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Cloudwatcher
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Username: Cloudwatcher

Post Number: 110
Registered: 5-2009
Posted on Monday, July 12, 2010 - 4:47 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Judging from the posts and talk from my FB friends who attended or closely followed the General Conference events, they seem to be on a high and in their words "proud to be an Adventist." With all the pageantry of the parade of nations (designed to show the global reach of Adventism), remnant talk and basic crowd dynamics (it's hard to not be excited about a common cause when you're in a room with 70,000 other people), it's probably strengthened some people's beliefs that they are indeed on the "right" team.

It makes me wonder, how much does pride play into some people's outright refusal to question/examine their Adventist beliefs? If, (more like when), you figure out that what you've believed all your life is not the truth of the Bible, your life, as you know it, could crumble. You could lose your job, your status in the church, your community of friends and family, your comfort in being special and an "elite" Christian... it's too much to risk for many. Entering a whole new unknown world of Christianity (one you've been warned against) is daunting. Knowing that you're wrong and not being silent about it has the potential of turning any Adventist's world upside down.

What if you've worked for the church all of your life? Was all the work you did for nothing? All the things you thought you were doing for the Lord meaningless? or worse...were you helping to promote and spread heresy? Being wrong about Adventism would hurt on so many levels. I'm convinced that some people would rather not know truth.

By the same token, it's amazing how God uses our own pride to show us error...so many of the Formers' testimonies talk about how they went to search the Bible for indisputable proof that they were right only to discover how wrong they really were.

I wonder how much of this pride makes them label us Formers "bitter."

Was pride ever a barrier for you when you began questioning?
Colleentinker
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Username: Colleentinker

Post Number: 11390
Registered: 12-2003


Posted on Monday, July 12, 2010 - 6:11 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Definitely. I didn't realize it at first, but my pride and arrogance were real and deep. I felt I had a superior knowledge of Scripture, and it took a long time for me to begin to see what the Bible really said.

It was really overwhelming to think about leaving. I had no idea how we would extricate ourselves; we were involved in many ways. I started to ask God to show us when and how to leave, and wouldn't you know it...He gradually began to close one door at a time until we stood in front of only one door—but it was OPEN.

He showed us He wanted us to leave, and He helped us leave by closing off one opportunity and involvement after another. It was truly amazing. At each step I began to realize how wrong I had been, and I alternated between feeling ashamed and foolish for being "duped" and feeling grateful for being set free.

It was a hugely emotional experience...both bad and good emotions. It was time of great loss. All that I had been proud of about myself—gone.

All of it!

But Jesus is more than enough. It's amazing.

Colleen
Gorancroatia
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Username: Gorancroatia

Post Number: 22
Registered: 6-2010
Posted on Monday, July 12, 2010 - 9:39 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I think that joy is also important. Some have the joy to be an Adventists, others have pain to be an Adventists. If there is joy there can be pride also. Pride can motivate one to questioning. Pride to be more advanced than others, to be smarter. Pride is in first our individual problem. Also pain can motivate to leave. I think that we Formers experienced pain in SDA, and because of lack of joy, we investigate what moves the machinery, but it can be our rationalization of painful experience.... not objectivity.We must see a psychological thing also.
Freeatlast
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Username: Freeatlast

Post Number: 660
Registered: 5-2002
Posted on Tuesday, July 13, 2010 - 10:03 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Imagine what it must be like to spend your entire life standing at the front of the Gospel line only to discover one day that all the time you were actually standing at the end of the line.
Yenc
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Username: Yenc

Post Number: 162
Registered: 6-2008
Posted on Tuesday, July 13, 2010 - 10:28 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Even the "pain" in Adventism is a source of great pride! It leads to a "persecution for the faith" mentality, as if being persecuted automatically means you're on the right track! We were taught that in the end times, the "remnant" would be hunted down and killed, that this only verified our position as the true church. After all, weren't the Christian martyrs, starting with Stephen, held up as examples of courage in the face of evil and steadfast refusal to give in under any circumstances? Surely if we could emulate this, we would get equal credit as noble Christian martyrs!
Freedom55
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Username: Freedom55

Post Number: 62
Registered: 3-2008
Posted on Sunday, July 18, 2010 - 7:47 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I was not born into an adventist family but my parents did become adventists when I was quite young. I grew up accepting as truth that which was taught me by trusted adults. I believed I was called to ministry and took my training to become an adventist pastor. I spent 30 some years engaged in ministry believing I was making a difference in this world. Having come to the conclusion that adventism is wrong, that I was deceived, I now look back on my life's work and wonder if it was all in vain - wasted? I get so depressed sometimes thinking I have no purpose anymore. Why would God allow me to go on year after year thinking I was doing his bidding? Wasn't He supposed to lead us into truth? Why didn't he reveal this truth to me as a teenager when I felt the call to ministry? All those wasted years! God help me.
Yenc
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Username: Yenc

