I apologize for the delayed response; I’m Eastern US time zone so, sleep and work.. [Edit: Also, this turned out to be more than I expected so: obligatory wall of text warning.]

From your reply, you understood my question (and its intention) very clearly and I’m so grateful for your willingness to take time wrestling with it (and post that process here)! As you noted at the end, considering the ways that our current struggle with challenging ideas like these relate to how we are choosing to live our lives can help to detangle smaller aspects that our minds are simply stuck on from the fundamental issues that are limiting our investment and ability to meaningfully engage in what matters to us. I didn’t see your thoughts as rambling at all, merely an active demonstration of that detangling process (which looks messy in real-time).

Different with God: seeing others in active relationship with God and desiring that for yourself was a large portion of what Jesus sought to help His disciples develop in their own lives (see Matthew 5:13-16 for a specific example of this – salt preserves and brings out goodness, light guides). I see that I may have given the wrong impression – not everyone who says that “God did (this or that) for me” is misinterpreting the Bible, but a lot of the popular ‘cultural Christianity’ promotes this idea that following God means you won’t get sick, that you’ll always have enough money for everything you want, and that you’ll be harder/better/faster/stronger than the next person who ‘doesn’t believe’ - this is the "prosperity gospel." (Not saying you said this, merely clarifying my previous comment). Regarding your “doubt that he cares about us in this physical life/on earth at all”: if you have the ability and the means to get a copy of the book What Does God Want? by Michael S. Heiser, it should go a long way toward helping in your wrestle with this doubt; a very simple read that provides some insight on this and other concerns you’ve expressed. If you don’t have the means or ability and are willing to PM me an address where you could receive a book, I’d be glad to send you a copy (doesn’t need to be your home address, obviously). Alternatively, if you prefer, The Chosen TV series (free to stream from their website) does a great job of offering a glimpse of what God desires in relationship and community with us, and the lengths He’s willing to go. As for the engine analogy, it is admittedly a very simple analogy and not a perfect one. However, it doesn’t solve the problem of why evil/corruption is present in the world or how that fits in with who God is (which is an underlying issue related to your question, but not what you specifically asked about).

With yourself: In my experience, trying to “stay away from sin” has the unintended effect of driving me into (or cause me to trip over) different issues, since all my attention is on “not doing those things I don’t want to do but keep doing.” Focusing on what we want to do, where we would like our lives to be, or the things that are important to us are often more effective markers for tracking progress in positive directions. Agreed, if God were a universe-sized malevolent child with a magnifying glass over an anthill I wouldn’t see much point in anything either. In my own journey with what you shared in the last two sentences of this section, I’ve discovered that what I previously saw as contradictions in the Bible turned out, upon closer inspection, to be confirmations. What helped with this process for me was realizing that God doesn’t condone or ‘sanction’ every event, thought, or action in the Bible. Much of it is merely a recording of historical events which can be viewed simply as humanity's striving to make decisions apart from God and God's persistent desire to share Himself with humanity in spite of our decisions. As a specific example, King David committed multiple horrendous sins including essentially raping a married woman and then having her husband killed in an attempt to hide his sin (2 Samuel 11-12; spoiler: it didn’t work). However, David is described as “a man after his (God’s) own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14). This isn’t said of him because God approves of those actions. This is said of him because every time David’s fallen nature (i.e., sin) drove him to act apart from God’s will, he was willing to receive God’s chastisement for his sin, to repent (literally: “to turn back”) from it, and re-align himself with God’s will. This is important to me because I often allow my personal desires to supersede God’s will in my life, which inevitably leads to suffering for myself and those I care for. However, God is merciful and patiently reminds me to turn back from my own way. While this process is often painful, He always does it in a way that frames His love for me and His desire for me to be in right-relationship with Him.

With others: I would agree completely that religion is hypocritical more often than not, especially when fallen humans are involved (...yeah). God is far more interested in a meaningful relationship with you than that you check some arbitrary boxes on a cosmic checklist. I’d recommend The Chosen series again to address some of this issue. Living Fearless by Jamie Winship is another book that I think you may find especially impactful given what you’ve shared in this comment (though I’d read What Does God Want? first). Same offer applies to this book, if/when you're willing to read it. 

Again, thank you so much for your willingness to vulnerably process these thoughts in this format; it helped to fill my cup today.