Why doesn't God return my calls?

I've prayed to God many times and told him that I'm open to talking, but every time I get no response. So I'm forced to conclude that either God is incapable of/doesn't want to talk to me or (more likely) he doesn't exist.

If God is allegedly so interested in forming a relationship with me why is he so elusive?

Sunrunner said:

I've prayed to God many times and told him that I'm open to talking, but every time I get no response. So I'm forced to conclude that either God is incapable of/doesn't want to talk to me or (more likely) he doesn't exist.

If God is allegedly so interested in forming a relationship with me why is he so elusive?

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Perhaps he did respond, but you failed to recognise it.

Or perhaps you had already decided that he didn't exist and weren't really talking to him at all, but just going through the motions.

ebia said:

Or perhaps you had already decided that he didn't exist and weren't really talking to him at all, but just going through the motions.

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I am only an atheist for practical reasons - in other words because it is basically life's default. I don't believe God doesn't exist, but right now there's nothing upon which I can base his existence.

So when I pray I am open to all possibilities. If God is really omnipresent, then he must have heard me. He must know that I'm open and willing to listen if he's out there. The question is why hasn't he responded?

Perhaps he did respond, but you failed to recognise it.

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Can't he respond in some way that I can understand? I don't even know what to look for or anything.

Sunrunner said:

I am only an atheist for practical reasons - in other words because it is basically life's default. I don't believe God doesn't exist, but right now there's nothing upon which I can base his existence.

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Fair enough. Different people mean different things by "atheiest", and we get a lot here who mean "I am certain that God does not exist" by the term.

So when I pray I am open to all possibilities. If God is really omnipresent, then he must have heard me. He must know that I'm open and willing to listen if he's out there. The question is why hasn't he responded?

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Sometimes he seems to require perserverence. Or maybe he is answering through (perhaps) something someone will say here for instance.

Can't he respond in some way that I can understand? I don't even know what to look for or anything.

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How are you listening?

ebia said:

How are you listening?

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I don't know. I guess I'm just waiting for something spectacular to happen - like a vocal response or dream. I really don't know what to look for. I was hoping it would find me.

Sunrunner said:

I don't know. I guess I'm just waiting for something spectacular to happen - like a vocal response or dream. I really don't know what to look for. I was hoping it would find me.

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Listen instead for the still small voice!

Seriously, when I was seeking Him I didn't hear anything either, except that ever so slightly things began to change in my life. The more I sought him, the more things changed. I proved I was interested by reading the Bible and beginning to go to church. And in the end I looked back over the previous 6 months and saw how DIFFERENT I WAS!

I have always asked God for help and answers, but never expected them. I have argued across countless fronts, against people as diverse as the stars are numerous, and I have never denied the truths of others, and in the end I always found my answers. Perhaps God truly did answer my prayers, I won't be finding out any time soon I imagine. In any case, God should not be used as a crutch, God or no God, things like death should not hold power over you. YOU, need to act, and by doing so, God will act through you if you let him.

ArchaicTruth said:

In any case, God should not be used as a crutch, God or no God, things like death should not hold power over you. YOU, need to act, and by doing so, God will act through you if you let him.

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Hmm? I'm not looking for God because I need him as a crutch.

Something I just remembered....

Today, my nose was acting up due to something floating in the air inside my house, so I decided to take a walk since the outside air usually cleans up my nose problems. I walk a good mile, and I realize that I'm about to walk by my ex-girlfriends house. I keep a healthy after-date relationship with her, as she's a great friend, and I promised that if I was in the neighborhood I would stop by to say hi. Now, I wasn't too keen on this, as I didn't want to run into her mom (I don't think her mom has anything against me, but I really don't want to get caught in an ugly situation), and I decided I'd just keep going. However, when I was right in front of her house, something made me turn to my left, and up to my girlfriends house. Fidgeting, I knock on her door and to my relief, no one is home. As I do this, a red car pulls up to my right, and a young man walks out. His name was Nick, and he is training to be a missionary. Nick goes around and tells others about his Church, and if they aren't interested in joining, they either slam the door in his face, cuss at him, or if he's lucky, engage in kind debate over scripture. He got lucky with me, and we debated well over an hour on the front steps of my ex girlfriends house. When we were done, we shook hands and went our own ways. I could not help but marvel at the circumstances that had just occurred.

Look, and you will see

Something I just remembered....