Post Number: 188
Registered: 6-2008
Posted on Sunday, July 18, 2010 - 10:33 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Freedom55,

Some time ago I heard of one man, an influential member of a religion he also believed to be "the truth." He was a real gung-ho guy, doing all he could to promote the faith he believed in. God saw his honest heart, and in an amazing way, He showed this man that the religion he was connected with was wrong, and that what he was doing was not His will. So what did the man do? He didn't wring his hands and bemoan his wasted, deluded years. As soon as God showed him the problem, he turned around and started a whole new era in his life, learning new skills he could use, studying for three years in the new religion that he was now convinced was really the Truth, so he could preach and teach it.

You've heard of him, I'm sure. His name was Paul.

God can still use you and your talents, Freedom55! Almost all of us on this Forum have had some kind of Damascus Road experience. Thankfully, we didn't help to murder anyone! But what we did was not much better, teaching error for truth. But no one can go back and rewrite history! All we can do is to thank God for correcting our course and pointing us in the right direction, ask God to forgive us, accept the pardon He so generously gives, and go on to use what is left of our lives in His service.

May God give you an extra measure of His peace! He loves you very VERY much!!!
Freedom55
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Username: Freedom55

Post Number: 63
Registered: 3-2008
Posted on Sunday, July 18, 2010 - 12:02 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Thanks for the reminder Yenc. I guess I was getting too whiny. Who am I to question God's timing? I just find it so hard some days.
Foofighter
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Username: Foofighter

Post Number: 133
Registered: 7-2005
Posted on Sunday, July 18, 2010 - 12:07 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Freedom55,

I personally never felt "pride" in regards to Adventism, because I wasn't raised in it...it wasn't part of my DNA, so to speak. I thought it was correct for many years, but I don't think pride was an issue for me.

My husband was a generational SDA, and worked for the church in education, for almost 30 years. For him, in my opinion, it is also more about the feelings of disappointment, and that it was a waste. Also, thinking of lost opportunities and possibilities of things, that weren't available to an Adventist lifestyle. It is a bitter pill to swallow, to think about all that was sacrificed, and options that could not even be considered, for ourselves or our daughter.

I can relate to your feelings regarding God leading us into truth. I was very honestly seeking God when I was about 24. I often wonder, how in the world did God allow me to get into this mess. I had never even heard of Seventh day Adventism, and because of a near fatal car crash, (that involved my best friend), my friend and I ended up becoming Adventists. The doc that was on ER duty was an SDA...and to shorten a long story, that was how Adventism entered our lives. I could start a long list of the problems that arose, as I'm sure we all could, but I too wonder, why did God allow me to be led, not into truth, but deception?

So no, I don't think pride is the issue for me...except maybe to be embarrassed by how naive and trusting I was. And for hubby, more about disappointment, and regret for both of us really, at lost opportunities and spiritual deception, for so many years.

I feel your pain!

Carol
Yenc
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Username: Yenc

Post Number: 189
Registered: 6-2008
Posted on Sunday, July 18, 2010 - 1:05 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I don't deny the pain, and I certainly identify with expressions of regret and loss. I have 3 sons and 9 grandchildren still SDA. They don't seem to want me to disturb their lives with my "heresies." That hurts a lot! But God has His own way of working, on His own timetable. I pray for all of them, and I wish I could have more contact, but at the same time, I am thankful for the wonderful, supportive friends I have acquired here on this Forum and in other Christian fellowships. Believe me, I also shed tears! But we have to let God do His work and not complain that He's taking too long at it. He proved to me that He is loving and patient, even letting me go through some shattering things. In my "semi-agnostic period" (an artist would have called it my "blue period"), I even married an atheist! But I see now how God used that to lovingly draw me back to Him. (God also followed that up by having that man divorce me--a difficult experience that I now see as Providential.)

God can turn ANYTHING around to His glory!
Flyinglady
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Username: Flyinglady

Post Number: 8335
Registered: 3-2004


Posted on Sunday, July 18, 2010 - 1:54 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

God does not waste a thing that we have gone through in the past. If nothing else it shows what legalism is and gives us a better understanding because we have been there and done that. I spent more then 60 years in adventism, as a member and then when my membership was dropped (due to apostatsizing I am sure - I never was told why) that is the only church I knew. Looking back now God is showing me how He led me. He does not show it all at once but a little at a time.
Pride and arrogance were a definite problem with me while I was an active sda. God took lots of that when I got into a 12 step program.
He took over 20 years to draw me to Him. I look back on my life and see how God was in charge, even when I was an sda. He is awesome that way.
Diana L

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