People with trust issues also have faith and humility issues. You can't ask the world to rise to your expectations, yet not meet that same standard for others. The notion that God didn't hurt me, but you did becomes an illogical argument for many. People who are trying to love you feel that they can never meet your definition of love because it is one sided or has rules that don't apply to you, as well. This is when the teachings of Christ become distorted. Forgiveness, compassion, love, kindness and second chances becomes a game. People in your life feel they must win it to receive it, which is far from the unconditional love God gives us. In the end, the person with trust issues find themself on a journey of perfection seeking out people incapable of mistakes like the last person or hurting their self esteem. Sadly, they miss the blessings of growth that come through humbly accepting they are also flawed and make mistakes. They miss the blessings of faith because they don't invite God into their heart, so he can help them overcome their cycle of pain. They miss the peace that comes from forgiveness and being forgiven. But most of all, they miss out on the beautiful people God brings into their life who love them so much.
Samson caused the house to collapse, knowing his death would also result. Despite Samson’s deliberate suicide, Samson died faithful after having judged Israel for 20 years. His name rightly appears among men who, through faith, were made powerful. (Jg 15:20; 16:29-31; Heb 11:32-34) We are surrounded by thousands of unseen cruelties, that mostly go unseen. The total amount of suffering each year is beyond comprehension. This world is barbed, dangerous and painful—too painful for some. Give them their space. On any given day, your nod of approval may perpetuate cruelties that rasp away at the soul of another. We are all bound together in this delicate web of consequence. Tread light. Be kind. Many among us make unseen bargains to push ourselves onward—another hour, another day, another week. Occasionally their bargains create a deadly, unstoppable momentum. Consider King Saul: When he realized that he would not survive his final battle against the Philistines, rather than letting his enemy humiliate him, or extort Israel, “Saul took the sword and fell upon it.” –1Sam 31:4pg 75
Before continuing further, it is important to gain an understanding of how democracy is perceived by the ordinary people of the Middle East. Democracy, as a secular entity, is unlikely t be favorably received by the vast majority of Middle Easterners who are devout followers of the Islamic faith. Traditionally, there is tension among the Muslim countries with respect to the establishment of a democratic form of government. On the one hand, there are those who believe that democratic rule can co-exist with the religious nature of the Middle Easter societies; however, on the other hand there are those who believe that the tribal structure of the Middle Eastern countries may not be suitable for democratic rule as too many factions will emerge. The result will be a "fractured" society that cannot effectively unite and there is also the risk that this could impact the cohesion produced by the Muslim faith. Although concerns exist, for the most part, the spirit of democracy, or self rule, is viewed as a positive endeavor so long as it builds up the country and sustains the religious base versus devaluing religion and creating instability. Creating this balance will be the challenge as most Western democracies have attempted to maintain a separation of church and state. What this suggests is that as democracy grows in the Middle East, it is not necessarily going to evolve upon a Western template—it will have its own shape or form coupled with stronger religious ties.
[…] I began to see Algiers as one of the most fascinating and dramatic places on earth. In the small space of this beautiful but congested city intersected two great conflicts of the contemporary world. The first was the one between Christianity and Islam (expressed here in the clash between colonizing France and colonized Algeria). The second, which acquired a sharpness of focus immediately after the independence and departure of the French, was a conflict at the very heart of Islam, between its open, dialectical — I would even say “Mediterranean” — current and its other, inward-looking one, born of a sense of uncertainty and confusion vis-à-vis the contemporary world, guided by fundamentalists who take advantage of modern technology and organizational principles yet at the same time deem the defense of faith and custom against modernity as the condition of their own existence, their sole identity.[…] In Algiers one speaks simply of the existence of two varieties of Islam — one, which is called the Islam of the desert, and a second, which is defined as the Islam of the river (or of the sea). The first is the religion practiced by warlike nomadic tribes struggling to survive in one of the world's most hostile environments, the Sahara. The second Islam is the faith of merchants, itinerant peddlers, people of the road and of the bazaar, for whom openness, compromise, and exchange are not only beneficial to trade, but necessary to life itself.
Now how does all this relate to Islamic jihad? Islam sees violence as a means of propagating the Muslim faith. Islam divides the world into two camps: the dar al-Islam (House of Submission) and the dar al-harb (House of War). The former are those lands which have been brought into submission to Islam; the latter are those nations which have not yet been brought into submission. This is how Islam actually views the world!By contrast, the conquest of Canaan represented God’s just judgement upon those peoples. The purpose was not at all to get them to convert to Judaism! War was not being used as an instrument of propagating the Jewish faith. Moreover, the slaughter of the Canaanites represented an unusual historical circumstance, not a regular means of behavior.The problem with Islam, then, is not that it has got the wrong moral theory; it’s that it has got the wrong God. If the Muslim thinks that our moral duties are constituted by God’s commands, then I agree with him. But Muslims and Christians differ radically over God’s nature. Muslims believe that God loves only Muslims. Allah has no love for unbelievers and sinners. Therefore, they can be killed indiscriminately. Moreover, in Islam God’s omnipotence trumps everything, even His own nature. He is therefore utterly arbitrary in His dealing with mankind.
“Last night I wept. I wept because the process by which I have become a woman was painful. I wept because I was no longer a child with a child's blind faith. I wept because my eyes were opened to reality...I wept because I could not believe anymore and I love to believe. I can still love passionately without believing. That means I love humanly. I wept because from now on I will weep less. I wept because I have lost my pain and I am not yet accustomed to its absence.”
“People grow old only by deserting their ideals, Macarthur had written. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope as old as your despair. In the central place of every heart there is a recording chamber. So long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer and courage, so long are you young. When your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and then only, are you grown old. And then, indeed as the ballad says, you just fade away.”
“Ill see you foreverFor you are a part of meAnd I myself a part of theeInseparable in GodThre is no tomorrow nowThough sun may rise and setAnd sleepy eyes may slumber, stillEternity now is setIts stamped upon my heart and yoursIts seal : the Love of ChristWhich willingly I have receivedAnd cherish more than earthly lifeThis soul awaits a body that will not die-This soul awaits to see Him with its eye-This soul awaits our meeting in the sky-For faithful is our GodWho once did die , but nows ALIVE :Well see Him forever.”
Some religions actually go so far as to label anyone who belongs to a religious sect other than their own a heretic, even though the overall doctrines and impressions of godliness are nearly the same. For example: The Catholics believe the Protestants are doomed to Hell simply because they do not belong to the Catholic Church. In the same way, many splinter groups of the Christian faith, such as the evangelical or revivalist churches, believe the Catholics worship graven images. (Christ is depicted in the image that is most physiologically akin to the individual worshipping him, and yet the Christians criticize "heathens" for the worship of graven images.) And the Jews have always been given the Devil's name.
Who gets to be the judge of reality? If it was deeply felt, believed, spoken about often or altered your life course, then it was real enough. Faith doesn't get the luxury of all those things one hundred percent of the time, but we call that normal behavior based on a gut feeling.” I said. I looked at his wife and she busted out laughing. Her husband was trying to catch invisible butterflies above his head—dementia. My patients teach me the most sobering of truths: Why wreck his smile. If I could see them, I would want to catch them too.