Religion Almost Ruined My Relationship With God

I’m still recovering

I have a hard time reading Christian themed stories, devotionals, etc. That may sound strange, considering I am a Christian, but it’s true. I find it hard to read religious themed writing without feeling condemned.

I grew up in a Christian home with a very strict religious father. My dad’s view of God was a punitive one. You mess up — God punishes you. I was expected to be perfect, something no child can possibly be.

My dad said a lot of hurtful things to me that were religion based. I’m not going to go into details, but it was pretty bad. I’m sure he heard the same horrible things, and worse, from his father.

Most of my teenage years were spent believing God had turned His back on me, and I was going to hell.

As you might imagine, this created a lot of problems when it came to me seeing God as a loving father.

To make matters worse, I went to Christian school. Southern Baptist (you’re going to hell) Christian school. I hated it. I never experienced the peace or joy of God.

I lived in constant fear of making a mistake and going to hell. Since my mother’s death, I have an irrational fear of death that I can’t shake, no matter how much I pray, meditate, or read the Bible. I’m still working through it.

In Christian school, we were constantly preached to and told how rock music and wrong thoughts would send us to hell. Oh, and girls wearing pants. That was a no-no too.

I couldn’t understand why God hated us all so much. I mean, He kinda set us up for failure, since we can’t be perfect.

Sure, we heard the gospel message, but Jesus wasn’t much more friendly than God. He was mad at us too because of what He had to endure to save our sorry butts. I never heard anything about love. God and Jesus begrudgingly saved us, but we’d better not mess it up because God wouldn’t hesitate to punish us.

Honestly, I understand why people become agnostic or atheist. If this is your view of God, why would you trust Him? I certainly didn’t!

When I started going to a Vineyard church in the 90s, everything changed. I learned about a God of love and grace. It was hard for me to accept, given everything I’d heard all my life.

The Vineyard was a turning point in my life. I experience a remarkable move of God that I couldn’t dismiss as mere wishful thinking. It was a life changing time in my spiritual life, and I grew immensely in my faith.

Then, the bottom fell out of that. The pastor betrayed the church, and was let go. (Not going into details because it was complicated.) He left a lot of hurt people behind.

The church was never the same, and I questioned all the good I had experienced while there.

After the Vineyard, I went more traditional again and attended a Lutheran church. There were problems there too.

I was on the worship team, and I can tell you we were absolutely not appreciated at all. There was a “worship war” between the contemporary and traditional service, and things got ugly.

They officially stayed my church, but the pastor bailed on doing my mother’s funeral last year. That was the last straw for me.

I’d love to have a church, but we don’t have a lot of options in my area. For now, I’m settling for online fellowship, mostly with people I’ve met here.

I don’t know why I haven’t found a church yet. I guess the timing isn’t right. Perhaps I haven’t healed enough to be open to a new church.

One thing I’ve learned from my experiences is this — if you look to people, even other Christians, to meet your spiritual needs, you will be disappointed every time.

Religion is about rules and control. A relationship with God is both easier and harder. Easier because you can go straight to the source, harder because it can be difficult to shut out all the other religious voices.

If you are exploring your spirituality, I encourage you to spend 80–90% of your time alone with God, and the rest listening to words from other people. The only way to cultivate a relationship with someone is by spending time with them. It’s the same with God.

God doesn’t hate you, and He doesn’t expect you to be perfect. He loves you. But you’ll never believe that if you listen to some of the crazy religious stuff out there. You need to discover that for yourself, and the only way to do that is to spend time alone, cultivating that relationship.

I don’t care about rules and religion anymore. Most of that is man made. Relationship matters a lot more.

I dare you to try it and see for yourself. You might just get set free.