Where has my faith gone?

[Thewhitedove]

I've gradually stopped reading scripture. I live abroad and the only English speaking church with sound doctrine dissolved after Covid. I feel spiritually empty. 

I have in the past searched for God from the bottom of my heart and not got much back. This has happened so many times. My husband is a non believer, none of my family is saved, most of my friends are non believers...its lonely, so, so lonely.

I'm a terrible evangelist and every time I do manage to share the Gospel, it goes right over the other person's head. 

I am the minority in a world of woke, left wing, tolerant people and everything seems like psychological warfare as I try to navigate my way. 

In the past I have experienced extreme spiritual burnout several times and am now at a point where I feel very little. The only positive thing is that I can still pray.

I am struggling with scripture, can't face listening to sermons or worship music. I am still able to talk to God but can't hear Him. I want Him in my life but am just so, so tired of the sense of emptiness I get in response to all of my trying.

I feel my faith and spirit slowly dying. None of it makes any sense anymore. Its just a hard, tough slog. Our pastor once said if you can't feel close to God it's because you haven't tried hard enough, it's 'on you'. What if you have searched and searched in the past and felt like you have got nowhere? I feel like my entire faith walk has all been a figment of my imagination.

My atheist husband never had any spiritual conflict, happily accepts all kinds of issues, and generally has an easier internal life than me. I'm supposed to be a light in the world and honestly feel that since I became a Christian, the only difference is that I feel like I am in constant bondage.

I have asked God to reveal Himself to me l, the true God who sets the captives free, and I get nothing. Just anxiety, fear, worry, abandonment, and sometimes a sense of rejection. Sometimes it feels like a sick joke, like a riddle that you spend so long working out and by the time you think you have an answer, the riddle has changed. Sometimes it feels like mental abuse. If someone in real life led me on in the way I feel God has done, I wouldn't have anything to do with them.

I feel like I'm constantly digging so deep while also putting on a front of the perfect Christian. I tell people how Christ has changed my life and how I've so much joy and peace now, but it's a lie!!!

I don't drink since I became a Christian and this has solved most of my problems, but not drinking isn't exclusive to Christians. I hardly read the Bible to my kids anymore and don't have the strength to argue with husband when he puts Harry Potter on for them. 

I'm so tired. 

[Debp]

1 hour ago, Thewhitedove said:

while also putting on a front of the perfect Christian. I tell people how Christ has changed my life and how I've so much joy and peace now, but it's a lie!!!

Christians sometimes experience a dark night of the soul.    We must always remember God's love for us and keep having faith, day by day.

I would suggest that you stop putting on a front of being a perfect Christian.    Also, the lying is not good.    Just accept yourself as you are, and remember that you are a child of God through Christ....what Christ did for you.

Try reading some of the Psalms, especially ones that minister to your spirit.

Although some introspection is good, don't let it become an unhealthy introspection.    Think on your blessings, even if you feel they are small, and care about others.   

 

[Mije]

@Thewhitedove oh dear, I wish I could help you. You need a hug and someone to tell you it’s okay. You ARE okay, it is life that isn’t. You can stop worrying about how you are ‘supposed’ to be, and just be. Be free to enjoy the life God has given you and don’t compare your spiritual life to your husbands or to other nonbelievers (or believers for that matter). You are you and you are His. Believe this and relax and the rest will come. I’m sorry you are struggling.

[OneLight]

Hello Sister!

The first few years of walking with Christ can be discouraging.  When we first believed, we wanted to shout our experience from the roof tops as we knew everyone needed Jesus.  We expected our growth in Him will be leaps and bounds and out faith will become solid.  We also expected to witness great things because we believed.  Then reality sets in.  We start to become discouraged because we don't see others rush to become saved, the world now looks a lot worse than it did before, we notice some people are ignoring us and not coming around much, and friends and relatives think we have become weird.  Let me assure you, that is pretty normal. 

