1 Timothy 5:8 and my messed-up life

[linux.poet]

But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

What feels like an a simple Scriptural command that most people are able to follow feels to me like an insurmountable mountain. My family keeps threatening me and attacking me and I don't want to provide for them. I'm frankly scared of my family. They keep threatening me with eviction but never carry it out. They bring up my failed job search with me at every opportunity. I've suffered from trauma and depression and anxiety - right now I'm getting treatment for the anxiety.

I keep wandering from interest to interest in hopes that one of them will be the magic bullet. I struggled my way through college in English and web design, failing half the time and now I don't want to do either of those things. I tried to get a job in boating, but only two companies are hiring and neither of them want me. I'm playing chess but I haven't won enough money to support myself, and I may never will.

I don't even want a job to support awful people like my family, though, and it's past time I acknowledged that. Today I called my dad to tell him that his son was in the hospital and was going to have major surgery, and he had the audacity to bring up my job search on the phone. My family's values are based on performance expectations, and if you fall short you're not allowed to have anything good.

I feel like I'm in a dark hole of sin that I can't ever possibly climb out of, and that I'm worse than an unbeliever. Forget providing for family members - I can't even provide for myself. I live out of a house my parents own and drive my parents' car around because I can't afford the insurance. I'm pretty sure, as a Christian, I'm a failure.

Any advice welcome for how to un-fail myself? And before you tell me to "just get a job" or ask me how the job search is going, again, know that I need something better than that. I need some advice to deal with the "I hate my family" stuff too - I have access to the same job boards as everyone else. The problem isn't external, having skills, learning stuff, or getting help. I've done all of that and felt terrible and emotionally attacked over it over and over and over again. I've reconfigured that so many times now.

I'm pretty sure that God put this verse in the Scripture to condemn me. I believed the Gospel back in 2005, but it's no real use. On this world, I am so low that even the unbelievers come ahead of me and I am abandoned to suffer.

Help?

 

[LovebirdsFlying]

If I'm not mistaken, this verse was addressed to the head of the household as the provider, needing to take care of dependents. It's addressed to people who selfishly fritter away their resources on their own interests, rather than putting food on the table for people who cannot do it for themselves. If you are not in this position, the burden of providing is not on you.

Of course that depends on a lot of variables. How are your family members related to you? Is anybody else stepping up to provide? Are they your children, or your elderly and infirm parents, or are they just a big lot of lazy louts trying to sponge off of you?

 

[HIM]

What feels like an a simple Scriptural command that most people are able to follow feels to me like an insurmountable mountain. My family keeps threatening me and attacking me and I don't want to provide for them. I'm frankly scared of my family. They keep threatening me with eviction but never carry it out. They bring up my failed job search with me at every opportunity. I've suffered from trauma and depression and anxiety - right now I'm getting treatment for the anxiety.

I keep wandering from interest to interest in hopes that one of them will be the magic bullet. I struggled my way through college in English and web design, failing half the time and now I don't want to do either of those things. I tried to get a job in boating, but only two companies are hiring and neither of them want me. I'm playing chess but I haven't won enough money to support myself, and I may never will.

I don't even want a job to support awful people like my family, though, and it's past time I acknowledged that. Today I called my dad to tell him that his son was in the hospital and was going to have major surgery, and he had the audacity to bring up my job search on the phone. My family's values are based on performance expectations, and if you fall short you're not allowed to have anything good.

I feel like I'm in a dark hole of sin that I can't ever possibly climb out of, and that I'm worse than an unbeliever. Forget providing for family members - I can't even provide for myself. I live out of a house my parents own and drive my parents' car around because I can't afford the insurance. I'm pretty sure, as a Christian, I'm a failure.

Any advice welcome for how to un-fail myself? And before you tell me to "just get a job" or ask me how the job search is going, again, know that I need something better than that. I need some advice to deal with the "I hate my family" stuff too - I have access to the same job boards as everyone else. The problem isn't external, having skills, learning stuff, or getting help. I've done all of that and felt terrible and emotionally attacked over it over and over and over again. I've reconfigured that so many times now.

I'm pretty sure that God put this verse in the Scripture to condemn me. I believed the Gospel back in 2005, but it's no real use. On this world, I am so low that even the unbelievers come ahead of me and I am abandoned to suffer.

Help?

Timothy 5:8 is about taking care of a family member who is a widow. The issue you have is not that. You just need to get a job, any job until you get THE job. That could be scrubbing toilets. It don't matter. A job is a job. So get one that you can handle with your anxiety issues.

In regards to your thoughts and feelings on your family. They are not good regardless of how you perceive them or even if you have been treated badly by them. So when they arise rebuke them and give them to God.

2Thess 3:10 For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.

