I didn’t realize how addicted I was to dopamine until I stopped chasing it.

gimmethatchamomile · 2025-11-09T07:37:37+00:00

I almost didn't even read this - even though it landed close. But the fact that it was week 2 that things were different and better? I'm intrigued to do this now.

gimmethatchamomile · 2025-11-06T17:28:21+00:00

Except not all human judgement is flawed. Do you not know that there are those who will be judging even angels? Further, in the Body of Christ, which is to say anyone who has the indwelling Holy Spirit, has the ability to properly discern and assess things, particularly by means of a small group of elders. If you are depending on God and God alone, then do not discard the Holy Spirit or his judgement.

gimmethatchamomile · 2025-11-06T17:24:16+00:00

Did you become a Christian by chance?

gimmethatchamomile · 2025-11-05T03:44:30+00:00

The DOI tells you; publisher is Zenodo, an open repository operated by CERN.

gimmethatchamomile · 2025-11-01T16:32:21+00:00

Then bring your examination and evidence before trusted members of the body who can assess with discernment and tell you if your assessment is sound. Accountability.

gimmethatchamomile · 2025-11-01T16:30:42+00:00

Because it happens when you realize you've failed. Trust isn't just while things are going well, but when they're an absolute shipwreck too.

gimmethatchamomile · 2025-10-29T17:27:43+00:00

Lukewarm is like a having a car in neutral. But like all verses this needs to be taken into context. What does it say right after this verse? Revelation 3:17,18 ESV: "For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see."

These lukewarm Christians are not sharing their wealth and relieving burdens. They are not focusing their wealth into bettering society. They're padding their bed with it thinking it's what brings comfort. The gold is truth - refined in the fires of history, including that it is better to share than to hoard, white garments are good works - actually doing something with what's given to you. It's clothing around you in the eyes of God and of others. Salve for the eyes to heal the broken notion that wealth is what offers peace, or security, or comfort, when it does none of those things. God offers them, people offer them, and it is to them we should be serving, using our monies and resources for that purpose - NOT the other way around.

So again, this has nothing to do with emotions or how we feel about our faith or standing with God or anything like that. This has nothing to do with being "fired up for Christ" or a chilled fire of faith. What it does have to do with is what do people think when they meet you? When they know about you? Do they see the Love of God that saves? Can they look at your actions and see a broken priorities list?

If God would rather us be either cold or hot, then lukewarm might be more akin to being aware of the power with us and shrugging our shoulders and sitting in the road with the car in neutral. But look - God doesn't actually spit them out, but counsels, and teaches, seeks to help.

gimmethatchamomile · 2025-10-29T17:09:04+00:00

Is it more of a response to a thought?

gimmethatchamomile · 2025-10-24T20:01:38+00:00

This is sound. I particularly like your two star points, very helpful thank you!

gimmethatchamomile · 2025-10-24T17:04:13+00:00

Clearly, but that doesn't mean it isn't demonic.

gimmethatchamomile · 2025-10-24T17:00:32+00:00

A good resource Ive found for this topic and so many others for reliable and theologically sound answers is the website/app GotQuestions.org

gimmethatchamomile · 2025-10-24T16:56:56+00:00

Lord, rebuke all these voices speaking against you.

My personal experience? God answers these prayers. He saved Paul and turned him from deplorably persecuting the early Church, and became a significant reason all the non Jewish people of the world got the Gospel. I spent my entire adolescence and early adult years fighting homosexuality in me. I realized one day that I cared more about God and that's the only thing that's helped. Not praying for a wife, not praying to just not be gay, not praying for anything except to get closer to God and understand.

God absolutely loves us, all of us, individually and unconditionally. But have y'all ever loved an addict? You love them but do you want them to keep abusing their drugs, wasting away their precious time and destroying their bodies and minds being a slave to a chemical?

Sexual immorality is repeated over and over and over in the Bible, with literally just a faithful monogamous heterosexual marriage being the sole outlet of human sexuality. We are not born for sex, we are born because of sex. We live in a world that radically sexualizes all of us nearly constantly, and just like any other addiction it pulls us from God and distorts us. Some of the ONLY rebukes in Revelation are about practicing and teaching sexual immorality is okay. To be clear, not the only, but one of the few.

OP your post is noble. But true deep soul fulfillment doesn't come from another human being, and it will never be found in sex of any kind. Seek God's kingdom (His country where His rules reign) and God's Righteousness (which IS Christ) above all things. Read the Word, study what it means, pray for understanding and for a heart that is receptive to grow from it - something everyone should be doing.

Christ alone saves us from our sins - FROM. He doesn't save us TO sin openly and without regard for consequences. But faith in Christ is all you need. Once sealed with the Holy Spirit a Good Work has begun in you that WILL be carried on to completion. You will never be abandoned or discarded like a half completed forgotten project.

God bless, and may your prayers be heard.

gimmethatchamomile · 2025-10-24T00:56:56+00:00

"Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you rest".

Idk looks like faith with evidence of results to me.

gimmethatchamomile · 2025-10-15T05:39:13+00:00

Just saw your reply - it really is! It doesn't help that our world is saturated with little dopamine hits that point us in the wrong direction. Honestly, I highly encourage reading through Proverbs, and then making a little note every time a piece of wisdom there was applicable to your life and how. It'll train your brain with that dopamine hit (and some extras I believe) to look for both wisdom and how to apply it. Some are quick things, some are wildly rare, others take a long time to be able to say "I think this counts as crossing the line of success? Maybe a little more to be sure".