Today, my nose was acting up due to something floating in the air inside my house, so I decided to take a walk since the outside air usually cleans up my nose problems. I walk a good mile, and I realize that I'm about to walk by my ex-girlfriends house. I keep a healthy after-date relationship with her, as she's a great friend, and I promised that if I was in the neighborhood I would stop by to say hi. Now, I wasn't too keen on this, as I didn't want to run into her mom (I don't think her mom has anything against me, but I really don't want to get caught in an ugly situation), and I decided I'd just keep going. However, when I was right in front of her house, something made me turn to my left, and up to my girlfriends house. Fidgeting, I knock on her door and to my relief, no one is home. As I do this, a red car pulls up to my right, and a young man walks out. His name was Nick, and he is training to be a missionary. Nick goes around and tells others about his Church, and if they aren't interested in joining, they either slam the door in his face, cuss at him, or if he's lucky, engage in kind debate over scripture. He got lucky with me, and we debated well over an hour on the front steps of my ex girlfriends house. When we were done, we shook hands and went our own ways. I could not help but marvel at the circumstances that had just occurred.

Look, and you will see

Something I just remembered....

Today, my nose was acting up due to something floating in the air inside my house, so I decided to take a walk since the outside air usually cleans up my nose problems. I walk a good mile, and I realize that I'm about to walk by my ex-girlfriends house. I keep a healthy after-date relationship with her, as she's a great friend, and I promised that if I was in the neighborhood I would stop by to say hi. Now, I wasn't too keen on this, as I didn't want to run into her mom (I don't think her mom has anything against me, but I really don't want to get caught in an ugly situation), and I decided I'd just keep going. However, when I was right in front of her house, something made me turn to my left, and up to my girlfriends house. Fidgeting, I knock on her door and to my relief, no one is home. As I do this, a red car pulls up to my right, and a young man walks out. His name was Nick, and he is training to be a missionary. Nick goes around and tells others about his Church, and if they aren't interested in joining, they either slam the door in his face, cuss at him, or if he's lucky, engage in kind debate over scripture. He got lucky with me, and we debated well over an hour on the front steps of my ex girlfriends house. When we were done, we shook hands and went our own ways, both of us (or maybe just me, I can't be totally sure he didn't just ignore me XD) a bit wiser. I could not help but marvel at the circumstances that had just occurred. The events of this story, by the way, are true to the letter, except for maybe the part of where we debated for over an hour, I lose track of time easily and have no idea how long we were actually talking

Look, and you will see

Sunrunner have you tried reading the bible or going to church? That is where I started getting responses to my questions.

Pretty much every question I had I stumbled across while trying to figure out the bible, or the pastor would cover that subject that day. Sometimes the pastor wouldn't even be covering the subject I had a question about, but would fly off on a tangent that completely answered my question.

Even Christians that have been at it for awhile have a hard time seeing the messages that the Lord is giving them.

I've prayed to God many times and told him that I'm open to talking, but every time I get no response. So I'm forced to conclude that either God is incapable of/doesn't want to talk to me or (more likely) he doesn't exist.

If God is allegedly so interested in forming a relationship with me why is he so elusive?

Click to expand...

Here's what the Bible says about "getting no response" from God:

- Isa 59:2 "But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear."

- Psa 66:18 "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me..."

When people who have never repented of their sin approach a holy God they will always find that their sin serves as a barrier between them and God. Our sin, in a sense, makes God deaf to us. Before anything else can transpire relationally between the creature and his Creator, the stain of sin must be removed from the creature.

Peace to you.

As you're an atheist, I'm not sure how much you've looked into religions, like whether you've tried reading the Bible or not.

The best advice I can give you is to read the first four books of the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These are the four books that describe from beginning to end the ministry of Jesus, and contain mostly direct teachings from him. It shouldn't take more than a couple hours to finish the four books; it's only a fraction of the New Testament. If you do this, pick the New International Version of the Bible, because that's written in modern language so reading it is a breeze, you can find it online anywhere. Jesus just makes a lot of sense, regardless of your religion or lack thereof, so it might convince you at least a tiny bit.

Sunrunner said:

I've prayed to God many times and told him that I'm open to talking, but every time I get no response. So I'm forced to conclude that either God is incapable of/doesn't want to talk to me or (more likely) he doesn't exist.

If God is allegedly so interested in forming a relationship with me why is he so elusive?

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Well the problem here is simple.. You dialed the wrong number, got put on hold, and did not really want to talk to the person anyway, so you hung up.

Hope that analogy helps you out a bit.

God Bless

Key.

sin blocks the relationship.

are you taking steps to get away from sins? bad habits, that sort of thing. Jesus' Holy Spirit helps us to get away, but we also have to do our part. lying, stealing, dishonoring parents, and you can learn about sin and salvation from the Bible (New Testament is good start to learn more).

