Still a lost sheep

[losthope]

In February this year I posted a question in this forum, asking if anyone could help me to find hope and find God. I wrote of spending two years as a Christian in the 1970s, without ever receiving any kind of response from God. After two years of receiving nothing from God my hope and my faith died.

I seem to have no spiritual awareness at all and have never had anything that could be described as a spiritual experience. That means, for example, no conviction of sin through the work of the Holy Spirit, no heartfelt need for a saviour, no awareness of God working in my life, no awareness of God through creation.

Many people responded in this forum to my call for help. Many of you, I am sure, prayed for me. I thank you for those prayers.

Eventually a Christian that I have been in contact with for some years helped me to find a way to trust God once again. Half an hour before midnight on Monday April 23rd, I was on my knees in prayer. Praying and asking to be touched by the Spirit of God. Asking for forgiveness for going my own way instead of God’s way. Offering my life to God. In the name of Jesus. And trusting that God heard my prayer and would bless me.

I was trusting God, but at the same time I knew just how important it was that God should respond to me. Because of my experience in the 1970s I knew that, in my own strength, I would not be able to continue to trust God for very long. I posted a message on another Christian website, asking for prayer to support me. I know that at the end of April and into May, there were hundreds of people praying for me, locally and around the world. Praying that my faith would be strengthened, and that I would become aware of what God was doing with me.

I wish I could tell you that the prayers were answered. But I cannot do that. The prayers were not answered. For two weeks my faith continued, but it became a little weaker every day. I waited for God to respond to me in some way. Any way.

There was nothing. After two weeks my faith had disappeared. I woke up one morning and realised that my attempt to become a Christian had failed and that I would have to continue living my life without God.

I am disappointed, but there is no anger or bitterness. Those two weeks of faith have taught me a great deal. They have helped me to interpret my total lack of spiritual awareness and experience. In particular, I know that never again will I try to knock on God’s door. Maybe one day God will come and knock on my door, and I will open the door, and everything will change. Until then I can only watch and wait. In the parable it is the good shepherd who goes to find the lost sheep, not the lost sheep who tries to find the shepherd.

 

[TexasGirl06]

Losthope....

I hear what you are saying.
Really, I do.

The Lord my God... is very real.
Perhaps do not look for "answered" prayer as the indicator that He is real.

God answers prayer in one of three ways.
But, he always.... answers.
Yes, No.... or Wait.

Perhaps he has answered you with a No,
or a Wait?

I would recommend looking into His written Word.

And, respectfully...
I ask,
...Has the issue of sin been dealt with in your life?

Faith is believing.... when you can't see.
Blind faith.
The faith of a little child.
Believing even when you don't understand.

A side note: I have been praying for something for about 12 years now.
I haven't seen the Lord move on it yet.
Has he heard me?
Oh yes.
Is it a no... or a wait?
It may be a no... but I will persevere and ask My Lord for this request. It burns on my heart and I desire my Heavenly Father to move in this situation.

I have to hope... that it is only a "wait" response thus far.

How do I know that He has heard my request?
I know, because he has told me so.
In His written word.

Be encouraged this day.
The Lord is on The Throne.
He does love you.

 

[TexasGirl06]

I found this verse in God's Written Word:

The Lord is far from the wicked but he hears the prayer of the righteous. Proverbs 15:29

"The righteous" means one who is right before God.
Their sin (past, present, future) has been wiped clean by the Blood of Jesus Christ, when he died on the cross.

I believe that God's Word is true.
All the time.

 

[WashedClean]

I remember you losthope. This story makes me so sad.

A couple of questions - are you convicted of your sin and need for a savior? Remember that "the just shall walk by faith, not by sight". Faith is not a feeling, it's a decision of the will based on the Holy Spirit drawing you. Lately I have not felt like God is working in my life, but I know that he loves me and that I have a relationship with him through his Son. I keep reminding myself of all Jesus has done for me, so that keeps me going. Like TexasGirl said, we need to wait on God's timing. What exactly do you want him to do? Are your prayers in accordance with God's Word and will? Have you studied His word and asked him to reveal it's truth to you?

Please don't give up your pursuit of God. He says, "you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."

And remember, faith is NOT a feeling!! Feelings change with circumstances.

Still praying for you...

 

[Key]

In the parable it is the good shepherd who goes to find the lost sheep, not the lost sheep who tries to find the shepherd.

AMEN !

I tell you.. this is one of the Greatest Revelations that can come to anyone, and it carries with it.. so much power... so much freedom, and so much grace when you realize it.

God will come to you, when you need him, and when you are ready. We as humans think we are ready for things, but, God knows when we will be ready, and then, he comes to us.

However, my only advice and suggestion is, look at your world around you, and you may come to realize that God is working in your life, in little ways, like a whisper in your ear, not a thunder cloud in the sky.

When I stopped looking at the Sky waiting for God to split the Heavens, I was freed to look at the Gold that God had laid at my feet.

