Does God withhold blessings from Christians who are living in disobedience?

[Jewcy]

I am a Christian but my husband is not. I am desperate to be a better person in God's eyes but can not escape the instruction in 2 Corinth ch 6 re being unequally yoked to non-believers. I am nearly 42 and desperately trying to start a family (I mc'd last year). We are due to fly to the Czech Republic in June for donor egg IVF but I can't help worrying that God will not bless me with a child whilst I continue to willfully live a disobedient life. I entered into a relationship with my husband knowing that it is not God's will for me to be with a non-Christian. Am I to be forever outside of God's will? My prayer life has become almost non-existent as I don't feel I can appeal to the Lord for his blessings re a baby and yet it is all I can think about.

I guess the real problem here is that my obsession with starting a family has superceded my devotion and surrender to God's will. Please help me

Nicholas. There have been two or three very long philophy threads on MN in the past 6 months or so discussing the proof of God issue. They are long with several posters involved.
If you are interested, I suggest you get a cup of coffee and settle down for some long reads!
If you cant find which they are, I will have a look, and see if I can help find them for you.

Dion, I am really sorry but I don't understand the question. Please can you rephrase it, if possible?

Ilikethebreeze, thank you for that analogy; it made such sense. I am increasingly afraid that the Holy Spirit does not actually dwell within me - as promised - because my behaviour is so shit. I can't even seem to glorify God on these threads and I can tell you I have been made utterly miserable the past few days I have been here and on the YEC thread. My posts come out all wrong, I feel inadequate (intellectually and spiritually), I bite when goaded and manage to do Christianity a huge disservice. I will pray and continue to read, but I'll stay off these threads as I really am not glorifying Christ.

May God bless you Jewcy. You are doing fine. You are doing the best that you are able.
You are not doing a disservice to God.
If you choose to post on here, just pray first before you press the post message button.

I thought after I posted about the cat, that you may have been offended, so glad you are not.
fwiw[note to self, I must stop using that phrase], people come and say how loving the cat is.
After it had learnt to trust me, it then went into a stage of overdrive, and wanted to be cuddled and loved at every oppurtunity, presumably because of all the love it had previously missed out on, but now, it is more or less the same as the other cats.

I knew what happened about my cat would come in useful some day!

I think Dion's question referred to you having to let God love you i.e. receive His love (believe in it).

I think then, from this place of security,you'll find it easier to love others as God wants. (Not lash out, like the Breeze's cat when panicked or upset or hurt)

Sorry Dion if this is not what you meant but I think this an important point.

Jewcy don't worry we all slip up. Just allow yourself to be picked up again! I think the stumblings are good in that they show how genuine and honest you are, I'm not sure I'd feel worthy of a discussion where everybody operates perfect restraint.

Jewcy, just listened to an interesting piece on Woman's hour about St Julian of Norwich and how she wrote of gods love and how kind and forgiving she perceived him to be. Might be worth a read if you haven't already.

Italiangreyhound I wasn't criticising your position there. I wish more people agreed with you. Just had to make the point that at least right now it isn't really the position of the main churches (Many of the actual members may agree with you).

Will take a look at your other thread.

daftdame you said "back so you think God might exist?

This is one of those things that constantly gets misunderstood because the language we have to use can be ambiguous. Really it depends on what you mean by god and many people use the word differently.

Suppose we define god as something that set off the first spark that created the universe and then had no further contact with it. Didn't have anything to do with bibles or religion. Was just the first cause.

Such a god can not be proved or disproved at this time and maybe never can. It would be foolish of me to say "I know he doesn't exist".

On the other hand it would be foolish of me to decide that he did and start doing things that I guessed he might want me to do. Anything I guessed about this hypothetical being would be meaningless and pointless, with no information to go on and no actual reason to suppose he/it exists.

Now if we're talking more specifically about a god who created the universe and world a few thousand years ago, who made Adam & Eve etc we still have no evidence that he existed, but we can say that the claims about him make no sense. If that god exists then he must have gone to a lot of trouble to make it look like he was dreamt up by primitive tribesman. Again not 100% impossible, but there are an infinite number of things that are not 100% impossible.

Jewry If you now think I'm claiming your god is the god of pigeons or something I can only suggest you read it again.

Back agree about the ambiguity of language. I think (as I understand it) I would probably have considered you Agnostic, but then we don't own language.

Now about this 'primitive' tribesman - who decides what and what isn't a primitive idea?

Yeah, most modern atheists might technically be called agnostic except that the meaning of agnostic seems to have drifted as well. I used to debate on here with an agnostic who had faith that there was a god, but hadn't narrowed it down to which particular one.

As for primitive it's not simply that believing the thunder is god was ignorant or stupid. They were doing their best to make sense of the world with nothing much to go on. I'd have probably thought the same in their place.

It's more that people wrote stories back then and said they were from god. Now with the advantage of knowledge we can see that the writer didn't understand how things worked. Again not their fault, but it means that the writer was the man and not god at all. God would have known better.

At this point someone might claim translation errors, copying errors, misunderstandings, metaphor and so on. That's fine, but that's just agreeing that it's not reliable information.

Thank you backonlybriefly.

