Thank you! Syncro, belief in God and His Presence in my life, has always been a part of my life. We received a miracle when I was a baby, and an 88 pound woman with a tumor in her chest and a tube in her neck through which she breathed, was sent home to die, after 3 1/2 months at one of the top cancer hospitals in the country. She didn't die then. The doctors found that the tumor arrested, and they couldn't figure out why. Radiation and chemo hadn't done it. The tumor was still there and she was alive. It was God. It was prayer. Years later with all the latest technology- they still couldn't figure it out. They even took some bone marrow from her, to inject into mice- the mice didn't make it. My Mom lived to a good old age. She outlived my Dad by quite a few years, and we were together. I thank Him and I praise Him for that, among other things!
My personal relationship with God is just that: personal. Between Him and me. While I love to speak of Him, there exist things between a man and his God which no one is privy to. Some are in unspoken words; some in prayer; some in a language only God and the soul can understand: the mind cannot comprehend.
As for Scripture, I think the issue is often in the way we learn and use Scripture. We are not taught chapter and verse memorization. We learn, for example, first the actual reading itself; then its relation to God and Salvation History; how it instructs us to behave toward Him and our neighbor; it is the means through which we find guidance, consolation, things we need in our daily lives. The Sacraments, Mass, all those things we are so despised for, spring not from pieces of paper, but from a living Word written with real people in it, not as some kind of diary, but with both earthly and heavenly reality, given throughout the millennia. That is the best way I can say it; the words in my heart can't find the voice to describe what i know to be true, more surely than I know my own name. Lead Thou me on, oh Lord, and I shall do my best to follow.
God bless you for your concern.
Grateful
God bless you for your concern
Review my concern:
I have great concern for those that need direction to having a personal relationship with JesusThe Gospel of John, God breathed by the Holy Spirit, can be of benefit to you.
That being said, it seems you have a lot of hoops to jump through.
Your "best to follow" isn't what God needs, it's not "us" it is Him.
Our own works (and rituals etc etc) are nothing but filthy rags to God.
You can go directly to the Throne of Grace and talk to Jesus. He is always ready. Direct communication. Jesus in Christians and Christians in Jesus.