God Bless

Key

 

[hlaltimus]

I don't know if this will help you or not, but one problem with consulting the opinions of Christians in our day and age is that the better part of them pay little or even no attention to the spiritual realm as a source for problems and seek to dominate upon the area of the flesh or "old man" as if it were the sole problem area. Well, the fallen, sinful flesh is definitely the primary source for all of our problems, but the realm of spirits, (and I mean evil spirits,) is a secondary problem area which itself owes it's existence to defects within the carnal or physical area. What this means is that you have enemies arising from two...No, really three areas and all of them must be taken into account for lasting beneficial deliverence. One adversary is God Almighty the Judge. His divine displeasure against our sins must be eliminated through faith in the punitive, substitutionary death of Christ on our behalf. His death was a sacrifice for our sin and made an atonement available upon terms of saving faith and saving faith is itself dependant upon another divine grace...Repentance. Repentance brings us to the second adversary to be dealt with: The sinful flesh. All sinful thoughts, desires, words and actions must be mercilessly slaughtered as though they were an enemy in a "Kill or be killed" warfare. Then, the very sinful nature must be yielded up to the Cross of Christ for mortification. It is not enough to destroy the actions of this "Old man"...The very fallen nature of this old man must be eliminated and this is accomplished positionally by believing that when Christ went into the tomb of death, he legally and potentially brought old Adam with him and our mortication of the sinful nature is dependant upon our believing or "reckoning" upon this truth in order to make it experimentally true in our lives. Now, after one has honestly and thoroughly repented of his or her sins, reckoned the sinful, old man dead by virtue of union with Christ's death, exercised saving faith in Christ's penal death for our pardon and righteous life for our justification one has still only dealt with two of the three enemies! OK...The flesh is put down and God Himself is satsified through the mediation of His Son, but do not think for a moment that Satan will casually stroll off and leave you alone out of the goodness of his heart...He hasn't one good atom in his entire being. This third enemy, Satan, must be positively dealt with just as James the Apostle said, "Submit therefore to God, resisit the devil and he will flee from you." and it must all be done in that order. What if, (and this is only suggested as a possibility,) what if your progress is being blocked from hell because you may have failed to take this unseen enemy into account. You can't see them but they are tirelessly there seeking to obstruct any and all actions or plans on your part to move one inch towards the kingdom of God in Christ. You will kick, plan, stuggle, fail, regroup your strength for the next assault, fail again and again and again until you recognize that some of you problem is coming from the kingdom of Satan and this enemy must be positively dealt with just as an offended God or the Old Adam had to be dealt with. Three adversaries must be confronted and dealt with to move beyond this wearying battlefield and into the peaceful plains of victory.

 

[Floatingaxe]

In February this year I posted a question in this forum, asking if anyone could help me to find hope and find God. I wrote of spending two years as a Christian in the 1970s, without ever receiving any kind of response from God. After two years of receiving nothing from God my hope and my faith died.

I seem to have no spiritual awareness at all and have never had anything that could be described as a spiritual experience. That means, for example, no conviction of sin through the work of the Holy Spirit, no heartfelt need for a saviour, no awareness of God working in my life, no awareness of God through creation.

Many people responded in this forum to my call for help. Many of you, I am sure, prayed for me. I thank you for those prayers.

Eventually a Christian that I have been in contact with for some years helped me to find a way to trust God once again. Half an hour before midnight on Monday April 23rd, I was on my knees in prayer. Praying and asking to be touched by the Spirit of God. Asking for forgiveness for going my own way instead of God’s way. Offering my life to God. In the name of Jesus. And trusting that God heard my prayer and would bless me.

I was trusting God, but at the same time I knew just how important it was that God should respond to me. Because of my experience in the 1970s I knew that, in my own strength, I would not be able to continue to trust God for very long. I posted a message on another Christian website, asking for prayer to support me. I know that at the end of April and into May, there were hundreds of people praying for me, locally and around the world. Praying that my faith would be strengthened, and that I would become aware of what God was doing with me.

I wish I could tell you that the prayers were answered. But I cannot do that. The prayers were not answered. For two weeks my faith continued, but it became a little weaker every day. I waited for God to respond to me in some way. Any way.

There was nothing. After two weeks my faith had disappeared. I woke up one morning and realised that my attempt to become a Christian had failed and that I would have to continue living my life without God.

I am disappointed, but there is no anger or bitterness. Those two weeks of faith have taught me a great deal. They have helped me to interpret my total lack of spiritual awareness and experience. In particular, I know that never again will I try to knock on God’s door. Maybe one day God will come and knock on my door, and I will open the door, and everything will change. Until then I can only watch and wait. In the parable it is the good shepherd who goes to find the lost sheep, not the lost sheep who tries to find the shepherd.

God DID respond to you! He saved you and drew so close to you, but you didn't believe it. He has done it all for you, friend. He died for you, He spared you from Hell, He loved you since before the earth was formed, He planned your life for you, He is was ready to heal you, to bless you, to walk with you, to protect you, to help you, to strengthen you, to listen to you....and on and on ad infinitum.

What do you expect God to do for you? He did knock on that door. You did open it. He did come in to live with you. It is your responsibility as His child to talk to Him. Did you pray every day? Did someone tell you about reading His Word daily? What about your friend who led you to Jesus? Where is she? You could use her as a mentor. What about a good bible-believing church nearby? You are needing good, strong roots.

You know, I have witnessed, and it is documented, that the pattern of this happening in new believers is pretty common. The parable of the sower explains it. The seed fallen on rocky soil is you! Roots are needed!

