Feeling Lost

I had a similar experience. I became a Christian at age 15, but it was not until I was 40 something that I began to grow beyond where I was at age 15. Worse than you, I did not pray much, but I did have in my mind that God was always with me, observing my efforts and my failures.

To make a long story short, our church brought in a new pastor, and he initiated a "one on one" discipleship program. He discipled the elders and associate pastors, and then they would disciple whoever signed up for the program. I was discipled by the youth pastor. I learned how to study the Bible, and about the basic doctrines (as held by my church). Soon, I owned a NASB 1995 study bible, an exhaustive concordance, two bible dictionaries, and some commentaries. Now I know what I believe, and feel far more comfortable sharing my faith. If your church does not offer a discipleship program, you can google for discipleship manuals and ask someone at church to help you go through it. They would be honored.

May God Bless.

First, and this may sound redundant; but have you truly accepted Jesus Christ as the Lord of your life, your Savior, and Redeemer... not with merely repeating the words but meaning them with your heart? If not, do that, my brother-friend.
In my opinion, the hardest thing to attain is a personal and intimate relationship with the Lord. He is right there, willing. But our minds aren't used to working that way. Seeing and knowing him ... intimately? like the best friend I ever had? ... it was silly to my old ways. But I kept on talking to him like he was right there beside me (which He was). I also stopped talking in prayers. Who talks like that? So, I decided that for me, I had to be real because He already knew the truth anyway, so why was I being anything but? Eventually, I was not just working at renewing my mind, I felt his presence. That's when I began an incredible journey that has continued for 15 years, and the Lord and I are closer than ever. That's what I would strive for (and not neglect the Word and other important stuff).

Can you make a list of your favorite bands, currently? There's a reason I'm asking.

Feel free to PM me if you'd rather.

Blessings,
D

Kylef,

You just have BELIEVE. Truely believe. Don't fool yourself like I did, when I was growing up in my CHristian familiy. I thought I was saved because I went to church, did all the routines, prayed, etc. However, I knew that I did not have God, when I got into my college life and started living as a filthy sinner. That was the time that God was in the way of the lusts and sins in my life. That was the time where I really seeked to see if God was real or not. If yes, then I will quit sinning, and worship Him. If not, then I will lead my life the way I wanted to. It became one of the worst experiences that occured in my life, that led me to finally worship God on my knees in full humbleness. The scriptures say that if you search for him with all your heart, you will find Him. (Jeremiah 29:13). I just wish that I could have come to know Him sooner. But after I believed, I never doubted again, because I KNEW that He was God, and everything written in His book was true.
I pray that you will go on the journey to find the TRuth. To see where you are, and get closer to God. That journey could be dangerous, it can break down all securities that you held onto in your life, but the result that comes to knowing that God is there, and truely trusting and believing in Him is beyond any treasure.
-Adaneth

kylef said:

I'm eighteen, and for the past year or two I had never really thought about God .. just followed the usual routine of Church and prayer of thanks etc. But it's hit me that I just don't have the faith that I want to have.

I look at my brother, mother, grandfather and grandmother, uncle, aunt, cousins - I can really 'see' their faith. And I just feel so lost. For instance today, my cousins showed me some photos and videos of their missionary trips to Burkina Faso. It was great to see them (especially considering I thought it was going to be a drag!) and I really feel as if God is with them.

I can't say the same for me. I make a point of attending church and listening to what the minister has to say; reading the Bible and [trying to] understand what I can of it. I'm hoping that this step, creating this post, will help along what is a long path, with great glory at the end.

When it comes to prayer, I struggle. When I do pray, I seek guidance and I just don't feel as if it's getting anywhere. When I don't pray at night, I feel so lost yet wonder "will it make a difference?"

Any advice is much welcomed, however repetitive or dry-sounding. I'm in a, in words of my minister, a spiritual no-mans' land. I can't go back knowing that salvation lies ahead; but I can't seem to make any forward progress.

I appreciate any advice you have, from both Christian and non-Christian views.

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I'm eighteen, and for the past year or two I had never really thought about God .. just followed the usual routine of Church and prayer of thanks etc. But it's hit me that I just don't have the faith that I want to have.

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And what faith is that, exactly?

You know, each of us has faith. Even when we aren't exerting faith in God, we are still exerting faith toward other things. Take turning on a light switch, for example. How did you come to trust in the power of a light switch to turn on the light in your bedroom? If you're like me, you don't think for a single moment that the light won't come on when you flick the switch. How did I come to be so confident in the power of the light switch? Well, I first had to know what it was and what it could do. Although I can't remember, I suspect that I observed others using light switches successfully to turn on (and off) lights and made a connection between them. At some point I was big enough to reach the light switches for myself and give them a try. I, too, found that they worked for me as they did for others. After years and years of using light switches to turn lights on and off, I no longer give any thought at all to whether or not a light switch will do what it has always done.

