When You Have Bad Theology

Life can spiral out of control when you let bad theology corrupt your knowledge of a Good God. I didn’t realize how damaging I was being toward myself because I have often had bad theology. I keep thinking about why some people fall away from Jesus and I truly believe it’s because somewhere along their journey they’ve started believing the wrong things about God like I have.

I did not grow up in a Christian household. In fact my mother after growing up in a very strict Catholic family going to a Catholic school dropped out of high school and declared herself an atheist.

She had bad theology.

She didn’t know a loving God filled with grace and mercy. The only God she knew was from other people who wrongly gave her the wrong impression of God.

I don’t have a relationship with my mother today. It’s complicated but I remember when I was 5 years old asking my mother what happens after you die. “Where do you go, mommy when you die?”

Her words were, “Into the ground, you are burried in a casket.”

I said, “No, I know my body goes there, but where do ‘I’ go?” I knew even at that young age that life existed after death. But my mother was insisting there was nothing after death.

In my 5 year old mind, I couldn’t comprehend that. I cried and was scared and I really think it was the first time I looked at my mother and questioned her.

But she told me what she told me out of her pain and her church hurt and her belief.

I’m sad for her.

And I’m sure God has been sad for me and my thinking.

I don’t know what her faith is today but last I checked she thought God might be female or thought that she was reincarnated from another life.

See I ran away from home when I was 16. It was abusive and I didn’t really see anyway of staying there and living a good life. I’ll explain in another blog post but this leads into why I sometimes have bad theology.

Spiritual abuse is real. It’s something pastors can do to their churches. It’s something parents can do to their children, it’s something friends can convince you of and it’s often things that are coated with little bits of truth but not the whole truth and then just like the snake deceived Eve, you can also be deceived and think things about God’s character that are not true.

You see I’ve always had a problem with the story of Job in the bible because I’ve interpreted it wrong. I’ve believed Satan’s lies about me. I’ve believed Satan’s lies about God.

See my problem with Job’s story is that I didn’t understand why God wanted to test Job’s faith by taking away everything he loved. If I loved someone I wouldn’t test their love for me by taking away everything they loved…that seems cruel to do to someone you love. But the difference between love between two people and the faith and love we should have for God is this:

If we love the things or people in our lives more than the God who gave us those things or those people, we don’t get God’s love for us. God gives us every breath of our bodies and It’s almost like asking God for rain, and then worshiping the raindrop. That’s silly! I’m not trying to compare our friends and family to raindrops, but if God has a plan for each one of us, than we need to be grateful for the time he has given us with the people we love, the talents we have, the things we have, the jobs we have, the money we have…pure faith knows that all that we have doesn’t come from ourselves, it comes directly from him, and once we know that we can begin to be grateful and begin to see that God wants good things for us.

I have to start believing that God is no longer punishing me for my past sins, that I have repented and by my faith he will bless me. That each day his mercies are new and that he will provide us everything we need to fulfill our duties on this planet. We are on mission and sometimes the mission is tiring and we don’t get why certain things happen or why God didn’t intervene when “we” think He could have. But I do know I’ve seen great things in retrospect of terrible things happening to people and that can only be explained by God’s love.

I have to understand God’s love for me and live by faith, not my works, my faith.

It’s not that we don’t put in work or effort, it’s that we learn what to prioritize. A friend of mine last week brought this up. That we should start each day with P.A.G.E.

Prayer: Start your morning with prayer, get in the right headspace to receive what God has in store for your day.

Attitude: Once You’ve prayed and talked to God, get your attitude right. Starting your day with a good attitude will help you to be successful that day.

Gratitude: Have gratitude for all that God has given you and will give you, believe he will bless you.

Effort: Only after you’ve prayed checked your attitude, expressed your gratitude do you put in the effort, because at that point your effort finally means something. Your efforts will be blessed by God once you allow him to guide them.

This is what I need to remember every single day of my life! If I can wake up and do this every day, that is where I will live in God’s blessing.

I hope this blog post helps someone who has had doubts about God’s character. That God loves you and only wants the best for you always.