Read Luke 8:11-15

The Parable of the Sower Explained


“Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away. Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity. But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.

Ask God, and I will too, to rekindle that spark of His truth in your heart!

Please--do not rely on feelings! They are not reliable! Rely on the truth of what Jesus says. He says that when you open your heart's door He comes in! Period! He is right there!

Revelation 3:20
“Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.

 

[Catherineanne]

I wish I could tell you that the prayers were answered. But I cannot do that. The prayers were not answered. For two weeks my faith continued, but it became a little weaker every day. I waited for God to respond to me in some way. Any way.

There was nothing. After two weeks my faith had disappeared. I woke up one morning and realised that my attempt to become a Christian had failed and that I would have to continue living my life without God.

You made your commitment to God conditional on getting a high.

The trouble with this approach is that God does not respond to emotional blackmail. Either you committed yourself to him or you didn't. If you did, you are still his, whatever you now say.

Next time you talk with him, I suggest you leave out the conditions, and recognise who is actually in charge, and leave it to him to manifest himself to you in his own way and in his own time. I guarantee that he will do this.

You say you waited for God to respond in some way but he didn't. Were all those messages of support and of prayer not from God? Was the voice of God absent when you read them? What was absent was only a feeling, and feelings are very deceptive. God is not like a fix of heroin to make you feel good whenever you feel like it. He is God.

Christ in the garden of Gethsemane begged God not to let him go to death, but God chose otherwise. None of us, not even Christ himself, can choose for God, or dictate terms to him.

 

[Catherineanne]

And remember, faith is NOT a feeling!! Feelings change with circumstances.

Absolutely right. Faith often exists despite our feelings, and not because of them.

If feelings are primary, then feelings become God.

 

[salida]

lostofhope-

God does answer prayer but it sounds like you wanted Him to answer in a certain way. Ask Him for your forgiveness, repent and ask for the Holy Spirit to give you the power to live a christian life. He won't give you a chicken but the Holy Spirit.

Then you need to put this into action one day at a time. You are to walk by faith NOT by sight.

God is the most real person that exists - His witness is more than any mans witness. Plus in addition to spiritual reasons intellectually christianity is the most reasonable. Have you ever read Evidence That Demands A Verdict by Josh McDowell? It would stand up in a court of law concerning the Bible. And 90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper. This guy really went to heaven and back - he didn't have a nde - he did die and came back - this is a documentary.

 

[LogosPryme]

I hate to say it, but it seems to me that you didn't have faith to begin with. Let me explain. . .

You said in your self that you were trusting God and then you sat back and waited for Him to prove Himself. You can't have faith (trust) in someone fully and not be absolutely SURE of their nature and their existence.

As for the Shepherd coming for the lost sheep, He already did. And the sheep cursed Him, whipped Him, and hung Him on a tree to die.

Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. So here are some scriptures:

"In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth" Gen 1:1

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" John 1:1

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth" John 1:14

"He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own received Him not." John 1:10-11

"And no one has ascended up to Heaven except He who came down from Heaven, the Son of Man who is in Heaven. But even as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. " John 3:13-16

"I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep." John 10:11

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him and he with Me." (Rev 3:20)

 

[Johnnz]

If you are not a 'feelings' kind of guy then you probably won't get any great awareness of God. But that is just the way you function. I was a bit like that and it took time and effort to change. But I decided that God had taken me at my word and stopped fretting about whether he had or hadn't. And, bit by bit my life did change.

Don't worry about conviction of sin. People come to God for many reasons and awareness of sin is very often not the main reason for many people.

John
NZ

 

[losthope]

To everyone.
First, I want to thank everyone who responded so quickly to my message. In a sense I was not looking for replies but was informing those people who have responded to me in the past and prayed for me, about recent developments in my spiritual journey.

Second, I want to apologise in advance if any of what I write sounds negative. Or if it seems that I am simply rejecting some suggestions out of hand. That is not my intention. What I am doing is to explain my situation more clearly when I think that someone may have made an assumption about me, or when they have asked me a question. I take all questions and all suggestions very seriously. It is just that sometimes I may have already tried what is asked or suggested, and not found it helpful.

To TexasGirl06.
You make four points in your two messages. That I should not look for answered prayer as an indication that God has heard me. That God’s answer may be no or wait. That I should read the Bible and believe what is written there. You also ask if the issue of sin in my life has been dealt with.

Having an answered prayer is, I agree, one of the ways in which God can respond to a Christian. But there are many other ways: an awareness of God’s presence through awe of creation or through God working in my life, being taught some spiritual truth, a conviction of sin through the Holy Spirit, knowing the power of the Holy Spirit in me, reading the Bible and finding that a verse “leaps off the page into the heart”, receiving divine guidance, and much more. Christians tell me about such experiences and more. Everyone’s experiences are different, but most people do at least get one of them. Unfortunately I received none of them. Not in the two years that I spent as a Christian in the 1970s. Not in the two weeks as a Christian in April and May this year. Ephesians 3:14-19 is a very good description of what I have not received. It is much more than looking for answered prayer.

I agree that the answer to prayer can be yes, or no, or wait. Or even that God can give someone something much better than what they asked for (Ephesians 3:20). Like you, I can accept that God may hear my prayers (or may not – Proverbs 15:29). I do know that there has never been an answer that I am aware of. Not even a no or wait.

