I felt like I was talking to myself

[Kaosthemushroom]

I've always struggled grasping even the idea of faith. For awhile, I thought I understood...it felt like I was connected with something larger than myself. Every atom seemed to be alive with a life that I knew was God. I attribute the loss of the feeling partially to the past I've had in the Catholic church, and partially to my experiences with mental illness. Ever since I was 8, I've had intrusive thoughts, depression and anxiety. I used to pray to try and get rid of the intrusive thoughts, but they never left. Anyway, I went on medication to help with the problems, and it worked. It worked so well that it shut off anything and everything. There was no feeling of life in every atom, no feeling like I was connected with something. It was very much like waking up from a vivid dream and finding yourself in a plain white room. People tell me that atheists become that way because it's easier. Lemme tell you, it wasn't easy waking up in the white room. It was a special kind of hurt to realize I had only been talking to myself this entire time. Even after I weaned myself off the medication, the feeling of being connected never returned...the bad thoughts did in multitudes, though.

Have any of you had anything like this happen? How do you manage to have faith if you can't measure, sense or even feel God within your heart?

 

[paul1149]

I had an experience that, while very different in the particulars, seems to be similar in the effects. When I was first Saved I felt totally alive, as did you. That lasted a few years until my church collapsed under my feet. Many were stumbled and questioned everything they had been told. I never stopped believing in God, but a period of great darkness came over me.

I was shown in a vision that I was going to die soon, without Christ, and I began to get my affairs in order. But as I waited, nothing happened. This confused me, because I knew the vision was real. After some the months passed, I finally saw that the Lord had held onto me when I couldn't hold onto Him. I had been absolutely sure I had gone beyond the grace of God, but I had no idea that His love was so astonishingly limitless. That love broke me, and my resistance melted. I have never walked away again.

But nonetheless, it was hard coming back. There were extended seasons of the "heavens being as brass". This was because my soul needed serious renovation. In desperation I turned to some RC works, such as the Dark Night of the Soul, and Cloud of Unknowing. I found them dreary works that only made it worse. It was only when I finally began to lay down my herculean mental efforts and humbly seek God's peace that the light began to come back. The more I rested in Him, the stronger I became.

In retrospect, it was God drawing me back. He did so in love, but with an amazing wisdom that allowed me to reach the end of my rope. It was in that dark context that His love was shown to me overwhelmingly abundant toward me. In turn, the key to any progress I have made since then is in my surrender and yieldedness to Holy Spirit.

Hebrews 13 tells us that Jesus is both Author and Finisher of our faith. It will help to understand that God is the one doing the seeking here, far more than we. His grace prevenes, going where it is not deserved. He is the Good Shepherd, leaving the comfort of the flock to find the lost sheep. I don't believe He has lost anyone who sincerely wanted Him.

Scripture is clear that God is not far from each of us (Rom 10; Acts 19, et al). But we have to come as children, or we won't see it (Jn 3). Very often we have to take our feelings and put them in perspective. Feelings often reflect the past and present, not the future we need to be headed toward. That makes it a disaster if we rely on them overmuch for guidance. God has said that He has come to seek and save the lost, and that includes you, regardless of how you feel about Him. The more you understand Scripture, the more you will see the truth of how beautiful Jesus really is. And the more His truth will set you free. In time the feelings will follow, but don't put them first. "We love because He first loved us."

 

[TheJust]

I've always struggled grasping even the idea of faith. For awhile, I thought I understood...it felt like I was connected with something larger than myself. Every atom seemed to be alive with a life that I knew was God. I attribute the loss of the feeling partially to the past I've had in the Catholic church, and partially to my experiences with mental illness. Ever since I was 8, I've had intrusive thoughts, depression and anxiety. I used to pray to try and get rid of the intrusive thoughts, but they never left. Anyway, I went on medication to help with the problems, and it worked. It worked so well that it shut off anything and everything. There was no feeling of life in every atom, no feeling like I was connected with something. It was very much like waking up from a vivid dream and finding yourself in a plain white room. People tell me that atheists become that way because it's easier. Lemme tell you, it wasn't easy waking up in the white room. It was a special kind of hurt to realize I had only been talking to myself this entire time. Even after I weaned myself off the medication, the feeling of being connected never returned...the bad thoughts did in multitudes, though.

Have any of you had anything like this happen? How do you manage to have faith if you can't measure, sense or even feel God within your heart?

Faith is a struggle for all followers of God, however, faith always comes first.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. -Hebrews 11:1

 

[Kaosthemushroom]

I see where you are coming from, but what if you feel absolutely nothing there? I understand this isn't something you can measure on a device or see with your eyes...or maybe it's like asking about jazz and I'm just a lost cause :/

 

[paul1149]

To be a lost cause, your lostness would have to be greater than the grace of God available through Jesus Christ. And that is not even close to being true. Mankind needed a perfect man to spiritually re-father the human race, after Adam fell with us still in his loins. We got not only a perfect man, we got the only-begotten Son of God. As Joseph Prince says, Jesus overpaid our debt. This is why His grace is immeasurable and inexhaustible. And this is why we are not merely going back to the Garden, as the Bride of Christ we are headed for the Throne Room itself.

Do NOT sell Jesus short. He told us that the Father is not willing that ANY should perish. That means you. Don't believe the devil's lies. Jesus loves you and wants you with Him. Determine that you are not going to let old feelings, which God knows where they have come from, hold you back from beginning to trust Christ. Everything in this world is set against the Gospel message. But the Word of God is true. Jesus did not come and go through the horrific experience of the Cross in order to lose even one person who flees to Him for help. That would be completely irrational, and God is hardly irrational.