Jewcy you said My posts come out all wrong, I feel inadequate (intellectually and spiritually), I bite when goaded and manage to do Christianity a huge disservice. I will pray and continue to read, but I'll stay off these threads as I really am not glorifying Christ. Patience my dear, I am not sure my posts glorify God but if they do I have been a Christian 30 years! The Internet is a strange thing, it is tempting to say just what is on your heart at that moment, like in a conversation! But in a conversation between two or three in your home no one will (usually record what you say and play it back, read it out of context or send it to half the world! With the Internet all of that can happen so when I read a post that makes me angry, i wait before replying. Some people on here where people whose comments I read and irrationally/rationally disliked, but I read more and I found we had things in common even though as atheists their views on God were very different from mine.

God looks on the heart, if you want to glorify him, he know it, and when we all slip up he is there to catch us.

You might find this article useful in this matter.

Whoops, wrong thread - that was for Italian's other thread

back you could see it in terms of language - for me narrative is a language. In fact it goes beyond a language in that it can work at a subconscious level (it evokes emotions, imagination, physical response), it in fact has a life of its own as it is interactive in this way. In this way stories can be God inspired.

If you try and imagine an incomprehensible (in the literal sense), Divine, truth then story is the ideal medium in that it gives that truth context. Although some people might like the maths, but then the Kabbalah finds mathematical truth in the Bible also.

An author/filmmaker/musician might create a work that is designed to make you sad, then happy and then sad again and finally uplifted. If that is what the bible is then that is fine.

So that would mean that when the bible says god did this and god wants you to do that we should not take it as true, but simply as a kind of poetry meant to invoke emotion.

I'm ok with that.

You lost me on Kabbalah though.

"Its premises are that there are secret and hidden meanings in the biblical text that can be discovered by examining the shape of Hebrew letters, the gematria of words (mathematical values), and how these word values relate to each other"

The problem is that this method often draws conclusions that are in contradiction to the plain teaching of the text that it examines

I see at least three problems with this.

#1 Since the bible was apparently passed down by word of mouth in the early days no code hidden in the words could survive. People would pass on what they thought was the meaning without regard to specific words and word order.

#2 Translation would (mostly) keep the meaning while losing any hidden codes.

#3 Why on earth would god say one thing, but expect you to derive another meaning encoded in the text. He'd have to be quite mad.

Back what I'm trying to explain is how narrative can work at different levels.

The Bible says Jesus is the 'author and finisher of our faith'. Now imagine an author, even if they are writing history they can write symbolism, even mathematical symbolism, into the text. There can be literal meanings and symbolic meanings both working concurrently. Text and subtext if you like.

With Christianity you get the help of the Holy Ghost revealing meanings to you, individually, on a spiritual level. You can have a personal relationship with God. Like the subconscious interaction you can get with the text in a book. The why the need for 'hidden' meaning?, is because it is an individual and progressive interaction, the revelation is gradual.

You find with cultures where stories are passed down by word of mouth, that they are often passed down word for word. Huge parts remain the same. Even if they don't you can say that they are in fact a 'living' story, in which elements make them particularly applicable to the people of the time (think Zeitgeist). The essential elements, plot devises and such though, remain the same.

daftdame, I think you are a genius and, unlike the atheists - or me - very humble

Thank you Breeze, Dame, Spero & Italian.

Incidently Back I don't follow the Kabbalah - I just think it amazing how a text can be so full of meaning.

I too think there is a problem with overly hidden meanings, but in my mind full meaning can be hidden until you completely understand something. I don't think the Bible can be understood in one gulp if you like, thus there remains there a depth in meaning that is hidden to me until more is understood (like scaffolding in theory of mind).

Jewcy I'm no genius. I often confuse myself. I just love Jesus, anything to do with the Bible, read a lot and try to make connections.

daftdame, do you - despite knowing God Is Love - sometimes feel unworthy and, if so, how do you deal with it? Any verses you instinctively turn to?

Jewcy Yes to the unworthy and there is no one verse in particular, it depends why I am feeling like that at the time.

I have had many different worries. The more of the Bible you know, the further along you are, the more you can find an individual part which helps you. I often just find bits popping into my head at the time (Holy Ghost). I like reading daily devotionals and thinking how they apply to my life.

Psalm 23 is always a good one for reassurance.

Jewcy Galations 5:1 (New International Version ©2011)
"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery"

And if you want a cultural reference think L'Oreal....

Beauty comes from knowing who you are.... a child of God.... not a user of L'Oreal... but the words are the same!

I would like to answer Jewcy's question too if I may.

And my answer, after a little thought, is no, I do not feel unworthy.
And I think it is because, at the back of my mind,I know He rescues the unworthy.
So I know, that even if my faith went back a bit, or stood still for a bit, that as long as I never throw it away, I am still saved. And that is just fine with me.

And this is the important bit. When you are saved, ALL your past sins, absolutely all of them are washed away, They are no more.They are finished. In fact, God has forgotten them. So you start from absolutely brand new.

Now as to people's sins after they become a Christian. Yes we sin. But if we say sorry for them, they are all gone again. [obviously we shouldnt keep sinning and just think, well that is ok, I will say sorry and God will forgive. Yes he will, but something is going rather fundementally wrong imo for that to keep happening].

And, lastly, God has chosen to save you, Jewcy, yes you. So, who are you or us or anyone around you to say you are not worth it, when God clearly thinks you are.

Thanks, daftdame & Italian. My prayer today has been Psalm 139:23 & 24: "Search me O God and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting".

applies to me too so I've just prayed that! Thanks.