What do you do when you stop feeling God?
One man sees Christ die and believes, but another only hears about Christ dying and believes. Who has more faith?
In the same way, what if one man feels God's presence & love and lives by Christ, and another man does not feel God's presence or His love, but still lives by Christ because he knows what is really true. Who is displaying more faith.
You'd all say the latter in both instances. But then, aren't we supposed to want more faith? Yet we still want to feel God's presence and love, right?
Ok, let's rewind...
All my Christian life I have felt God's presence, His love and His power. But for the past month I have felt nothing. What do you do if you wake up one day and it feels like God has gone. You know it's not true, and are firm in that, but you still feel nothing.
Well, that was me, about a month ago.
I didn't change anything. My praying, reading the Bible, Christian duties, attitude & behaviour. I trusted that God was still there, and I believed (and still believe) that this is a wilderness experience type thing for me.
I don't pray that this comes to an end straight away, but that God helps me endure it for however long He wants, and for me to learn from this and come out stronger on the other side.
Now I've been struggling through, until roughly somewhere in the last week, where things suddenly took a turn for the worse. I started losing feeling in other areas too. Mainly within the realm of human interaction. Like I am losing the ability to feel happy or sad, pleased or angry. I don't feel anything. Nothing
This is about the time I started panicking and wondering what to do.
Guys, I'd really appreciate your words on this one, because I'm afraid my own may not be sufficient.
All I know is I must remain thankful in whatever circumstances that may arise.
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4 comments:
Alicia,
I understand what you're saying when you say love is a verb. I know that and live by that. However, should it be that you don't want to feel? I've been in situations where I've desperately not wanted to feel, because of the pain, etc. I also know that what you feel is not necessarily real.
However, when it comes to feeling God's love, it's a different matter.
Do we want people to feel God's love? Of course! I pray constantly for peopel who don't know God's love, to feel it. Therefore, why should we wish anything different for ourselves?
I understand that in marriage (for example) there will be moments where you don't feel the love, but only know it and act it. This is true. But how incredibly sad would it be to live a married life without feling love.
I don't want that.
Welcome to the spiritual desert place known to many as "november at bible college."
First thing to note is this - it doesnt mean ur dead yet! if you were spiritually dead you wouldnt even notice that you were not feeling it anymore. So you are still alive in God and God is still in you! This is a good starting point!
Secondly its obvious that you want to feel God's love and to feel your love for God again - why? Cos you got as far as writing this blog. you are (to quote rev 2:4 slightly out of context) remembering the hights you once had. This is also good - trust me I've been there this past year. I think these first two are kinda like loving God with you soul - thespiritual part of you still loves and knows God even though the rest of you might not be in tow!
So what? Read Psalm 63. Then read it again. Learn it off by heart and shout it at God. Get a hold of the feeling of the psalm and decide tat u are going to cling on to God no matter what. Then wait. It might be quite a while. Check out Psalm 64 whilst you're waiting. Things obviously didnt get better for David right away. Keep praying and reading and persevering (I know we dont really pray together at all but if you wanna jus spend time praying and seeking God together im up for it!). I guess this is loving God with your mind cos you jus gotta decide to do it.
For me, half the joy with God is in seeking Him. Cos when you get there after all the struggle and he meets you in power it all seems so worthwhile! Then you should read psalm 65 and sing/shout it at God - especially the second half! This is when tou get to love God with your heart - enjoy it and love Him with ALL your heart - take the opportunity to thank him for the things he taught you through the pain-in-the-ass bits! Also remember the feeling cos, as you know, it isnt always there and one day the memory might jus inspire you when you're struggling with the rest of it!
I hope that doesnt sound too trite but thats the way God has brought me in and out of desert places.
Laters bro!
jus realised i forgot to include footnotes and a bibliography... damn
Wow, Roommie.
Aren't you quite the box of surprises.
What you wrote isn't trite, but really helpful and I'm gonna give it a try.
Hmmm, That's all I have to say.
Oh, for all the rest of you, who won't get the footnotes comment, we got an essay back yesterday on which Mike did really well, but somehow forgot to edit his footnotes, in which he left reminders to himself on what he still had to do on the essay. Consequently losing out on a much higher percentage.
It's quite funny, i guess...
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