 

[Paidiske]

The verb in the Greek is not primarily about material provision. It's about taking account of and being solicitous towards the needs of others, in a general way. So the instruction is to do that in the ways that fall within one's sphere of influence, not to beat oneself up for what is not within your sphere of influence.

If you're not working, you could (for example) fulfil the intent of this Scripture by things like taking care of domestic chores, or some of the household thoughtload/life admin.

That said... the fact that your family are abusive of you is a whole other issue. Is the person you're seeing for anxiety able to help you think through how to work towards a safer living situation?

 

[Maria Billingsley]

What feels like an a simple Scriptural command that most people are able to follow feels to me like an insurmountable mountain. My family keeps threatening me and attacking me and I don't want to provide for them. I'm frankly scared of my family. They keep threatening me with eviction but never carry it out. They bring up my failed job search with me at every opportunity. I've suffered from trauma and depression and anxiety - right now I'm getting treatment for the anxiety.

I keep wandering from interest to interest in hopes that one of them will be the magic bullet. I struggled my way through college in English and web design, failing half the time and now I don't want to do either of those things. I tried to get a job in boating, but only two companies are hiring and neither of them want me. I'm playing chess but I haven't won enough money to support myself, and I may never will.

I don't even want a job to support awful people like my family, though, and it's past time I acknowledged that. Today I called my dad to tell him that his son was in the hospital and was going to have major surgery, and he had the audacity to bring up my job search on the phone. My family's values are based on performance expectations, and if you fall short you're not allowed to have anything good.

I feel like I'm in a dark hole of sin that I can't ever possibly climb out of, and that I'm worse than an unbeliever. Forget providing for family members - I can't even provide for myself. I live out of a house my parents own and drive my parents' car around because I can't afford the insurance. I'm pretty sure, as a Christian, I'm a failure.

Any advice welcome for how to un-fail myself? And before you tell me to "just get a job" or ask me how the job search is going, again, know that I need something better than that. I need some advice to deal with the "I hate my family" stuff too - I have access to the same job boards as everyone else. The problem isn't external, having skills, learning stuff, or getting help. I've done all of that and felt terrible and emotionally attacked over it over and over and over again. I've reconfigured that so many times now.

I'm pretty sure that God put this verse in the Scripture to condemn me. I believed the Gospel back in 2005, but it's no real use. On this world, I am so low that even the unbelievers come ahead of me and I am abandoned to suffer.

Help?

I'm impressed that you have achieved a couple of positions on this forum, Staff Member and Moderator. Appears you do have some skills. Maybe hone- in on those strengths. Blessings.

 

[linux.poet]

It's addressed to people who selfishly fritter away their resources on their own interests, rather than putting food on the table for people who cannot do it for themselves.

I feel like everything I have done since 2012 could be placed in "selfishly frittering away" my resources on my own interests...in my family's viewpoint. I mean, they keep hoping that one of my interests will turn into a job or some kind of professional life, when I have no interest in building either.

The issue is plain to me: I don't want to do anything that benefits my family in any form. Earning money, replacing my car and moving out all benefits my family, and since they have been abusive to me I don't want to do anything that would remotely benefit them. They don't love me, so why would I help them back?

Of course that depends on a lot of variables. How are your family members related to you? Is anybody else stepping up to provide? Are they your children, or your elderly and infirm parents, or are they just a big lot of lazy louts trying to sponge off of you?

My dad (who is my primary abuser) is still working in the airplane business and lives 400 miles away. My brother, who lives with me, has a job as an electrical engineer. My mom is a dependent of my dad, but that is her right as wife to him.

A lot of this is irrational: my dad is scared of what will happen to me after he is dead in terms of finances. But other than the car and the house, my parents are not supporting me right now. I'm living off my savings. That's why my dad keeps toying with the eviction button because that's the only way to control me he has left.

2Thess 3:10 For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.

I'm still in Scripture violation then. We've just moved the goalposts from 1 Timothy 5:8 to this verse. Return to OP and repeat.

Well, I guess we've moved me from "worse than unbeliever" to merely starving, so I guess that's an improvement.

Is the person you're seeing for anxiety able to help you think through how to work towards a safer living situation?

Maybe. Nobody seems to be willing to help me with my living situation at all. It's kind of a big ask. They are generally more interested in blaming me for not improving it myself.

I'm not allowed to take my parents' car if I move out, so I would have to replace that before any sort of move could be possible. I learned my lesson from 2012 - living without a car in my part of the world isn't feasible.

I'm impressed that you have achieved a couple of positions on this forum, Staff Member and Moderator. Appears you do have some skills.

I've been on online forums for 12 years now, and started this whole thing with the forums to deal with the social isolation my parents put me through. I went to college for English and web design, basically investing everything I had into forums and the internet just to stay alive and have some kind of social life. Usually extreme investments like these pay off in some sort of return - I survived - but now I need different things.