I am familiar with the Bible, probably as familiar with it as many Christians. But I am not at the stage where I can accept the Bible as the absolute truth in the way that some Christians do. I know only too well that some of the promises of the Bible do not appear to have been fulfilled for me. I am not saying that the Bible promises are false; I am saying that I have no awareness of them being fulfilled in me. I know that some people move from having faith in the Bible to having faith in God. To me, that is the wrong thing to do. I may one day move from having faith in God to having faith in the truth of the Bible, but I cannot do it the other way round. To me that would be sinful. That may seem strange to you, but that is how it seems to me.

Now the issue of sin; has it been dealt with in my life? I do not know. I am aware that many but not all, Christians received a conviction of sin through the action of the Holy Spirit and it was this that brought them to their knees before God asking for forgiveness through Jesus. I have never had a conviction of sin in that way. I am aware of sin in general, and I am aware of the Christian concept of sin in a theoretical way. But that is all, in a theoretical way. It has never really “touched” me such that I feel an overwhelming need for a saviour and for forgiveness of my sin. Of course when I was praying for salvation I did ask for my sins to be forgiven through Jesus, and I thanked God for doing just that. If my lack of an real awareness of a need for a saviour then excludes me from salvation, then there is nothing that I can do about it. I cannot myself manufacture a deep conviction of being a sinner; only the Holy Spirit can do that in me. But this would be a spiritual experience, and I have never had anything that could be described as a spiritual experience of any kind.

To Washed Clean.
You asked if I am convicted of my sin and need for a saviour. The answer is no. See the paragraph above this one, written in response to a similar question from TexasGirl06.

You say that faith is not a feeling, but a decision of the will. Now you may be correct, but I am sure that what you mean is the type of faith that comes as a gift from God. A spiritual faith. I know nothing of such faith. I wish I did, but unfortunately I seem to lack the spiritual awareness needed to receive such faith. For me, the only faith that I have is drawn from within me, and it is based on a conscious decision to trust God. In fact I prefer to call it trust, rather than faith. But I agree with you that faith (or trust) is not simply a feeling.

You say that recently you have not felt God working in your life. However you are able to remind yourself of what Jesus has done for you in the past. Unfortunately I do not have such strengthening memories to draw on, because as far as I am aware God has never worked in my life. I know that it can seem a tough spiritual struggle for a Christian when they go through a time such as you are now experiencing, seemingly with God not working on you at the moment. But without the memories of the “good times with God” I can assure you that the continuing time without God is much much worse.

You then ask three questions. What exactly do I want God to do? To show me in some way – any way – that I can have a relationship with God. During the two weeks when I was able to trust recently, what I wanted God to do was to respond to my prayers and the prayers of hundreds of Christians and to help me become spiritually aware so that I could access the things of God. Now that I am no longer trusting God, what I am hoping that God will do is to call me in some way. How God may call me, is up to God. For example it may involve God “nudging” me in some way to act in a certain way. At the same time I still need some spiritual awareness if I am going to be able to access the things of God. Many of the Christians who have been praying for me were asking that I could be made aware of the wonderful things that they believed God was desperately trying to do for me.

Are my prayers in accordance with God’s Word (I presume you mean the Bible) and God’s will? Well, I thought so. I asked for forgiveness. I asked for God to come into my life. I asked to be made aware of what God was doing for me. I asked for a relationship with the Lord. And many Christians were praying for me to receive those same things.

Have I studied the Bible and asked God to reveal its truth to me? Oh yes. I am fairly familiar with my Bible. During my two weeks of trusting I read it a lot, coupled with prayer. But at no time has any truth been revealed to me by reading the Bible. To me it is just like reading any other religious book. I know that many Christians have moments of revelation when reading the Bible. It has not happened for me, despite the prayers.

You remind me that I will find God if I seek God with all my heart. Oh dear. First of all I have to tell you that I do not have much of a “heart” in the biblical sense. People seem to define the “heart” in different ways, but they all agree that it involves the emotions. Unfortunately my emotions are extremely weak because of a physiological condition. Emotions hardly influence me at all. This means that I have to use my mind to consider things. And my will, though that is also fairly weak for the same reason. However, if I need all of my heart, then presumably the very weak “heart” that I do have ought to be enough. It is just that my experience of being (or trying to be) a Christian suggests otherwise.

That verse has also been interpreted as meaning that a person needs to go on seeking God until they find God. That is not a very inspiring message. For example Billy Graham has helped thousands of people to find God by asking them to pray and repent there and then. But suppose he told people that they have to go on searching, to go on asking, to go on praying for year after year because eventually God will respond to them. How many converts do you think he would have helped with a message like that?

According to your posting, you are 40 years old. I began to search seriously for God 41 years ago. That is right, since before you were born. Yet still I have failed to find God. Or do I mean that God has failed to find me? You tell me not to give up my pursuit of God, but I am not able to take that advice at the moment. I firmly believe that it is a complete waste of time for me to try to pursue God any further. If God wants me, God will find me. That is why I referred to the parable of the good shepherd who goes to find the lost sheep. There is no parable about a lost sheep searching for the good shepherd. So in that sense, my decision is according to the Bible.

