Hi, Barrowhamster
First let me say that I'm about where you are (not quite, but close). I too am a very logical person (I'm a computer programmer). And I'm not at all an emotional person. So I can relate very well to what you're going through.
Second, let me give you some excellent advice which was given to me years ago when I posed this issue to a *very* qualified and experienced Christian counselor. He told me that we are to have faith in Christ and not depend on our feelings. Otherwise, we'd be having faith in our feelings instead, which won't do a thing for us. I've clung to that truth so much for the past decade that I suggest you commit it to memory.
I suppose a question for all of you is this - why do you think you are spirituality on fire for God? What has caused that to happen? That's what I want to find so I can be on fire for God too.
I really appreciate all of your thoughts!!
I am not on fire and never have been. I'm cool, calm, and collected. I do things because I want to or because they're the right things to do -- not because I "feel" God tugging at me. I think God can work through the mind as well as the heart. After all, we're told to love Him "with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your
mind." I'd like to be on fire, but I've accepted the fact that it's just not my personality. God uses me as I am, and I don't get hung up on trying to be someone other than who He created me to be.
What I mean when I say I believe logically but not spiritually is that I understand all of the logical arguments for the existence of God and Jesus. The accuracy of the Bible, the archeological arguments for Christ, the extreme unlikeliness that the world could have been created by chance, the existence of universal moral values that had to emerge from somewhere, the evidence for the resurrection, etc. However, still when I pray I find myself questioning how I can believe in something that is extra-ordinary, that is of the spiritual realm. How do I believe in something that is miraculous when I see nothing miraculous today? The question really is - how do you go from having a logical understanding that all the facts add up to the existence of God and transition to really believing in the aspects of Christianity that require faith? I have definitely prayed for many months but still feel like I am a ship lost at sea... I want to believe but just can't get myself to.
Personally, and I suspect others may disagree, I don't know if one can be 100% convinced of the reality of God. Yes, His existence is highly probable, and I believe I have "felt" his presence some over the years, but that's subjective. In the Western world we've put such an emphasis on providing 100% proof of things that we're just not comfortable with believing something that's less than 100%.
Several years ago I came to a crossroads. Although I had been a Christian for decades, I didn't "feel" God. I doubted Him. It was driving me nuts. I struggled for over a year, reading the Bible, associating with other believers, going to church, reading Christian books, etc. Nothing seemed to make a dent. Eventually I realized that I was simply going to have to *choose to believe* one thing or the other. I *chose* to believe God, and I live my life given that world view. I know the apologetics as well as the next guy, but when it comes right down to it, I believe God because I've chosen to -- regardless of the absence of 100% physical proof.
Please remember this if you start to go nuts trying to live on the fence. Make a choice, and live with it. It worked for me, and I suspect it will for you, too.
