Standing on the edge of a Knife. . . Will this be the right cut?

I stand on the edge of a knife, moving in any fashion will cut me in more ways then I think I am willing to deal with right now. So I stand here… on a fence longing to move, but unwilling to move in fear that I choose the wrong turn and leave a piece of me behind as I do. Fearing that I would be painfully cut deeper then I could ever know or understand…. On the one side is my family’s ideas and thoughts on who God is and what that means, on yet another is friends and their thoughts on who God is, and then yet another is my schooling and all the new thoughts of who God is. . . There is the God of personal relationships, this Father who love and cares for his children, holding them in his arms, the one that people can spend time with, love on…. There is the God of systematic theology, which is defined by creeds and theology, where men sit in conferences and debate who God is. There is the God of social justice, the one who cares for the poor, the one who feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, heals the sick, and comforts the people, this incarnate Jesus.

There are all these visions of who God is… is he one? Is he all of them? Who is he? Where do I stand in all of this, should I stand with any of this? Is God one of these, is God any of these? Why does one camp say mocking comments about another, why does one look down on another? Is that real or is that my perspective?

God, I do not doubt for a second that you are out there; above me, beside me, within me and around me, but I don’t know you. Why? You are the one person that I long to know and grow deeper with, but there is this block between me and you… this wall that I do not understand how to tear down or get around. I want to know who you are God! I want to know what it means to be your son, what it means to have a personal relationship with you, what it means to be a Christian. . .

What does it mean to be a Christian? The word is defined as a follower of Christ, but what does it mean to follow Christ? Does it mean walking as he walked? Does it mean knowing the right things to do, and staying away from sin? Does it mean spending hours in prayer? Does it mean reading the Bible start to finish and then starting again? What do you want from me God?

There is one camp that says that rules kill us! The law is the way that sin takes us down… for the pure of heart all things are pure, but now that I know the rules, does that mean when I break them I am sinning where before I was not because I was purely ignorant? This camp says that when we follow the rules we are like the pharissees and we are not really getting into the truth of the word of God…. So they have this free living thing… where they ignore the rule and follow the spirit of the law and not the letter….There are the other camps, the one that says that we need to know the word and then put that word into action or non-action. There are rules and we need to follow them or we are sinning. . . There are the other people who would say things are morally wrong though they have not been defined in the Bible, like smoking, like sex is icky and what not… are they right?

How do we judge and understand what is for us!? What is the foundation? I mean I want to say the Bible, but there is a million different interpretations of the Bible and what passages are saying… Is this cultural, is this relevant, this means that or that means this…. What am I suppose to do!? I read the Bible and think that I know what it is saying to me… I talk with someone and they say, “well actually, if you look at the cultural context of the passage….”

AHhhhhhhhhh!!! God in Heaven, the writer of the Book of Life, the Book of Freedom, the Book of your own Son in the Flesh! HELP!! Please help me…. I am lost and know not what I should do or what I should think…. Where do I stand, where do I walk…. I am on the edge of this knife and am afraid for my spirit…. Is this cut going to be the cut I need to remove the lizard on my shoulder or will this be the one that cuts my life in two…to my ruin?