I really appreciate your prayers. When in April and May this year I told people that I was trusting God once again, it was not advice that I asked them for. What I asked for was their prayers. In particular, to pray that I would have my spiritual eyes and ears opened so that I would know and appreciate what God was doing for me, and that I would be able to feel God’s touch. God’s touch is the only “feeling” that I consider to be of value to me in my search for faith.

 

[losthope]

To Key.
Thank you for recognising my belief that I cannot find God until God comes to find me. I would not have called it one of the greatest revelations, and I am unable to perceive the power, freedom and grace in it. Nevertheless I appreciate your agreement.

Many Christians have told me the opposite, that I should go on searching for the good shepherd. Sometimes telling me that if I take one step towards God, then God will take ten or more steps towards me. Unfortunately I have no awareness of God at all, let alone an awareness of God moving towards me.

I must admit that there have been times in my life when I really thought that I was ready for God to come to me. But of course in reality only God knows when the time is right for a person. However, it has been a long wait since I was first introduced to the gospel message in 1966. My experiences since then have made me very critical of Christianity and of the Bible in some ways – and that may not be the best state of mind to be in when God calls.

I know what you mean about looking around to see evidence of God working in my life. But I have no awareness of God, not as a thunder cloud, not as a whisper in my ear. I have tried not to set limits on where I might search in order to find God. But wherever I have looked, I have not found God.

To hlaltimus.
Sorry but I found it very difficult to relate to what you have written. I have never had a conviction of sin or a heartfelt need for a saviour. It is therefore not possible for me to envisage such things as yielding up my sinful nature to the cross, or of recognising what Jesus achieved on the cross as a sacrifice for sin. Also I have no spiritual awareness at all. This implies that Satan is having no perceptible influence on me, just as God is having no perceptible influence on me. If one day I do achieve some spiritual awareness, and I am at last able to recognise what God has done for me, then that will also be the time when I need to be on my guard against the influence of Satan. You describe it in terms of a battlefield, but I am not aware of any battle. Of course it is possible that a major spiritual battle is going on around me and even inside me, but I have absolutely no awareness of it.

To Floatingaxe.
You wrote this:
God DID respond to you! He saved you and drew so close to you, but you didn;t believe it. He has done it all for you, friend. He died for you, He spared you from Hell, He loved you since before the earth was formed, He planned your life for you, He is was ready to heal you, to bless you, to walk with you, to protect you, to help you, to strengthen you, to listen to you....an on and on ad infinitum.
What do you expect God to do for you? He did knock on that door. You did open it. He did come in to live with you.

You say that I did not believe that God responded to me. Not true. In 1974 when I first asked God into my life I very much believed it. My behaviour changed in many ways, for example regular Bible reading, prayer, going to church, leading a Bible study, telling people about Jesus, and so on. I continued in this way for almost two years. Yet at no time did God guide me to do the things God had planned for my life, or heal me, or bless me, or walk with me, or protect or help or strengthen me. Maybe God listened, but there was no reply from God that I was aware of. That is why I had to abandon my faith in 1976, because it was absolutely obvious to me and to my Christian friends that it was all so wrong.
In April this year, at least part of me was able to believe, and so I offered my life to God again. In a sense, I offered the part of me that was able to believe, and I asked God to work on the rest of me so that soon I would be able to give God all of me. Did I believe that God would respond? I certainly trusted that God would respond, and I thanked God for responding. However, once again I had no awareness of God, or of God working in me. Without that awareness, I feared that it could be just a repeat of the failures of the 1970s. In other words, for me it was absolutely essential that I had some kind of response from God. Because what I was seeking was a relationship with God. And a relationship is a two-way thing. It requires both me and God to act and communicate.

You ask what I expected God to do for me. I expected God to respond. In some way. Any way. Any way that God should choose to respond. But something. Not nothing.

You say that God did knock on the door, that I opened it, and that God came in to live with me. All I can say is that I have no awareness of any of these things. If they happened, they happened without my knowledge.

Then you wrote this:
It is your responsibility as His child to talk to Him. did you pray every day? Did someone tell you about reading His Word daily? What about your friend who led you to Jesus? where is she? You could use her as a mentor. What about a good bible-believing church nearby? You are needing good, strong roots.

I will give my answers for the time in April and May this year when I was trusting God. Did I pray every day? Every hour, maybe more. Did I read the Bible daily? More than daily. Was there a good Bible-believing church nearby? Yes, and I spoke to some of the Christians I know there, including the pastor, several times. And they prayed with me and for me. In fact I was surprised just how easy it was to get back into the “being a Christian” mode of thinking, even though it was 31 years since I had last called myself a Christian.

I am familiar with the parable of the sower, but I think that you have chosen the wrong verse for me. I see myself not as the rocky ground, but as the path, or wayside. The seed just sits there unable to put down any roots because the ground is so hard. It does not even require the birds or the devil to take away the seed, because left to itself the seed simply sits there and fails to germinate and grow. At times I can feel the seed resting on me, and may even feel the seed landing on me. But then nothing happens.