You started your walk with Christ from a hard place - living a sinful life, married to an atheist, parents that are not really supportable, friends from all kinds of lifestyle ... you started it from the belly of the world, it sounds like.  I have no clue to where on this planet you live, but does that really matter?  There is sin everywhere and it is, and will, get worse.  We are told that just before Jesus returns, it will get really bad, and we are witnessing this.  Sin is so "in your face" these days it's hard not to have it affect our lives.  So how are we to deal with this?

Take a look at how Noah dealt with being the only one standing for God.  Or even how Lot must of felt living in Sodom.  Think about how David felt facing Goliath alone.  Think of the turmoil Moses when through, twice.  Once when he realized his true lifeline was with the Jewish people as he lived like royalty, then facing the Pharaoh forty years after leaving his position in Egypt.  Especially consider how Jesus felt when His people wanted to kill him!  You are now seeing that you are amongst friends, and what a great group of friends they are!

You will find that we each have our stories to tell.  We all go through seasons of drought and seasons of plenty.  This is what refines us and strengthens us, if we just have faith enough to dredge through the hard times when we feel discouraged or even question if it's worth it.  You have this faith as you said you can still reach out to God in prayer!  So, where is the conviction coming from?  God, as the Holy Spirit is working in you, creating in you a new creation in Him.  He is moving you to continue building your relationship with Him.  If this were not so, you would not feel like you are loosing a battle of sorts.

You may never know how your new life is affecting those around you.  They may never tell you.  By them confirming how you affect them  would require them to examine themselves.  Sinners do not want to face their sins.  Doing so would also require them to acknowledge that there is a God who outlines what sin is and realize the truth that they will be judged for their sins.  Their only concern is to be happy right now, and possibly save for the future.  The world preaches acceptance of sin.  They see nothing wrong with what ever choices someone else makes in their lives as long as others don't try to force them to live the same way.

What you need, you already have.  You have people to talk with ... us.  You have His words to read and study, not just read like a novel.  You also have your time of prayer where you feel the closest to God, even if you don't see an answer.  Best of all, you have a personal relationship with He who created all there is!  Sure, the enemy, in whatever form he uses, will try to steal what you have so you will become useless against him and stop spreading the truth people need to hear.  Like everything else in life, we become what we feed on.  If you feed on doubt all day long, you become doubtful.  If you feed on loneliness, loneliness will strengthen.  If you feed on Him, He will become more prevalent in your life.  Feeding on His words allows you to hide them in your heart and mind and your faith will grow,  What is faith if not the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

If this seems a bit long, sorry, but you needed to understand that even if you don't have a body of believers surrounding you where you live, and if there are no other Christians in your life to talk to in person, you do have the One who matters the most.  Listen to Him, and nobody who is discouraging to your relationship in Him.

 

[other one]

5 hours ago, Thewhitedove said:

I don't drink since I became a Christian and this has solved most of my problems, but not drinking isn't exclusive to Christians. I hardly read the Bible to my kids anymore and don't have the strength to argue with husband when he puts Harry Potter on for them. 

I'm so tired. 

come and go to churc with us.

https://www.facebook.com/shawneenazarene

And read up and use Harry Potter to teach your children that witches are real and they will ultimately all go to hell and they shouldn't want to have anything to do with them.  They look like they are just nice kids, but they are messing around in the Spirit world and they really don't know what they are doing.  Being a nice acting person on a sinking ship just eventually puts them all in the sea in the end.

 

When I got tired of reading the Bible I got it on mp3 files and just listen to it.

[Michael37]

9 hours ago, Thewhitedove said:

I've gradually stopped reading scripture. I live abroad and the only English speaking church with sound doctrine dissolved after Covid. I feel spiritually empty. 

I have in the past searched for God from the bottom of my heart and not got much back. This has happened so many times. My husband is a non believer, none of my family is saved, most of my friends are non believers...its lonely, so, so lonely.

I'm a terrible evangelist and every time I do manage to share the Gospel, it goes right over the other person's head. 

