faith and pain

This is cross-posted from the Frenzyboard. I posted it in the context of a discussion about faith, losing it and keeping it, that sort of thing.

Various things about what Christian communities tend to be like make me extremely uncomfortable going to Christian gatherings, which has resulted in my spiritually starving myself for a few years now. As a result of this spiritual starvation, the discomfort has only grown worse rather than better, and I haven't been able to integrate Christian faith and my own life in ways that I'm comfortable with. The parts of Christianity that I feel comfortable with are the ones relating to social justice, God creating all human beings with intrinsic worth, and stuff like that -- and I have been nurturing and developing those aspects of my faith. It's the personal part, the relationship with God part and the stuff about how God interacts with our everyday lives that I feel uncomfortable about.

It's not that I don't want to believe in it. It's more that Christians talk about how God works in people's lives and stuff like that, and I feel like I have a choice between either believing that God takes a much more hands-off approach to the world than most Christians believe he does, or knowing that God has done wonderful things for other Christians AND NOT ME. Honestly, I think that's really the crux of it, and that's why I'm so uncomfortable dealing with other Christians and with Christian communities that treat God in a very personal way. It's not that God's never done anything for me, because He has, and sometimes I forget that. But I honestly don't know what's God and what's just natural results of circumstances. I try to integrate the two by believing that God sets the wheels of life into motion, and then they turn as a result of the way God has made the universe and of people's choices.

What makes me so uncomfortable is seeing how Christians talk and sing about God being so wonderful, God working things out for them in their lives, and stuff like that, and having what they say about God NOT fit with my experience in my own life. My experience in my own life is that God isn't all that reliable. I believe that He will work things out in the end, especially in the afterlife, but when people talk about how God worked things out so that they get a job, or God did this in their lives, or God makes sure everything turns out okay no matter what circumstances they find themselves in, it makes me uncomfortable because I have had worse things happen to me than I've even imagined and God has NOT stopped them or made them go away. I believe in God. I have faith in God. I just don't think that He's as simple or makes things as perfect as Christian communities make Him out to be, and I feel uncomfortable with people saying He is like that because it clashes so strongly with my deeply felt emotions about His activity in my life. I mean, lots of Christians in my shoes would say "Oh, God worked things out so that I didn't end up completely screwed financially, God worked things out so I have friends now", stuff like that. And I guess those things are true -- it's just that most Christians would focus on those, and attribute all the good things to God but none of the bad, and I can't do that when the bad includes the destruction of not only many of the dreams, but most of the basic expectations I had of how my life would proceed between my 16th birthday and now. When you've spent the last six years having the things you believed God was preparing you and leading you to do wrecked beyond your worst nightmares, how are you supposed to sing praise and worship and feel comfortable with other Christians constantly saying "Oh, God did this and that wonderful thing for me"?

I haven't fully faced all this anger and pain -- I've been avoiding Christian communities and also avoiding dealing with my personal relationship with God. I've been all about Christian principles, "love your neighbour as yourself", but I don't know what to make of God as a...person, for lack of a better term. I want to believe, and I do believe, but I have a hell of a lot of pain in there fucking me up.