God has elevated His Word even above His Name, the OT tells us. You need to elevate it above your feelings for this season. In due time those false feelings will be replaced by ones that more accurately reflect reality - the reality of Christ and His salvation, and of the new man you have become in Him: love, joy, peace, patience, endurance, persistence, self-control, etc. These are the fruit of the Spirit in Gal 5. Jesus NEVER turned anyone away who came to Him for help. And He won't start with you.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.
Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,
nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. -Rom 8:31-39
​

 

[Dirk1540]

Every atom seemed to be alive with a life that I knew was God. I attribute the loss of the feeling partially to the past I've had in the Catholic church, and partially to my experiences with mental illness. Ever since I was 8, I've had intrusive thoughts, depression and anxiety. I used to pray to try and get rid of the intrusive thoughts, but they never left. Anyway, I went on medication to help with the problems, and it worked. It worked so well that it shut off anything and everything.

I'm trying to understand this. Are you saying that you are a person who naturally struggled to turn your brain off...and that it stressed you out? I was like that a lot in life I had racing thoughts a lot and it was very taxing (and caused lots of insomnia). But what do you mean when you say loss of the feeling was partially due to your past in the Catholic Church?? I don't understand that. Anyway, I remember I used to have to train myself to do exercises to clear my thoughts, to completely empty my mind, it was really a problem for me. I am totally convinced that a lot of 'Depression & anxiety' in the world comes down to how extremely exhausting it is for a person to not be able to shut their thoughts off (Me for many years). It makes total sense to me...go lift a dumbbell for 20 hrs straight and see how your arm feels. Well the brain is a similar muscle, think for 20 hrs non-stop and see how good you feel, Ugh I been there.

 

[dysert]

I see where you are coming from, but what if you feel absolutely nothing there? I understand this isn't something you can measure on a device or see with your eyes...or maybe it's like asking about jazz and I'm just a lost cause :/

I've been this way for long periods of time ("feel absolutely nothing there"). I talked to a counselor about it, and he reminded me that we're not to have faith in our feelings, but to have faith in Christ. If we only acted on what we felt we'd be putting our feelings above God. We must act based on what we believe, even if we feel nothing. Personally, I think that's the hardest thing about Christianity since otherwise I'm a logical and analytical person. As someone earlier posted, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

 

[Steven Wood]

I've always struggled grasping even the idea of faith. For awhile, I thought I understood...it felt like I was connected with something larger than myself. Every atom seemed to be alive with a life that I knew was God. I attribute the loss of the feeling partially to the past I've had in the Catholic church, and partially to my experiences with mental illness. Ever since I was 8, I've had intrusive thoughts, depression and anxiety. I used to pray to try and get rid of the intrusive thoughts, but they never left. Anyway, I went on medication to help with the problems, and it worked. It worked so well that it shut off anything and everything. There was no feeling of life in every atom, no feeling like I was connected with something. It was very much like waking up from a vivid dream and finding yourself in a plain white room. People tell me that atheists become that way because it's easier. Lemme tell you, it wasn't easy waking up in the white room. It was a special kind of hurt to realize I had only been talking to myself this entire time. Even after I weaned myself off the medication, the feeling of being connected never returned...the bad thoughts did in multitudes, though.

Have any of you had anything like this happen? How do you manage to have faith if you can't measure, sense or even feel God within your heart?

I gotta tell you I really do feel you and I am with you and am sorry. When I was "saved" the first time it felt freeing but troubles of the world and weights and issues led me off for a very long time. I not only didn't think about God, I had a hard disdain for anything that had to do with the church and didn't try to disprove God but tried hard to prove why the church was wrong if you can understand that. It was only a few months ago when I wasn't even looking, not even wondering, years and years after I last prayed or opened a Bible that God came to me in the blink of and eye and my faith started out in the very tiniest of sorts, very very small in an insignificant way. And when God proved himself it grew and grew just as the Bibles says. I know it's very hard to accept but I'll say this when Jesse Ventura said that religion is a crutch for the weak minded he had it opposite. It's the things of this world that are a crutch for the weak minded. It's very easy to sell your soul and get things of this world that you can see right now hoping that it's only darkness and nothing else when you die knowing when you really think about it that that is truly nonsense but to open your heart, close your eyes and fall backwards, trusting that the Lord your father is behind you to catch you when you fall takes great faith. The fact is the connection that we have with God is missing is because we are being taught wrong. Most of us miss the mark because we never truly understand how to receive God. How can we have have faith in someone that we never met and something we can't see. We aren't built like that and God knows that. That's why God came to Earth as a man. There were rumors of the miracles he performed that's why people believed in him. Unfortunately mixed words, people being "asleep" and false teachers wanting to make a quick buck has made it so mega churches get more attention than the people who truly speak God's word but his people are still out there so if you're truly looking friend please don't give up and if you're at all interested pm whenever you'd like and I'd be more than happy to talk to you about anything. God bless you.

 

[orangeness365]

I went through a year of being an atheist, kind of, I didn't believe but I prayed the Lord's prayer just in case I was wrong. I know we are supposed to have faith regardless of emotions, but after a year of being faithless, I felt so dead inside, and I took that as a sign that God was real, that the holy spirit used to make me feel somewhat alive, although sad and depressed even with it. The dead feeling and a dream I had brought me back. I know it's not proof or anything of God to others, but it was enough for me. Maybe you feel that way because you have in a way asked the Holy Spirit to leave? I don't know, it's better to have faith than to rely on emotions though.

 

[zippy2006]

Have any of you had anything like this happen? How do you manage to have faith if you can't measure, sense or even feel God within your heart?

You might look out to the world, the objective. To Jesus, to the Church, to testimonies, to miracles. And pray for evidence or a sign; pray to be shown the way.