"If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear." Psalm 66:18

Also, God does not have to hear us...He chooses to hear us and does so only upon a basis of undeserved grace from His perspective. In other words, we do not own any right of audience before this King, but are allowed upon His terms to commune with Him, present our requests and receive answers both providentially in our environment and comprehensibly in our understanding or soul. For hell deserving sinners, this is a great and undeserved privilege for us and also the last place in the world where we would want to complain that He hasn't satisfactorily answered us, (due to faults of our own!) when He didn't have to answer us at all in the first place but could have chosen to follow a path of strict justice with us rather than one of grace. God can and will answer our prayers, but since this invisible communion with the Creator is one of sheer grace or unmerited favor on His part, He then is perfectly proper to set whatever terms He should so choose since petitionary privilege is granted to us out of His kindness alone and by no inherent right on our part. If you have not clearly received any answers to you prayers yet, start by thanking Him for the privilege to pray to Him alone even though no answer was sensibly received. Hell is filled with the eternally lost who no longer have the slightest desire to pray to their Creator any longer since they are not extended this privilege in that ghastly place, but you still can. Just to be able to pray to Him at all, even though unanswered for the present, is an unspeakable privilege that countless others who have long since been hardened in their sins no longer possess because they are spiritually dead to any such work. Praise His for granting you the favor to bellow up into the heavenlies at the top of your lungs your most important and necessary needs, but then turn your strictest attention to your personal habits and one by one by one examine them closely and see if this or that or anything at all would be something which would offend Him in His infinite holiness and so block a response. It just might be that God is not so much not answering you as you are not praying properly and so the defect is yours alone and never His. The oldest, godliest saint on Earth struggles with this every day and will do so until we all lay aside our corrupted physical form for one celestial and unmarred by any sin.

ebia said:

Perhaps he did respond, but you failed to recognise it.

Or perhaps you had already decided that he didn't exist and weren't really talking to him at all, but just going through the motions.

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Hi, I'm new to the forum, but already I am surprised at the accusatory things you are saying. Why would a person who decided God didn't exist already decide to pray to God? That would be like a person who doesn't believe in Allah praying to Allah. Makes no sense.

The other problem with your response it seems is that if you really think God is all powerful and all knowing, then God would KNOW how to answer a person's prayer in which would convince them. Certainly, an all knowing being would be much more intelligent than a human and could do anything it wanted to.

Just something I wanted to comment about. When you say "It's YOUR fault, not God's", that is the worst thing you could say to someone who is being sincere.

aiki said:

Here's what the Bible says about "getting no response" from God:

- Isa 59:2 "But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear."

- Psa 66:18 "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me..."

When people who have never repented of their sin approach a holy God they will always find that their sin serves as a barrier between them and God. Our sin, in a sense, makes God deaf to us. Before anything else can transpire relationally between the creature and his Creator, the stain of sin must be removed from the creature.

Peace to you.

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That is interesting, you use those 2 verses as a reason this person didn't hear from God. Once again, blaming the person for the failure of God's appearance. It's interesting that the bible has tons of examples of people who were in iniquity who God could still hear. Even Judas who supposedly betrayed Jesus talked to Jesus and Jesus talked back. Same with Peter who denied Jesus. Same with the woman caught in adultery. Same with Adam and Eve who caused the "sin" mess in the first place. Same with their son Cain who murdered his own brother. God heard and talked directly with those people in "iniquity", so don't use special pleading as your MO.

So, an all powerful God has a version of kryptonite named "sin"? I thought Jesus took care of the problem on the cross supposedly? I guess he didn't do as good a job as christians have confessed? I mean, what you are basically saying is that people BEFORE and DURING Jesus' time and death could talk to God and he would talk back regardless of how BAD they were, but for some reason after Jesus "paid the price", it somehow made it worse for people.

Is that how you define "good news", but making it even harder to talk to God?

Just my thought.

8ballwizard said:

Hi, I'm new to the forum, but already I am surprised at the accusatory things you are saying.

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They weren't meant to be accusatory, but suggesting a couple of possiblities that suggest themselves. There are, of course, other possibilities.

Why would a person who decided God didn't exist already decide to pray to God? That would be like a person who doesn't believe in Allah praying to Allah. Makes no sense.

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I agree, but some people do this (or rather, come here and say they have) as some kind of test.

The other problem with your response it seems is that if you really think God is all powerful and all knowing, then God would KNOW how to answer a person's prayer in which would convince them. Certainly, an all knowing being would be much more intelligent than a human and could do anything it wanted to.

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"God is all powerful, but doesn't do what I want him to, therefore he doesn't exist". Sigh. This demonstrates some assumptions about God that are not really compatible with the historic Christian picture of God but rather with the 19/20 th centuries diest corruption of that picture.

Just something I wanted to comment about. When you say "It's YOUR fault, not God's", that is the worst thing you could say to someone who is being sincere.

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I didn't say that. If the OP is sincere I'll take him at his word, but experience suggests a common reason amongst people who choose to ask this question on internet forums is that they are not sincere, so that possibility has to be offered.