I am the minority in a world of woke, left wing, tolerant people and everything seems like psychological warfare as I try to navigate my way. 

In the past I have experienced extreme spiritual burnout several times and am now at a point where I feel very little. The only positive thing is that I can still pray.

I am struggling with scripture, can't face listening to sermons or worship music. I am still able to talk to God but can't hear Him. I want Him in my life but am just so, so tired of the sense of emptiness I get in response to all of my trying.

I feel my faith and spirit slowly dying. None of it makes any sense anymore. Its just a hard, tough slog. Our pastor once said if you can't feel close to God it's because you haven't tried hard enough, it's 'on you'. What if you have searched and searched in the past and felt like you have got nowhere? I feel like my entire faith walk has all been a figment of my imagination.

My atheist husband never had any spiritual conflict, happily accepts all kinds of issues, and generally has an easier internal life than me. I'm supposed to be a light in the world and honestly feel that since I became a Christian, the only difference is that I feel like I am in constant bondage.

I have asked God to reveal Himself to me l, the true God who sets the captives free, and I get nothing. Just anxiety, fear, worry, abandonment, and sometimes a sense of rejection. Sometimes it feels like a sick joke, like a riddle that you spend so long working out and by the time you think you have an answer, the riddle has changed. Sometimes it feels like mental abuse. If someone in real life led me on in the way I feel God has done, I wouldn't have anything to do with them.

I feel like I'm constantly digging so deep while also putting on a front of the perfect Christian. I tell people how Christ has changed my life and how I've so much joy and peace now, but it's a lie!!!

I don't drink since I became a Christian and this has solved most of my problems, but not drinking isn't exclusive to Christians. I hardly read the Bible to my kids anymore and don't have the strength to argue with husband when he puts Harry Potter on for them. 

I'm so tired. 

Hi @Thewhitedove

The Problem. The Problem. The Problem.

Let's put "the problem" in its place.

The Problem is not the Priority unless you make it the Priority.

Don't make the problem the priority. Don't give the scenario you describe first place in your life. That place should be reserved for the Kingdom of God.

Put God's Kingdom first.

Make God's Kingdom your Priority.

It's amazing how quickly deprivations give way to celebrations and elevations when God's Kingdom is given Priority. 

Read about Habakkuk's high places of holiness, happiness, and hope at the end of his OT book.

Go on, I dare you.

[BK1110]

22 hours ago, Thewhitedove said:

I'm so tired. 

I think the first question to ask during any crisis of faith is do you still believe it is true? The Bible, God, Christianity, etc. I mean this in the plainest, most emotionally-distant kind of way; are you at the place of doubting it on a pure intellectual basis? Because the answers and approach to that would be very different. The rest of the post will assume that it is not just a factual/intellectual doubt/battle you are going through but you can correct that assumption after some thinking if you feel it appropriate...

I felt and saw a lot of similarities in your post, and because of that I will just tell you a little of my own story and you can decide if it is of any help. I have no church home or Christian friends (or really any friends other than a few people I occasionally still converse with online), my remaining family is not saved now that Dad has passed (though in my case at least are nominal and therefore not antagonistic about it). And I am a very poor evangelist. There is scarcely a dad without some level of exhaustion, shame, and sadness about it all.

But there is hope and there is joy, and it has almost all come from Bible study. The more you understand the truth, the better able you are to survive each day and glorify God. The truth that all our sufferings, big and small, visible and invisible, are leading to spectacular rewards (2 Corinthians 4:17), oh yes, that above all, but also that those sufferings are working for us in this life (2 Corinthians 12:8-9) is amazing.

I think some may disagree, but I do not try to follow any "read the Bible in a year" plans. I rarely even read the Bible just on my own. I spent many years as a nominal (false) Christian reading a chapter or two a day. Just...reading the words. I knew what they said. I checked the box, ding, did that chore for the day. Dead inside.