Some years ago I wrote to the Billy Graham organisation in the hope that someone there might have the experience of knowing someone who just failed to be aware of any response from God after giving their life to God. The reply was interesting. It also quoted the parable of the sower, noting that seed could fall on the path, on rocky ground, among thorns, or on good ground. Therefore the writer expected that only one in four of the people who make a commitment to Christ would go on to become a true Christian. And clearly I was one of the other three who do not become true Christians.

You then wrote this:
Ask God, and I will too, to rekindle that spark of His truth in your heart!
Please--do not rely on feelings! They are not reliable! Rely on the truth of what Jesus says. He says that when you open your heart's door He comes in! Period! He is right there!

It would be wonderful for anything at all to create a spark in my heart. But it has never happened and, short of a miracle, I do not expect that anything will ever create a spark in my heart. The reason is that the heart involves emotions, and my emotions are only extremely weak because I suffer from a physiological condition. Therefore to me emotions, and feelings generally, are more or less irrelevant. I have a mind and part of that mind is my will. But feelings, a heart, a soul, a spirit… these are things that I have no awareness of at all.

For this reason it is impossible for me to open my heart’s door. Indeed, to me my “heart” is more or less irrelevant; there is no door in my heart for me to open. All I can say is that these words of yours have no meaning for me.

You then quote Revelation 3:20. Jesus may well be knocking, but I do not hear the knocking and I do not hear his voice. Unfortunately I seem to have no spiritual awareness at all.

 

[losthope]

To Catherineanne.
You wrote this:
You made your commitment to God conditional on getting a high.
The trouble with this approach is that God does not respond to emotional blackmail. Either you committed yourself to him or you didn't. If you did, you are still his, whatever you now say.
Next time you talk with him, I suggest you leave out the conditions, and recognise who is actually in charge, and leave it to him to manifest himself to you in his own way and in his own time. I guarantee that he will do this.
You say you waited for God to respond in some way but he didn't. Were all those messages of support and of prayer not from God? Was the voice of God absent when you read them? What was absent was only a feeling, and feelings are very deceptive. God is not like a fix of heroin to make you feel good whenever you feel like it. He is God.

You seem to have made some assumptions about me, and about my motives and my actions, that are very different from my own perception of the situation.

You say that either I committed myself to God or I did not. What I did was to recognise that part of me was able to trust God, and I offered that part of me to God. And asked that God would work on the rest of me until I was able to give God all of me. I suspect that many new Christians do something similar, in that there are parts of themselves that they are not immediately able to hand over to God, although they may not necessarily realise it at the time.

You suggest that I was hoping for a “high”. Wow! I have never had a “high” in my life. I think that, short of a miracle, it would be impossible for me to have a high, because of my physiological condition. I can assure you that I was not expecting to get a high.

You also suggest that I was relying on my feelings. What are feelings? Once again, feelings are something that I do not experience, because of my physiological condition. You say that feelings can be deceptive. Well, they may well be, but I cannot either confirm it or deny it for myself, because I do not have those things that you call feelings. I wish I did, but unfortunately I do not.

I totally agree with you that God does not respond to emotional blackmail. I also agree that it would be wrong to set conditions on my expectations of God. After all, God is God; who am I to think of dictating conditions or applying emotional blackmail? However, you seem to be under the impression that I was using emotional blackmail and that I was setting conditions. I am sorry if I inadvertently gave you that impression.

I assume that you thought about emotional blackmail and conditions when I wrote that I knew that, in my own strength, I would not be able to continue to trust God for very long. I wrote this as a simple statement of fact. I knew just how vulnerable my faith was. It was a statement about my own faith. NOT a suggestion that God had better respond, or else!

I did wait for God to respond, and I can only repeat that there was no response from God that I am aware of. As for those messages of support and of prayer, they were from Christians. It seems to me to be twisting the use of language to suggest that they were from God. Certainly I had no awareness of the voice of God when I read them. So yes, as far as I am aware, the voice of God was absent when I read them. For me the voice of God is always absent. I wish it could be otherwise. I would love to hear God’s voice. Or to become aware of God acting in some way or another. But alas I have no awareness of God, or of anything that could be described as spiritual.

No, it was not just feelings that were absent. I am always without feelings, and the absence of feelings was irrelevant. What was absent that really did matter, was an awareness of God. And to me, having an awareness of God, having a relationship with God, is absolutely crucial. If there is no relationship with God then I am not a Christian. It is as simple as that.

To salida.
You wrote this:
God does answer prayer but it sounds like you wanted Him to answer in a certain way. Ask Him for your forgiveness, repent and ask for the Holy Spirit to give you the power to live a christian life. He won't give you a chicken but the Holy Spirit.

No I did not expect God to answer in a particular way. God can choose to answer in any way that God chooses. Or God can choose not to answer.

I did ask for forgiveness. I did pray a prayer of repentance, to the extent that I was able to. I did ask for the Holy Spirit to give me the power to live a Christian life. But I can assure you that I did not receive that power. As far as I am aware I received exactly nothing.

You say that Christianity is intellectually reasonable. In that case, someone like me who lacks emotions and who also lacks spiritual awareness, and who therefore has to use his intellectual abilities all of the time, should be very much at home with Christianity. Unfortunately that does not seem to be the case.

I think that I have read parts of “Evidence that demands a verdict” by Josh McDowell. I was not impressed. It certainly did not convince me. I have never heard of the book by Don Piper, and will not be reading it. In terms of helping my understanding of God, such stories are irrelevant.

