A response to the gospel tract DMers.
I’m not looking for your approval. I’m asking for acceptance. If I’m being honest, I find it aggravating when I open my inbox and find scriptures or sermons calling me back to Jesus from people who say they love me and my family, yet show no consideration for our physical well-being. If you want to love on my family, there are much better ways to do so than calling out my apostasy and believing you’ve done your good deed for the day. If anything, your gospel tract DM’s are pushing me further away from your gospel because they show how little you care about me as an individual. We have Christian friends who are loving on us in a way that Jesus would have admired. I have a lot more Christians in my life who are only “concerned” with my salvation. To those individuals, I just don’t believe that you really care about us. You’re reaching out like this, so there’s obviously some sort of motive, but I don’t really care to expend the energy to find out what that reason is.
I’m not asking that people stop reaching out or checking in. I’m asking that you respect my desire to have nothing to do with that faith. And if that would change how you serve my family, then I believe you need to examine what your faith is really about. If you find that it’s only to love those who are like you, then that’s fine. Own that. Preach that. Don’t spin your message into something that looks like love just to get more meat in the seats in heaven.
I take full responsibility for who I am. My thoughts, actions, beliefs, and desires are entirely my own. For the majority of my life, I’ve pushed away so much of what makes me an individual because I bought into a mindset that told me to deny myself—that told me putting my desires to death was the only way to find life. I was taught that personal desire leads to death. But I have found so much genuine peace and joy outside of my old religion and inside of myself—the desires that make me, me. There’s no part of me that wants to go back to my old way of thinking. My desires are for my own good, the good of my family, and those I choose to let into my life.
I believe that we can be good outside of religion or relationship with the biblical god. I believe that we are born with empathy and a knowledge of what’s right and wrong. I believe that knowing ourselves, not suppressing who we are, is the first step in a fulfilled life. And I believe that we are all far more powerful than we’ve been led to believe we are. I know who I am and find peace in that.
I have been transformed by the renewing of my mind to what I was before I was indoctrinated to serve another. I have found the true self that I was raised to deny. In effect, I have been resurrected. This is what is good, acceptable, and perfect for me. The bible says that whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. To go back to something that denies who I am and what I truly want from life would be sin. Sin is what separates us from god. I do not believe that I am in sin until I put to death what makes me an individual—my dreams and desires—and strive for the advancement of someone else’s kingdom that contradicts my own.
This is the way that seems right to me. If it ends in death, so be it. This gospel is my own, and for that, Paul would call me cursed, yet since my departure from his faith, I have experienced genuine freedom and peace. Both things I believe I felt while inside of the faith. This is to say that my freedom and peace aren’t tied to biblical ideologies. I am much more at peace living a life of “my will be done” than “thy will.” I’ve made my choice based on my desires for the good of myself, my family, and those around me.
My kingdom come. My will be done.
For the most part, I’m happy to discuss my spiritual journey. I can say without a doubt though, that the individuals who send in the DM gospel tracts have no desire or care to discuss individual spiritual journeys. It’s only about conversion to them. If that’s you, I’m not interested. To everyone else, I’m happy to have you in my life. And seriously, to the ones who care about me and my family, it shows more than you know. Thank you.
Biblical References throughout this post: Romans 12: 1-2, 1 John 1:8, James 4:17, Galatians 1:6-9, Proverbs 14:12
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