Since actually becoming a Christian, good devotionals have been indescribably more effective and fruitful than just reading on my own as a rote habit. For me it is John Piper's works primarily, but there are certainly many others. I think of Philip and the Ethiopian. The Ethiopian had the scriptures, but he needed God to send him Philip to teach and guide him in their reading. Perhaps I am the Ethiopian. I am now six-and-a-half years in after being saved, but it's interesting to look back on the kind of stages there have been, from the initial period of confusion and fear, to a period of dealing with obvious sins and just beginning to lay the foundations of any sort of study or devotional activity, then a period of more subtle changes in attitudes and desires (desiring to change rather than merely changing out of obligation), and then things really got going as God used dad's ultimately-fatal cancer to change, grow, and build me than I can describe or think of here.

And that's ongoing. And that is what I would say more than anything else; it is a slow, on-going process, to the point of being like aging where you just don't see or realize it day to day, and it's only looking back years later when you can actually see the change that was mostly imperceptible all along. I find myself having to constantly remind myself to quit being impatient with God and myself; He is at work in His way and His timing in my heart and life. The right amount of pressure to change and grow is a good thing that spurs the growth, but ultimately the power for it comes from God. (1 Corinthians 15:10)

I saw a lot in your post about your failings, and I wonder if you are like me in forgetting that I am not the one who saves. What I mean by that is there is always this creeping feeling of "why didn't you  say more, or differently, or better? Why didn't you fight this battle or that battle? Why didn't you have a better answer to this, or react differently? Shouldn't you have shared the gospel, or better? Shouldn't you have told them more? Shouldn't you have stopped them from doing or saying that, or corrected them on this point? DON'T YOU KNOW THEIR SOULS ARE ON THE LINE? AREN'T YOU A REAL CHRISTIAN? DON'T YOU CARE? IF YOU DON'T, YOU MUST NOT BE A REAL CHRISTIAN! YOU'RE A SHAM!" and so on. That voice of perfectionism that is constantly telling me I have to thrust the Bible into every single sentence of every single conversation of every single person I meet, or else their blood is forever on my soul. Why didn't I say "God bless you!" instead of just the "thank you!" to that person? When the waitress brings the water, why didn't I tell her about the Living Water? You can drive yourself mad thinking that way, and the more you fail to say what you think is the perfect thing, and the more you see people not respond when you do say something good, the more you just get broken down.

I must constantly remind myself that it is God who grants people repentance (2 Timothy 2:25, Acts 5:31, Acts 11:18). God saves. God opens eyes. It is God, it is His power. And His power is infinite, and it is perfected in my weakness! Whoa! So even when I say the right thing and it seems like people don't respond, God can save them. When I don't say the right thing, God can still use that as a piece of the puzzle. When all I can manage is a kind word or a good attitude or letting someone know I am praying for them, or just posting a Bible verse or a quote from a wise theologian on Facebook that they end up stumbling across, God can use that to chip away a small bit of their heart of stone so that, somewhere down the line, maybe even through contact with a different Christian, God can finally bring them to the truth. What a freeing and glorious truth it is.

This has gotten too long and we are all different so none of it may have even been what you needed to hear, so I will simply end this imperfect post by a poorly-evangelizing, still pretty new Christian by saying I am praying for you that God would renew the simple, pure hope and joy of your faith. I pray that you would be less-encumbered by the loneliness of your current situation and that God will continue to grow you to be more like His beloved son, who died to raise you again to be his beloved child as well for all eternity, and that the remembrance of that joyous truth would empower you to live confidently undergirded by God's power each day. And with the hopes that this ramble of a post has made you feel, if for only a moment, a teensy-bit less lonely!

[enoob57]

The problem is your not eating the Word of God... Just as your body needs to eat so also your s/Spirit! 

[David1701]

On 1/21/2023 at 10:44 AM, Thewhitedove said:

I've gradually stopped reading scripture. I live abroad and the only English speaking church with sound doctrine dissolved after Covid. I feel spiritually empty. 