 

[Paidiske]

Honestly, it sounds to me as if what you're dealing with is beyond the scope of randoms on the internet to help. I think you need someone in real life - therapist, social worker, minister, or some similar role - to help you work through both some practical and some emotional things.

 

[LovebirdsFlying]

FWIW, it seems moving out would benefit you more than it would benefit your family. With you out of that situation, who would they blame and kick around? Meanwhile, you're safe and away.

 

[linux.poet]

It should be noted that I’m not trying to be critical of the advice that I have been given - it’s all been good advice so far - I’m just thinking out loud trying to think.

FWIW, it seems moving out would benefit you more than it would benefit your family. With you out of that situation, who would they blame and kick around? Meanwhile, you're safe and away.

No, it’s more likely that, by remaining here, I’m benefiting at their expense and repeating the cycle of abuse back to them.

If I replace the car, my dad gets his car back, which he paid for and has every right to - it gets better fuel mileage than the car he is currently driving to work in.

Also, if I leave my parents could kick my brother out and sell the house we are living in right now for $800,000. My brother has a job. My parents aren’t living with us right now, praise God. Anyway, maybe “I’m being an abuser” logic applies to the car and not the house, since my brother is saving money (literally actually saving money to buy his own house) by living in this house with me as opposed to the rent and utilities he would pay elsewhere. It’s complicated. And also my parents decision because my dad wanted to hang onto said house and “keep it in the family” 3 years ago and now is making sell-off noises. He’s an abuser who makes stuff up due to childhood trauma magical thinking of his own.

Whew. I feel like Luis from Ant-Man.

Basically every time I need to solve a problem with my dad involved, I feel like the solution is lots and lots of money. He idolizes that stuff. It’s like, if I magically had $840K, my problems would be solved because I would just buy myself a new car, buy the house from my parents, put my name on the deed and stop all of the threats. But that’s just feeding his money and performance idolatry.

 

[Wyatt A.]

What feels like an a simple Scriptural command that most people are able to follow feels to me like an insurmountable mountain. My family keeps threatening me and attacking me and I don't want to provide for them. I'm frankly scared of my family. They keep threatening me with eviction but never carry it out. They bring up my failed job search with me at every opportunity. I've suffered from trauma and depression and anxiety - right now I'm getting treatment for the anxiety.

I keep wandering from interest to interest in hopes that one of them will be the magic bullet. I struggled my way through college in English and web design, failing half the time and now I don't want to do either of those things. I tried to get a job in boating, but only two companies are hiring and neither of them want me. I'm playing chess but I haven't won enough money to support myself, and I may never will.

I don't even want a job to support awful people like my family, though, and it's past time I acknowledged that. Today I called my dad to tell him that his son was in the hospital and was going to have major surgery, and he had the audacity to bring up my job search on the phone. My family's values are based on performance expectations, and if you fall short you're not allowed to have anything good.

I feel like I'm in a dark hole of sin that I can't ever possibly climb out of, and that I'm worse than an unbeliever. Forget providing for family members - I can't even provide for myself. I live out of a house my parents own and drive my parents' car around because I can't afford the insurance. I'm pretty sure, as a Christian, I'm a failure.

Any advice welcome for how to un-fail myself? And before you tell me to "just get a job" or ask me how the job search is going, again, know that I need something better than that. I need some advice to deal with the "I hate my family" stuff too - I have access to the same job boards as everyone else. The problem isn't external, having skills, learning stuff, or getting help. I've done all of that and felt terrible and emotionally attacked over it over and over and over again. I've reconfigured that so many times now.

I'm pretty sure that God put this verse in the Scripture to condemn me. I believed the Gospel back in 2005, but it's no real use. On this world, I am so low that even the unbelievers come ahead of me and I am abandoned to suffer.

Help?

I understand that. I've dealt with really bad anxiety too to the point where I wasn't able to take care of myself and was living in board and care facilities. I never thought I was going to make it out of there. Sometimes God brings us to the end of ourselves so he can start his plan. All I know is when you get a change on the inside, things change on the outside. The only way to do that is to GET REAL with Jesus. You need to say everything that's bothering you out loud no matter HOW hard it is to say. Thats all he requires from you because he already knows what it is. Thats the only way he can help you. And when you do that he promises you a heavenly kingdom.

 

[LovebirdsFlying]

Seconding the above. When talking to Jesus, pour it all out. When I had a crisis in my life, one of the chaplains advised me to pound my fists on His chest and scream in His face. Be like a toddler throwing a tantrum, if that's how I really feel. He is still a loving Parent, and He is big enough to take it. Human parents with actual toddlers might not be, but He is.

