"How I lost my religion"

     The title "How I lost my religion" captured my attention.  It was a Huffington Post article and I usually don't read Huffington Post because the page take forever to load  but this one looked to intriguing to pass up.  The story teller told of attending church and going to Lutheran school and being abused by his father (or step father) and how he prayed for God to delivery him but didn't and how he lost his religion and now doesn't believe there is a God.  He quotes some old testament stories
and claims that if what the Israelites did were commands from God then God is evil.   Some commenters asked for proof that God is real.  One commenter even suggested that Jesus was just a story borrowed from another culture and didn't really exist.  For him I suggest he read "The case against Christ" That book was written by an atheists wanting to prove that Jesus either didn't exist or wasn't the Christ. 
    The truth of Jesus was given in Genesis and is a constant theme from the beginning 'til the end of the Holy Scriptures.  But we aren't here to discuss Jesus.  We are here to discuss the losing of one's religion.    
     There is a difference between being religious and having faith in God.  There is also a difference in confession and repentance.  Going to church, believing in God and Jesus, being baptized, and going to the altar and confessing ones sins are all religious acts but have nothing to do  with being a child of God.  There is also a big difference between understanding what the bible says and what it means.  A lost person can memorize scripture and understand what he reads but that doesn't mean he understands God's word.  The mysteries of scripture are hidden from non-believers.   
    God promises no where that we will have an easy life or our problems will go away if we just believe.  In fact scriptures make it clear that the opposite will probably be true.  The only prayer of a lost person  I know that God answers is the prayer of repentance.  No where does the writer mention that he repented;  instead he tells of being filled with dread and hate and fear.  A true child of God should feel none of those things if they have grown into maturity.  Chances are good that the Lutheran minister he asked wasn't a child  of God either.  many men went into the ministry thinking it was an easy way to make a living or to exercise their religion.  Christianity is not a religion.  It is a relationship.
    Of course thing got better once he quick believing.  Nothing stays the same, including human relationships.  Sooner or later the boy would grow old enough to move out and move on, the abusive parent would grown tired, sick or old and even die.  Was it a coincidence that things got better when he finally quick believing?  if there was no God to make it better than there is no God to make it bad.
God has said through the  scriptures that He will if we do.  In other words, God has laid out the steps necessary for Him to answer prayers (and by the way, sometimes the answer is no, sometimes it's later).  god is not a magic genie in the sky that we tell what we want and he fixes it right for us. 
    The writer of the article is mad at God for not performing the things he wanted done.  God doesn't exist just to make the world right for us.  To be honest, it's a good thing the man lost his religion because religion has probably sent more people to hell than anything else.  We are saved by grace through faith: not by religion. 
    When the man quit believing in God and started hating God  things got better.  God could not longer give him comfort and Satan no longer had to bother the child.  Not all our troubles are due to Satan.  We are, after all, still burdened with our robe of flesh.