 

[TexasGirl06]

Hey LostHope....
Thanks for all of your comments.
They help me to understand what you are going through.
I'd love to add a few comments...
and know that I bring these to you in love.
Sometimes when we people hear the Truth, it hurts us...
and I want you to know where I am coming from.

anyway...

God is really, really big and He is full of great things.
However, He does not pour out His Blessings and Grace (undeserved kindness) on everyone.
He pours out Blessings and Grace on those who are right with Him.
Big statement. I know.
How can Joe be "right" with God....
and Meg not be "right" with God?
Sin separates us from God.
We are right with God when the eternal consequence of our sin has been washed away (forgiven) by God.
God (The Father) does this when we accept the fact that His Son (Jesus) was killed because of our sin.
************
It was my sin that put Jesus on the cross that day. Jesus was perfect. My sin needed to be punished and Jesus took the punishment.
Because of this, (my trust)... I am right with God.
*************
The reason that perhaps you are struggling with the lack of relationship with the Living God.... is because of the sin issue.
If you have not acknowledged that you have sinned against a Holy God...
and that God's Son took the punishment for your sin....
you are not "right" with God.

Your sin is in the way of having a relationship with the living God.

And also....
according to God's Word,
since the time that Jesus ascended into Heaven.....
when a person accepts Jesus as Savior (saved me from eternal consequences of sin), the Holy Spirit enters that person AND NEVER LEAVES.
That means that when a person is indeed a Christian, they can not ever be "not a Christian".
The Holy Spirit is a seal. Never to leave.
What a huge comfort.

So.... your comments about when you were a Christian back in 1970....
and how you aren't a Christian now. ....
And your comments about not grieving sin...
lead me to question if you were ever genuinely saved.

Praying for you.... !

 

[TexasGirl06]

...just have to add one more thing !

I really do think that you are searching...
and I don't believe that people search,
unless God has been drawing them to search.

Look where The Lord has you right now !
On a Message Board with people who know Him intimately !
That's huge......

Be encouraged this day !
I am encouraged for you !!!!

OK.
Bye !

 

[WashedClean]

I echo TexasGirl's Post above about God drawing you to Himself.

Thanks for taking the time to explain your history and understanding of God and salvation. I still think the sin issue is the stumbling block. Can you ask God to show you how serious your sin is? If you have a physiological condition as you say, God is very aware of this and is patient and long suffering.

I understand your point about the Shepherd looking for the lost sheep. But don't use that as an excuse to give up! As TexasGirl stated, God is still drawing you to Himself. You are sharing your experience here with us for a reason. There is still something inside you that longs to know God. Not everyone experiences this desire.

I will continue to pray for you!

In Christ's Love,

Jill/WashedClean

 

[losthope]

To LogosPryme.
You wrote this:
I hate to say it, but it seems to me that you didn't have faith to begin with. Let me explain. . .
You said in your self that you were trusting God and then you sat back and waited for Him to prove Himself. You can't have faith (trust) in someone fully and not be absolutely SURE of their nature and their existence.

It seems to me that you are assuming that I had total faith in God when I went onto my knees to pray for forgiveness and to ask God into my life. No, I did not have total faith in the way that you are assuming. What I did have was part of me able to trust, because I had found a way to be able to trust. I was quite aware that there was also a part of me that was not yet ready to trust. What I did was to offer to God all of me that I could, and asked God to work on the rest of me so that eventually I would be able to offer God all of me.

In practice, that is what many people do when they first come to Christ, although at the time they may not be aware that they are holding back parts of themselves. The difference is that I freely acknowledge it because I was aware that there was part of me trusting and part of me sceptical.

This means that it was possible for me to trust God and at the same time not to be absolutely sure. Of course I was not having faith (trust) in God fully. I was having faith and trust in God to the limit of my ability to do so, but I accept that what I was able to offer was less than all of me.

I wish that I had been able to trust God fully, and to give all of me to God. Even being able to give just a part of me was an amazing event, considering that I have spent the 31 years since I used to be a Christian, trying to understand and to come to terms with the fact that despite two years of faith in the 1970s I had failed to know God at all.

Maybe it is essential for a person to give all of themselves and to trust God fully, before God will respond to their faith. If so, then it is even more certain that I will not be able to find God by searching. The only way that I will find God is if God comes to find me. If the shepherd comes to find the lost sheep.

However, I dispute your assessment that I was trusting God and just sitting back and waiting for God to prove something. Sitting back? Hardly. Praying, reading the Bible, speaking to Christians, having them pray for me, singing hymns, yes. Sitting back, no.

It is not really fair to say that I was “waiting for Him to prove Himself”. That makes it sound as if my faith was in some way conditional upon God acting. Or even that in some way I was trying to persuade God to do something. I recognise that some people might see it that way, but I can assure you that it was not that way for me. What I was waiting for, hoping for, trusting for, praying for, was for God to respond in some way so that my relationship with God could begin. A relationship is a two way thing. It requires me to act and it requires God to act. And I mean for God to act now, not 2000 years ago. Because if I am to do God’s will, and to follow God’s plan for my life, I need God to show me in some way what God’s will for me is, and what God’s plan is for my life (or at least the next step in God’s plan for me). To me, a Christian is someone who has a personal relationship with God. Without that personal relationship, I would expect to be told at the day of judgement, “Depart from me, because I do not know you.” Being simply a “nominal” Christian is of no interest to me. I want the real thing!

