Anabelle

Hi! I'm about to start my sophomore year of college. I was raised as a Christian and have had pretty good faith my whole life. However, as you can imagine, being away at college has offered many temptations and satan definitely succeeded in pulling me away from the Lord. After being home for a few months for the summer, I've reconnected with old church friends, gone to church a lot, and built a somewhat new relationship with Christ. My problem is that I've never, throughout my lifelong journey as a Christian, felt God. I've never heard him speak to me, I've never felt him during church or any other time, haven't recently been surprised or amazed by his ability to answer my prayers as I was beginning to feel a few years ago, I even went on a mission trip to Central America and the whole time I was there serving the children of God, I didn't feel him in me. It's already so, so hard for me to keep up my faith while I'm waging through these temptation-filled waters and it makes it so much harder when I'm getting no reassurance from God about what I'm doing right or what I can do better. I just want to hear him or feel him one time to let me know, okay, you're on the right track. I have no doubt in my faith, I know he IS there, I just want to feel him and feel his love, which I'm having a lot of trouble with. Am I looking too hard for this reassurance? Am I not trusting Him enough? I don't know what it is. I go to church, I worship with as much heart as I can, I pray multiple times a day, I read my Bible, I participate in fellowship with other Christians. What am I missing?? Is anyone else going through this or has gone through it and can offer some advice?

I'm going through the exact same thing. It's hard to trust God when you can't feel him...when you're not noticing answers to your prayers and can't feel him in worship. I totally empathize with you. Praying for you, me, and everyone else going through this!

We got tangled up in this mess when Adam and Eve sinned because that's when God knew that mankind was going to sin. You (we) inherited sin from those first two humans and their sinful actions. It's not that YOU an an individual are being punished because of Adam and Eve's actions, it's that YOU sin now that you are created, just as I do and every other human.

It doesn't matter too much to me since they all say basically the same thing, but the one that I happen to have and use often is NKJ.

Something that I learned when I was little that has stayed with me through all these years is "TIP." It stands for Thanks, I'm sorry, Please. So I start out my prayers with praise and thanking God for His every blessing, then I repent and ask Him to lead me away from temptation, then I give my personal requests, which I don't see as using Him as a wish machine. He calls us in the Bible to bring our requests to Him even though He already knows what we need. This is also when I pray for other people. Hope this helps you!