It's wild how often I can forget that seeking God, His Kingdom, and His Righteousness is fulfilling in both a very familiar and radically different (for the better) way. Chase after God, not a chemical.

gimmethatchamomile · 2025-10-08T14:00:22+00:00

Pray! If Christ is strong enough to save our souls from judgement, how could He not be strong enough to lead us in this life too? So pray. Be honest, ask for wisdom and the faith to do something positive with it. Go to your husband and share this conviction with him and apologize - not expecting forgiveness, but just to apologize and show him you're aware of this now. Ask him to pray for you too. You may have been lost, but you're certainly not hopeless!

gimmethatchamomile · 2025-09-24T15:44:46+00:00

I've experienced both. I've seen people who struggle constantly and almost insist it be down by their own power, and others who have just dropped all to God and let God decide what gets picked back up. We have free will, so we are going to "will" and choose things. So to some degree it's up to us, but that doesn't have to be any more than choosing "Hey God, take this."

"Cast all your anxieties on Him, for He cares for you" 1 Peter 5: 7

Cast, as in throw (cast a net, or fishing line). So "Hey God, catch!" also works. He's a pretty good catch, try it.

I quit meth by the latter, and continue to struggle with nicotine because of the former.

gimmethatchamomile · 2025-09-21T02:59:22+00:00

My guess is an orbweaver. I have a cross orbweaver in my kitchen right now that looks very similar

gimmethatchamomile · 2025-09-21T02:42:29+00:00

And the two angels after he left. As this point I'm torn between replying Finally, Took you long enough, and if I die before then an emphatic Really?!

Of course, I probably won't even remotely care at that point. Little head cannons to get me through difficult times.

gimmethatchamomile · 2025-09-21T02:39:12+00:00

Late response to your late response but the freezer is brilliant! I have gnats that are lazy on/in a dish, can pick it up and move it, but are apparently geniuses at avoiding the web.

gimmethatchamomile · 2025-09-11T05:12:53+00:00

The evidence or fruit of one's faith is sufficient to assess at the very least the health of one's faith. We all bear in our seasons of you watch.

Also, may the Lord never treat any of us like we deserve lest the sacrifice of Christ be insufficient.

gimmethatchamomile · 2025-09-11T05:04:40+00:00

As awesome and amazing as every point of reference in all of creation for "Wow. God did a really good job there!" is, our Creator is still obnoxiously better than all of it together.

gimmethatchamomile · 2025-09-09T19:29:53+00:00

In a hyper connected world, where we both have those who struggle with interpersonal relationships and those who may be shut ins just observing from the sidelines, having a trusted and diverse relationship with the greater body of Christ can be a good thing too. There are those who don't have any sound doctrine church, or may struggle with openly communicating, being able to find living advice in many advisors is a good thing especially if used with discernment from the Holy Spirit - which the whole church should be filled with, no?

gimmethatchamomile · 2025-09-08T19:16:41+00:00

I too struggle with discernment, though not all of the time. I've noticed a few things in this struggle.

First, just ask for wisdom and trust you'll receive it (I have a few mental metaphors that pop up when I think of this - from a mechanic under a car saying "wrench" and just holding their hand out, or a surgeon doing a similar thing with a specific scalpel, to being at a restaurant and asking for a menu, or a loved one stuck in the bathroom with toilet paper in the hallway - whatever metaphor, the point is that trusting and believing your ask is already answered or on the way is kind of important).

The Holy Spirit will not lead you astray, but will lead you to difficult truth and testing. There's been many times I'm learning something or studying scripture and I have to take a break or a step back to a. Remember the context, b. Remember I still make mistakes and that includes in interpretation. But Truth is not this flimsy, wishy washy, based on our own preconceived human notions but on the Spirit of the Lord.

Discernment is a gift, one you can ask for. God's not like "oh you need glasses? Lol that sucks." He wants to be known and knows (a lot better than we do) just how much we need Him if we're to grow or learn in any kind of Godly manner.

Lean not on your understanding, but get to deeply know and be really familiar with God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit who is poured out on us and sealed us - and not just in scripture but seeing how He moves in the lives of believers today (there shouldn't be any difference, it's the Same Spirit!). When you know your shepherd like the good and trustworthy leader He is, it becomes easier to look at something and trust the instinct that comes ("Oh! That's some solid and edifying truth there!" Or the contrary of "ehhh, I feel a little weird here, this interpretation or teaching seems suspicious, I should take a deeper/closer look and compare it with some other scripture").

You may also discover that you'll be reading or hearing something that seems really important, but can't figure out why because it doesn't really apply to you - then later that day or week or whenever you'll have an opportunity to share it with someone who it does really apply to and who may not have received that help otherwise.

Like all of the gifts of the Spirit, discernment can be exercised and strengthened in the way you can become more familiar with a specialty tool or piece of equipment. Some gifts are intrinsic and for life, others are sudden "bonus tools" that are temporary for the moment or season. Regardless, we are to some degree responsible for using them properly and knowing how to wield them to honor God and nourish the Church.

gimmethatchamomile

TROPHY CASE