You then wrote this:
As for the Shepherd coming for the lost sheep, He already did. And the sheep cursed Him, whipped Him, and hung Him on a tree to die.

Wow! I hope that you realise the implications of what you have written here. You are suggesting that the parable of the shepherd referred only to the people who were around at the time that Jesus was ministering and was crucified. That is, the parable is not relevant for me today.

How many other Bible stories and verses would you like to put into the same category, being of relevance only at the time that they were written? Why not the whole Bible? If I were to use your reasoning, I would be able to dismiss every single verse and say that it did not apply to me. And that would completely negate the verses that you do quote later in your posting.

All I can do I to shake my head in amazement.

To Johnnz.
Thank you for the supportive tone of what you have written.

You wrote this:
If you are not a 'feelings' kind of guy then you probably won't get any great awareness of God. But that is just the way you function. I was a bit like that and it took time and effort to change. But I decided that God had taken me at my word and stopped fretting about whether he had or hadn't. And, bit by bit my life did change.

I agree with you that it is the “feelings” people who seem to have an awareness of God and of God working on them and in them. And that is a problem to me, for two reasons. First, I am not a feelings kind of guy, as you say. Not because of anything that I can change, however much time and effort I might put into it, but because of a physiological condition. I mean, I am biologically unable to be a feelings kind of guy. Second, many Christians tell me and tell one another not to rely on feelings. Yet often it seems that feelings, or feelings-related events, are all that they get. I seriously wonder if Christianity, to a huge number of Christians, is really just feelings and nothing more. If so, heaven is going to be a lot emptier than people imagine.

For the majority of my time as a Christian in the 1970s, I also accepted that God had done what was promised, and that sooner or later I would start to experience something of God working in my life. But nothing happened. My life did not change. I remained the same person that I had been before I became (or thought I became) a Christian.

You also write this:
Don't worry about conviction of sin. People come to God for many reasons and awareness of sin is very often not the main reason for many people.

I agree with you. People do come to God for different reasons. In my case it was my desire to serve the greatest king. I recognise that to some people a conviction of sin and the desire for forgiveness for sin is the most important aspect of becoming a Christian. To some people it is the prospect of life after death that motivates their conversion. Other people say that it is something that developed slowly over a period of several years, with no obvious trigger factor, and there are many other differences in people’s experiences.

The only reason that I mentioned the lack of a conviction of sin through the Holy Spirit is that it is one example of a spiritual experience that people tell me about, but that I have never experienced. But it is only one such example; there are many others.

 

[Teke]

In February this year I posted a question in this forum, asking if anyone could help me to find hope and find God. I wrote of spending two years as a Christian in the 1970s, without ever receiving any kind of response from God. After two years of receiving nothing from God my hope and my faith died.

I seem to have no spiritual awareness at all and have never had anything that could be described as a spiritual experience. That means, for example, no conviction of sin through the work of the Holy Spirit, no heartfelt need for a saviour, no awareness of God working in my life, no awareness of God through creation.

Many people responded in this forum to my call for help. Many of you, I am sure, prayed for me. I thank you for those prayers.

Eventually a Christian that I have been in contact with for some years helped me to find a way to trust God once again. Half an hour before midnight on Monday April 23rd, I was on my knees in prayer. Praying and asking to be touched by the Spirit of God. Asking for forgiveness for going my own way instead of God’s way. Offering my life to God. In the name of Jesus. And trusting that God heard my prayer and would bless me.

I was trusting God, but at the same time I knew just how important it was that God should respond to me. Because of my experience in the 1970s I knew that, in my own strength, I would not be able to continue to trust God for very long. I posted a message on another Christian website, asking for prayer to support me. I know that at the end of April and into May, there were hundreds of people praying for me, locally and around the world. Praying that my faith would be strengthened, and that I would become aware of what God was doing with me.

I wish I could tell you that the prayers were answered. But I cannot do that. The prayers were not answered. For two weeks my faith continued, but it became a little weaker every day. I waited for God to respond to me in some way. Any way.

There was nothing. After two weeks my faith had disappeared. I woke up one morning and realised that my attempt to become a Christian had failed and that I would have to continue living my life without God.

I am disappointed, but there is no anger or bitterness. Those two weeks of faith have taught me a great deal. They have helped me to interpret my total lack of spiritual awareness and experience. In particular, I know that never again will I try to knock on God’s door. Maybe one day God will come and knock on my door, and I will open the door, and everything will change. Until then I can only watch and wait. In the parable it is the good shepherd who goes to find the lost sheep, not the lost sheep who tries to find the shepherd.

Dear Christian, the word is nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart to do it.(Deut. 30:14, Rom. 10:8)
My advice is to go experience God in worship. I'd recommend an Eastern Orthodox church because it sounds as tho not only do you need the worship experience, but some spiritual guidance from a spiritual father.

In other words, you need the full mind, body and heart experience of God with His people. ie. worship
Your mother the Church will teach you as she teaches all children of God.