I'm absolutely dejected. I lost my father, my life is a mess and I have no faith either. There is no one to help, I don't know what to do and I have no strength left. I really could do with God's help but I don't even know if he exists. I need help, guidance, wisdom, the way to proceed. I need these answers right now for the mess I am in but all I get is silence and more trouble. I need moral support, I could do with a big hug but there is no one.
From the time I have been on this site, I feel like I've been seeing most desperate pleas go unanswered. I can't help wondering if the prayers that are actually answered are only a coincidence.
Praying for someone who has no faith left probably won't work but I'm asking you to please pray for me. Thank you.
Thank you all so much for your prayers
The situation is still the same. Still not able to pray or go back to where I used to be with God. Wish I could feel His comfort, strength, love, peace, joy. I've had trials half my life and my strength is ebbing but the end is still not in sight.
If anything, looks like it's going to get worse with my worst fears coming true.
I know that this is kind of late considering that you posted this last year, but it's one that I've been thinking about since I've first read it. I do understand what you mean, although I don't know the pain that you felt at the time that you wrote this. I really do hope that your life has improved since then, but I do know that this isn't always the case.
When I first read your post, I wanted to point out Ecclesiastes, because it seemed to me at the time as it does now that you and the author might have shared some of the same thoughts. Even though the author doesn't really seem to question the existence of God, he does make some pretty bold conclusions which seem pretty close to me. Conclusions such as bad things happen to everyone (righteous or wicked) for no reason beside chance, that when you're dead that that's it and there is nothing else beyond that, and, the most prominent of his conclusions in my mind, is that everything is meaningless.
Which might seem kind of odd to someone who might be new to this faith, when they read a book like this, because it doesn't seem to fit with what someone might expect from the bible. Like, why bring up these kinds of issues when it seems that these are the very kind of things that might actually lead someone
away from God? But, I think that it's important for people to address them when developing a relationship with God, these will likely entire a person's mind at some point in their life.
To kind of illustrate what I'm talking about, here are some passages that I selected from the book:
And I saw something else under the sun:
In the place of judgmentwickedness was there,
in the place of justicewickedness was there...
As for men, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. Man's fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?
This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead. Anyone who is among the living has hope even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!
For the living know that they will die,
but the dead know nothing;
they have no further reward,
and even the memory of them is forgotten.
Their love, their hate
and their jealousy have long since vanished;
never again will they have a part
in anything that happens under the sun.
Code:
Ecclesiastes 3:16, 3:18-21, 9:3-6
I have seen something else under the sun:
The race is not to the swift
or the battle to the strong,
nor does food come to the wise
or wealth to the brilliant
or favor to the learned;
but time and chance happen to them all.
Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come:
As fish are caught in a cruel net,
or birds are taken in a snare,
so men are trapped by evil times
that fall unexpectedly upon them.
However many years a man may live,
let him enjoy them all.
But let him remember the days of darkness,
for they will be many.
Everything to come is meaningless.
Like I said earlier, the teacher in this book never outright questions God's existence. However, there are conclusions here that one might expect if there really is no God. If God doesn't exist then everything does happen by chance, and if that's so then there really is no real meaning to anything except what we come up with.
Unfortunately, the meaning that we've assigned to things doesn't last for very long because our lives are short. The narrator in Ecclesiastes concludes that there is is no spirit, that when we die existence stops at that point. Consequently, there being no spirit leaves what's material left. And, with there no life after death implies that all that we'll ever have exists in this world alone.
However, the teacher in Ecclesiastes mentions that he has experienced much of what this world has to offer and hasn't found himself satisfied by them. In the beginning of Ecclesiastes chapter 2 the teacher mentions of the kind of material wealth that he has managed to attain, but goes on in verse 11 that nothing was gained from all his hard work.
I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing follymy mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their lives...
I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired men and women singers, and a harem as wellthe delights of the heart of man. I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.
I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my work,
and this was the reward for all my labor.
Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun.
The teacher in Ecclesiastes really does appear to be wise, and it's especially interesting to me about some of the things that he came up with considering that this written many centuries ago. Many times an atheist might scoff at some our beliefs because some of the material written in the bible appears to them to have been written by people who didn't have modern technology and science available to them and were ignorant of much of what was going on in the world around them. However, the teacher in Ecclesiastes did come up with some of the same conclusions that an atheist might have, even though he never really says that God doesn't exist.
It is true, none of us can really say that we know what will happen to us when we're dead. Many times the universe will present evidence to us which will tell us that there really isn't anything left for use once we're gone. This is why I think it's important for a person to address this issue if they want to develop a relationship with God, because ignoring it is particularly hard when bad things happen to us.
Considering that this is how things appear to be, can you really keep believing in this? You have to ask yourself, why do you believe in the first place?
For me, I believe because an existence which can only exist in physical reality is a depressing one. And, to think that when I die, all that waits for me is nothing and all who I have ever cared about are going to have the same thing, is scary on top of being sad. But, also I don't think that my faith is one only out of convenience. In spite of how intelligent I might think that I am or others might appear to me, I do know that there really is more to the universe than what's in front of my face.
As the wise teacher of Ecclesiastes did point out, we really can't know everything.
then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out, man cannot discover its meaning. Even if a wise man claims he knows, he cannot really comprehend it.
