Thanks, MDLION. I tried to send you a private message, as I didn’t want to bump a dead thread or open myself up to flaming, but my account is too new to do so. So, flame away. :)
Here’s my deal: I spent the vast majority of my life as an atheist. In 2012, I had several experiences, that I’d prefer not to go into to much detail about, that convinced me that there is indeed a God.
Like most people, probably, who have such experiences (at least in the Western world), I immediately began exploring Christianity as a way to learn about and try to understand what my soul encountered. I was not at all unfamiliar with Christianity and the Bible in my prior life, but obviously I was reading and thinking from a new perspective.
After perhaps 10 months or a year or so, though, I still found Christianity to be not right for me. I found (and find) it limiting, in the sense that I believe that God is love, and nothing but love, and the laws and rules proffered in the Bible are largely man-made. (Note: this does not necessarily imply that I think that they’re wrong or useless, only that they’re not necessarily divinely inspired.)
Your comment that you believe that people have pet sins that they’re not willing to give up rang somewhat true, but I look at it from a somewhat different perspective. Namely, there are Biblical prohibitions that I don’t agree with that do render me, from a Christian perspective, an unrepentant sinner. But my belief is that no God that I’m willing to worship is going to look negatively upon - and certainly not punish me for - things that are completely natural and harm absolutely nobody.
I pray regularly. I pray for strength and wisdom and patience and, when I’ve done wrong, forgiveness. My “spirituality,” for lack of a better word, has (I hope) led me to be a better person and more attuned to the fact that there is something beyond this world that I can’t possibly hope to understand in a full sense. But I find the rules and dogmas associated with Christianity (and every other organized religion I’ve spent any time learning about) to be decidedly temporal and not really godly.
Keep seeking God, baltiless, you will not regret it.
“Everything else can wait, the search for God cannot wait.”
-George Harrison (1943-2001)
I also pray for patience and strength. After I pray for patience, I’ll usually encounter situations which try my patience. I believe God in His Providence and Wisdom often uses very ordinary means to help us acquire the virtues we pray for.