Faith in God works in sort of the same way. If you want to have faith in God, to confidently trust Him, you must first get to know Him. You have to understand who He is and what He can do, and you have to see for yourself if He "works." I don't know about you, but I don't typically trust people I don't know. God is no different in this respect. I won't have faith in Him, I won't trust Him, any farther than I know Him. So, if you find your faith in God is weak - or non-existent - it says something important about your knowledge and/or experience of God.

Knowing about God is not the same as knowing Him personally. I know about the president of the United States, but I don't know Him personally. When it comes to God, the same thing is true for many people. They know about God, but they have virtually no personal experience of Him.

How does one come to know God personally? For me, it began by my recognizing that I lacked such an experience of Him. Oh, I could quote verses and go on at length about God's nature, and purposes in the world, but He was as far from me as the planet Pluto. Part of the problem was that I wasn't actually relating with God. I prayed and read my Bible as Christian duties and to better inform myself about God and my faith, but I rarely did either thing as a means of communication with my Maker. I knew I could; I just never did. Strange, huh?

God put me in a desperate place, He gave me dire need of Him, and this provoked me to begin to deal with Him personally. My need took my "faith" out of the theoretical and into the practical. Suddenly, God was more than just an idea to defend, He was the only One who could help me. I can tell you, this made a big difference to how I approached prayer and study of His Word. I didn't realize it at first, but God was using my need to prompt me to do the most basic and necessary thing for any relationship to exist: communication. No longer was I reading the Bible and praying because it was "the right thing to do," but because I wanted, I desperately needed, God to help me. And help me He did. I was in a "do-or-die" situation (or so it seemed to me) and God came through! God was real! I found His Word had power I never knew it had and I found talking with God had a sustaining effect on me that I had never before experienced. I could see God actually moving in my life changing me and deepening my faith in Him. It was very tough, but very necessary.

God may use need to increase your faith in Him or He may not. My main point has to do with faith being tied to a personal experience of God. Paul the apostle put it this way:

2 Timothy 1:12 (NKJV)
12 For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.

When it comes to prayer, I struggle. When I do pray, I seek guidance and I just don't feel as if it's getting anywhere. When I don't pray at night, I feel so lost yet wonder "will it make a difference?"

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And this is the problem, isn't it?

Hebrews 11:6
6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

God may have to make you really hungry before you will truly "taste and see that the Lord is good." This is what an affluent society does to us: It makes us apathetic, and self-satisfied, and doubtful about our need of God.

Revelation 3:15-19
15 I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot.
16 So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.
17 Because you say, 'I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing'--and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked--
18 I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.
19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.

Peace.

You might find benefit in the book "The Path to Salvation" by St Theophan the Recluse. It has very practical and easy to understand advice on living the Christian faith with zeal . I'm re-reading it again right now and it's amazing how it seems to point out so many of the pitfalls I've fallen into and the means for escaping them.

Here is an excerpt from it:
roca-sobor. org /library/selections-path-salvation-st-theophan-recluse

You can find the book on Amazon.

The Hebrew 11:6 verse does put several points into perspective, particularly with regards to "empty prayer". In terms of coming to know God, would you recommend any particular Biblical books or other literature? At the minute, I've been going through the Bible in order, to see God's work as it was in the pre-Christ years.

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The single best book I could recommend is one entitled, "The Green Letters" by Miles J. Stanford. I'm not sure it is still in print, but if it is, I would urge you to obtain a copy.

You know, relating with God, which is really what you need to be doing, is not so much a matter of information (although it is important), but of communication. I tried to make this clear in my last post, but maybe I should say more. You can glean various facts about God from the Bible without ever actually interacting with Him through His Word. Until you see God's Word as His Word to you, until you approach the Bible expecting God to speak to you from it, it will be merely literature.

At some point, if you want your knowledge of God to be something more, you have to say to yourself, "I believe that what is revealed of God in the Bible is true. I must now act upon what I know of God and His purposes for me as indicated in Scripture." Now, this can be just a cerebral act, an intellectual assent, which will get you no where. In tandem with your knowledge of God and your willingness to believe it as true, there must be the work of God's Spirit convicting you of its truth and reality. It will be only by this work of God's Spirit that you will make the transition from head knowledge to heart belief. And it is this heart belief that is vital to a real relationship with God. Experiencing this transformation/conviction of heart is as simple as asking God to make it happen. The hard part is being truly sincere about this request.

Jeremiah 29:13
13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

James 4:8-10
8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9 Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.

Often, people hold back from throwing wide the doors to their life because they know instinctively that God will want to go through every closet and cupboard throwing out anything in them that doesn't honor Him. As C.S. Lewis explained, God is like a good dentist who, when you come to him desiring that he would stop the pain of your aching tooth, finds the root of the problem and fixes it - even if more pain is involved.

Obviously, God must be aiding us in wanting such an experience. He must convince us that a spiritual "root canal" is necessary and worth the pain; for, left up to us, the decision to endure such "surgery" would likely not be made.

Mark 9:23-24
23 Jesus said to him, "If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes."
24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!"

The process toward making us truly hungry for God and willing to endure His cleansing invasion of our lives sometimes requires time and the provoking pain of living without Him. Some of us have to have a really sore tooth before we'll go to the dentist!

