrong? I was always taught that God loves me no matter what, but I feel like even if He loves me, He doesn't like me very much at the moment, and I feel like He's picking teams for His kickball game and I'm the last in line with the fat kid, the nerd and the booger eater.

It puts me in mind to just quit trying to do anything right, man. It seems like trying to do everything right hasn't done much of anything except increase my hardship, so why not just do the opposite and not try to do anything right? Apparently it doesn't matter either way - at least not so far. 

See, I was always taught that you can't manipulate God, and that you can't get on His "good" side. But it sure looks like all these other happy, smiling people have found out a secret they either won't tell or I can't understand, or that God likes them a LOT more than He likes me. So - this raises the question: did they do something to get God's attention in a good way? Is God blessing them? What can *I* do to get those blessings, or is that trying to manipulate God? And is it manipulation to try to do the things God tells us to do so that we can get the rewards He promises us? Does our motive count for or against us in that regard - or - does it matter at all?

Am I way off here?

I'll admit - I feel like this is a pretty serious thing for me, man. I feel like I'm starting to doubt the WHOLE THING, and I don't WANT to do that. It makes no sense for me to do that - none whatsoever. And I know the Bible Answer - it's all in God's timing, for His glory, blah blah blah; I get that. 

But man - I'm struggling with believing it anymore. 

Does anything I've said make sense? 

the second one I wrote

I wrote a bad blog before this one and I feel like I need to undo it.

I doubt like hell anybody reads this, but I'm debating putting my prayer requests here. I feel like it'll either give me a way to see that God answers prayer, or it'll further prove prayer doesn't work , at least not for me, which is how I feel tonight. I feel kind of down.

Anyway, that's it. I don't know what I'll do. I said some pretty mean and vile things to and about God and some other people in the blog I wrote before this, and I don't know how I feel about that. Bad, I guess, but I still feel like I kind of meant it, at least some of it.

Anyway, here's a picture as a reward for reading.