I have in the past searched for God from the bottom of my heart and not got much back. This has happened so many times. My husband is a non believer, none of my family is saved, most of my friends are non believers...its lonely, so, so lonely.

I'm a terrible evangelist and every time I do manage to share the Gospel, it goes right over the other person's head. 

I am the minority in a world of woke, left wing, tolerant people and everything seems like psychological warfare as I try to navigate my way. 

In the past I have experienced extreme spiritual burnout several times and am now at a point where I feel very little. The only positive thing is that I can still pray.

I am struggling with scripture, can't face listening to sermons or worship music. I am still able to talk to God but can't hear Him. I want Him in my life but am just so, so tired of the sense of emptiness I get in response to all of my trying.

I feel my faith and spirit slowly dying. None of it makes any sense anymore. Its just a hard, tough slog. Our pastor once said if you can't feel close to God it's because you haven't tried hard enough, it's 'on you'. What if you have searched and searched in the past and felt like you have got nowhere? I feel like my entire faith walk has all been a figment of my imagination.

My atheist husband never had any spiritual conflict, happily accepts all kinds of issues, and generally has an easier internal life than me. I'm supposed to be a light in the world and honestly feel that since I became a Christian, the only difference is that I feel like I am in constant bondage.

I have asked God to reveal Himself to me l, the true God who sets the captives free, and I get nothing. Just anxiety, fear, worry, abandonment, and sometimes a sense of rejection. Sometimes it feels like a sick joke, like a riddle that you spend so long working out and by the time you think you have an answer, the riddle has changed. Sometimes it feels like mental abuse. If someone in real life led me on in the way I feel God has done, I wouldn't have anything to do with them.

I feel like I'm constantly digging so deep while also putting on a front of the perfect Christian. I tell people how Christ has changed my life and how I've so much joy and peace now, but it's a lie!!!

I don't drink since I became a Christian and this has solved most of my problems, but not drinking isn't exclusive to Christians. I hardly read the Bible to my kids anymore and don't have the strength to argue with husband when he puts Harry Potter on for them. 

I'm so tired. 

When there is trouble in front of you, behind you, on your left and right, and beneath you - look up!  Look away to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith.  Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not rely upon your own resources, but rely upon Him.  Roll your burdens off onto Him, for he has the almighty strength to carry them, and the good will to do it.

2 Cor. 4:16-18 (KJV)

 16 For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
  17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;
  18 While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. 

Edited January 22, 2023 by David1701
typo

[ladypeartree]

Do you remember when you first found out you were going to be a mum ? How excited you were how you were going to be the best mum ever and your child would be amazing and have a fresh home cooked meal every day and never eat too many sweets and etc etc etc ? Then the baby is born and you do your very best BUT it is hard work and sometimes you dont get it right ... then another child arrives and it gets harder to do all the things you promised yourself you would do You no longer feel like the best mum on the world and sometimes you even feel like the worst .? Do you stop loving those children ? Or do you carry on doing the best you can and learn to live with the knowledge that you are NOT perfect and can never be so ?

God is NOT expecting you to be His perfect person ... in fact that is why His Son came  to die on that cross because God KNEW we would all fail to live up to our and his perfect plans .  You DO NOT haVE TO BE A BRILLIANT EVANGALIST  You DO NOT have to worry about everyone in the world that has some new dotty idea ,,you just have to love the person and hate the sin  JUST BE STILL AND KNOW THAT GOD IS WITH YOU  . 

I am physically unable to get to what was my home church but I CAN fellowship on line and I CAN ask God to refresh me and show me what HE wants me to do I can join the bible club here at Worthy and work through day by day .

I can REST in the Lord and KNOW I am loved even with all my imperfections . Better to teach your children that sometimes we stumble and fall but as long as we dont stay down but get up and  try again then we are doing our best   and that applies to our faith as well as anything else . We can all pray with and for you dear sister so dont lose heart YOU ARE LOVED