Diana, I'm Chris, and pretty much everything you wrote about your state of mind describes mine. How we got here is different, but you are 100% where I am. I can't offer encouragement or anything, but you're not alone. And I as well appreciate any prayers and I also appreciate aiki's advice. I will take that into consideration. I also apply extra pressure to myself because I have a wife and three children who are depending on me to be a spiritual leader. But even that is getting me nowhere. I will continue to pray and we'll see what happens.
Diana and Chris,
Many years ago I was where you are now. I doubted the truth of the bible & wasn't sure if God existed, but God was working in me to draw me to become a believer. I tried to make myself believe, but that never worked. I lost count of the many times I said the sinners' prayer begging God to save me while at the same time not being sure if He was real. My life was one of fear, misery, and confusion. I thought I would never know what it meant to "believe" in Jesus.
To make a long story a short one I"ll just say that after many years of living in my misery I gave up on myself and looked to the God who I wasn't even sure existed for help. My problem was that I was focused on myself; on the things "I" was doing to try to believe in Jesus. When I gave up on me and approached God as a hopeless, helpless sinner who was desperate to know how to believe, then God, through His Word & the Holy Spirit opened my blind spiritual eyes and allowed me to see what believing really means. This is believing:
God showed me that when Jesus went to the cross He took my sins with Him and paid the penalty I owed "in full."
The 3rd verse of my favorite hymn "It Is Well with My Soul" says it all:
My sin Oh the bliss of this glorious thought.
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross and I bare it no more,
Praise the Lord Oh my soul.
When I saw that my sin debt had already been paid then an enormous sense of relief overwhelmed my troubled soul, and at that moment I became a believer. There is more to the story, but that is basically how God brought me out of the darkness of unbelief into the light of His Gospel.
John
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