If it would help you not to feel disrespectful or irreverent when unloading on HIm, make a habit of beginning your sentences with "I feel..." rather than "You don't..." or "You won't...." He already knows what we're thinking and feeling anyway. He wants us to have enough faith in Him to tell him honestly. Give every ounce of it to Him. Scream at Him that you're scared, that you don't want to do XYZ, that you resent ABC, whatever is going on. Even if you think it's a "wrong" or "sinful" emotion like hate or anger, tell Him it's there. He's still going to love you. If those attitudes, feelings, or thoughts are indeed sinful? 1 John 1:9.

 

[Sketcher]

I'm still in Scripture violation then. We've just moved the goalposts from 1 Timothy 5:8 to this verse. Return to OP and repeat.

Well, I guess we've moved me from "worse than unbeliever" to merely starving, so I guess that's an improvement.

Being as you are looking for a job, I don't think you are in violation. You sound like you would work if you had the job. You're exasperated in part because the places you looked don't want you. 2 Thessalonians 3 addresses people who don't want to work, and that doesn't sound like you. 1 Timothy 5 talks about families taking care of their own first (since that was and is basic decency), before letting people use up church resources for support.

And I know joblessness, the burden comes in waves, some days you're looking, other days you're dispirited and not as productive in searching because of that. I get it. When you get down, you need to not get further down on yourself but push forward. Do something, anything positive that's in reach and build off that.

 

[mama2one]

I see that you stated "no one wants to help me with my living situation."

Two of my unmarried siblings had always lived with my parents.
In the last 3 yrs, both passed away & sibling-in-charge had to sell parent's house.
Suddenly, both siblings had to move out for the first time ever (both over 40)
The one sibling works at a nursing home & doesn't make much money so had to get a super small apartment with the lowest rent around. The other sibling ended up taking a new job out of state & moving across the country. This was super hard for both of them since they had always lived with parents.
The one is very happy living on her own for the first time.
The one living out of state is struggling since she's lonely. However, they both did it.....getting out on their own.

If they can do it, so can you!

 

[InThePottersChamber]

I know you don't want to hear this but...in life when it comes to having a job, it doesn't mean that you're going to love it 100%. A job means buckling down and working and toiling through thick and thin, it is the same with hobbies and any skill. I don't know how old you are but it took me some time to learn this too. However, learning this isn't the trick, the trick is ACCEPTING it. You NEED to accept that life isn't going to be 100% or even 75% happiness and flowers and sunshine. Most of life is hard work. It really is, and it is the truth. you need to have confidence and grit and stick at something. you don't have to enjoy it, you just have to not hate it.

However I do understand how hard it can be living with family that constantly berate and emotionally abuse you. But have you considered that they are, in their own way, trying to tell you what I did in my first paragraph? They may not be emotionally intelligent and so in the process of trying to help you they hurt you.

it used to be the same for me, but for different matters. what I did was I stopped searching and seeking for their affection, I took the initiative and gave them affection. I bought my family expensive things, I told them I loved them, I shared my work and progress and life with them, and I bought them books to read about the trait a psychologist labeled me with: highly sensitive. It took them a long time to even open the book but eventually they did.

You need to evaluate how your parents grew up. Mine grew up in terrible households, lower middle class, uneducated, lacking in sympathy and understanding of culture, society and humanity. Their parents treated them the same way they used to treat me.

But, you do seem to struggle with depression. You condemn yourself and you seem to lack motivation, and from what you posted, your mind seems addled. I think you should get treatment for depression. There is no shame in this. I have a way more serious mental illness and I am doing quite well. Depression is common and the most unstigmatised mental illness. A caveat: I am no psychiatrist. You have to see a psychologist and if he/she agrees that you should consult a psychiatrist, then only should you seek one out.

The bible verse you mention do not apply to you (I think). I think it is meant to be addressed to fathers and mothers, and even if it is addressed to you (an adult child--not a parent), the way your family seem to be treating you, I think you're pretty much cleared of blame. If you still feel that the verse is addressed to you, find a way to rent a house somewhere (near to your family. they are mean towards you, but what I've learnt Is that when we are in trouble the first ones to help usually is family) and give them a little of your salary each month/ every two weeks. Good luck. God loves you. You're trying hard, He will not abandon you or let you down. But please, I really think you have depression. you have to take medicine for this, but like I said, please consult a professional first.

if its any comfort, I am graduating my bachelors at almost 30. I failed at art school and obstinately stayed on for 3 years, before I decided to switch, and then I took two gap years to travel and find myself. oh dear. You'll do well. I believe in you, your Christian brothers and sisters are all rooting for you. God bless you my friend

 

[linux.poet]

My personal thanks to everyone for their encouragement in the face of my spiritual despair. I have managed to figure this situation out now, what needs to be done, and so I have asked the moderators to close the this thread.

 

[Hammster]

ADVISOR HAT ON



Closed at OP request


ADVISOR HAT OFF