Paragraph 4 above is the perfect summary of what I'm experiencing. I'm as "far from God as Pluto" and I do want God to come closer (or rather, I want to come closer). It is my underlying problem that creates a barrier against this: I just can't comprehend the notion. Biblical reading is adding to my understanding, but for instance, when it comes to God working through Moses and Aaron with the Israelites and Egyptians. The Nile turning into blood and various different plagues occurring at certain places at certain times ... I simply can't get it past my head that this, well, actually happened. My mind operates in logic; understanding. This deters entirely from it.

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Are you suggesting that faith and logic are somehow antithetical? Do you think that to be logical precludes faith?

If God is as He is revealed in Scripture, how do you propose to reconcile your finite logical capacities and perspective with God's infinite and transcendent nature? Surely you must see that the vast difference between you will soon exhaust your ability to comprehend Him. What do you do at this point? Is it reasonable to think, "If I cannot always understand God perfectly, I shall deny He even exists!" Is it rational to think that if God works outside of what I can scientifically know, His existence is to be doubted entirely? How reasonable is it to hold God hostage to my human limitations? Not very, I think. Shouldn't we expect that a God such as the Bible reveals would do the amazing things we read of Him doing in the Bible?

Thanks for your reply once again, it does help to put a new things into perspective.

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You're welcome. I'm glad to be of help.

Peace.

kylef,

You ever heard the phrase, "The proof is in the pudding." You are putting a lot of effort in trying to find and know God. But perhaps what you lack in all you searching and prayers is action.

Jesus taught in Matthew 25:40, "Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

What was He talking about? Showing compassion to those in need, knowing that doing it to them is the same as doing it to Jesus. You want to have a personal relationship with God, start right there.

I see you much like the the young rich ruler in Luke 18 who came to Jesus asking, "What must I do to inherit eternal life? What was Jesus' response?

"Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother."

Well, look at that! Jesus just told him to observe the Ten Commandments. But look closely at the young man's response:

"All these have I kept from my youth up."

So if he observe these from his youth, he ought to be good to go, oui? But look at what Jesus then said:

"Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me."

You see, the rich ruler was very religious and pious, but he was doing all those things just to punch the ticket. What he lacked was compassion enough to love others. He couldn't let go of the thing that meant the world to him: his money. So he went away sad.

If you mean it for God, kylef, what are you willing to let go for God? What are you willing to sacrifice in having compassion for others? Are you really willing to follow Jesus? Do the kind of things Jesus did? Love others as Jesus did?

Start simple. Go do something for somebody less fortunate than you. You'll 'find' Jesus there...and less of you.

Logic is limited to earthly reasons and Satan would use it to weaken Christian faith for God's healing. Healing circumstances bring Christians closer to God. Benny Hinn's miracle crusades have brought many to Christ because of healing, our only evidence of God. Jesus brings stress-free rest to our busy lives. Mind-relaxing spiritual rest to leave all your attacking worries and questions later when you pass away and enter heaven. Patience will ease your mind and heart knowing that Jesus or God will reward your faithfulness with the truth in heaven, the truth that God existed before time began.

kylef said:

I'm eighteen, and for the past year or two I had never really thought about God .. just followed the usual routine of Church and prayer of thanks etc. But it's hit me that I just don't have the faith that I want to have.

I look at my brother, mother, grandfather and grandmother, uncle, aunt, cousins - I can really 'see' their faith. And I just feel so lost. For instance today, my cousins showed me some photos and videos of their missionary trips to Burkina Faso. It was great to see them (especially considering I thought it was going to be a drag!) and I really feel as if God is with them.

I can't say the same for me. I make a point of attending church and listening to what the minister has to say; reading the Bible and [trying to] understand what I can of it. I'm hoping that this step, creating this post, will help along what is a long path, with great glory at the end.

When it comes to prayer, I struggle. When I do pray, I seek guidance and I just don't feel as if it's getting anywhere. When I don't pray at night, I feel so lost yet wonder "will it make a difference?"

Any advice is much welcomed, however repetitive or dry-sounding. I'm in a, in words of my minister, a spiritual no-mans' land. I can't go back knowing that salvation lies ahead; but I can't seem to make any forward progress.

I appreciate any advice you have, from both Christian and non-Christian views.

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Why are you talking to God when you could be listening? Prayer is communication, it goes both ways. Are you involved in any kinds of ministry? What are you good at?

kylef said:

Godschild - I don't feel that I receive an immediate answer with prayer (at least, I can't recall any yet. However, like most things, after time and thought I see how at work God was and is today.

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What are you good at?

Ask God to break through into your life.

(it might sound simplistic, but it's what he wants to do.)


PS. Praying for you.

kylef said:

Logical understanding! Which proves a bit of an issue in this case.

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Not really. There's an area of Christianity devoted to apologetics, which deals largely with logic. I am involved in apologetics myself. Perhaps I can be of some assistance if you're struggling with the logical side of Christianity.