Do you ever feel like this? After the initial thrill, the rush, the excitement of choosing to believe in it all, there follow periods of silence, of barren times, of….well, nothing. You serve and you pray, you listen for signs, search for answers. You hope and you hope, you want that one miracle you cherish more than anything. Yet, you are met with a brick wall. Is God listening, does he care, is he even there?
Not only are you rooted to the spot, going nowhere, but you actually feel you are being pushed backwards, while at the same time sinking ever further into this quagmire we call life. It doesn’t matter what your belief system is, we are all human and all assailed by the same doubts and questions. Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist. What if we are wrong and the others right? What if we are ALL wrong?
Where’s the evidence, where’s the proof that there is something beyond what we know, another world on the other side of this veil we call reality. We cling to that hope during the hard times, during trials, when we are tempted and broken. We need to believe there is some order to the chaos, for otherwise we are adrift and lost. If we lose our hope, our faith, then surely we have lost everything?
Sometimes we are so fixated with seeking what we cannot see, that we are blind to what is sitting beneath our noses. Our family, our friends, people who need us in the here and now. We can’t see the wood for the ethereal trees beckoning us towards the horizon. We trample over the present in our frantic rush to find the future. We are wishing our lives away, yet we exist in a world we can see, touch and hear. We are a sensory species.
We need to shake off the spiritual scales at times, smell the coffee and take in our present surroundings. There is much we can do practically without signs and wonders to guide and inspire us. When you pray for the desires of your heart and they aren’t delivered then maybe it’s time to take matters into our own hands. Maybe it’s time to trust in your own ability, your own judgement.
It’s disheartening to see bad people flourish while those who deserve a break are seemingly ignored. When prayers aren’t answered, we despair. Believers tell us God knows best or the timing isn’t right, but such glib cliched responses do little to ease the pain of those who are in the firing line. Walk a mile in our shoes, then maybe you will begin to understand and appreciate the pain of an unanswered prayer.
So what is the answer? Do we stop praying, do we turn our backs on a higher power who appears to have turned his back on us, on our family, on our our planet. I don’t know, it’s just another of those huge questions I struggle to process on a daily basis. I see my wife, I see my kids, I see ways I can help them, support them, love them. There is so much work to be done, tiring but rewarding work.
As parents, Fionnuala and I will do anything for our kids. They are all finding their way through the teenage years, developing interests and talents we want to nurture and encourage. They are creating happy, proud memories we will have forever. When the higher power we seek doesn’t seem to be there or care, we focus on them, take the bull by the horns and do all we can. For them.
Black Thoughts 
Great advice to follow during troubled times
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I feel like I am the one who does the unfriending sometimes – I am the doubting Thomas, the denying Peter, but then also the prodigal son returning home to the truth.🙏
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I’ve found that God’s timing is different from mine. I understand this can seem like another cliche, another glib answer when you really want direction. It is hard to balance the here and now with what’s to come. A true test of faith when you can’t see, but still believe.
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Yea I am experiencing something similar right now. I have prayed, sowed and done a lot of things for God to hear me and heal my wife from pains. But nothing!
All I know is that, He is God all by Himself and at the right Time, He will answer me. His time is the best. I unfriended Him 🙏🙏🙏
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Oh Steven, have you been secretly listening in on many of my Christian counseling sessions? The very real pain and discouragement you mention affects many. The very last thing I want to do then, or now, is roll out the ‘Christian speak’ cliches that are meant to comfort by usually don’t.
Actually, you have touched on the place where I most frequently begin with the folks I minister to. Point one is the recognize the pain they are going through, never trivializing their feelings. Hopefully, when some level of trust is established, I present the idea that believing in God is not merely a magic button to push when one is in trouble.
Rather, I attempt to help these good folks understand that their relationship with God, like any other good relationship they are in, requires effort to keep it viable. And like other relationships, we will experience ups and downs now and again, on our end.
If the relationship with God takes root, it becomes possible, over time, to get a different perspective on our issues. The end result, hopefully, is that anyone one of us (me too if I’m to be honest), can realize that God hasn’t left us in a lurch, but rather we have taken our eyes and heart off Him.
Blessings,
Chuck
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I used to feel like this all the time and may feel like God has deserted me again in the future or perhaps I will desert God. However there are a few things that bring me hope even when my life is dark: St John of the Cross entered a spiritual dessert that lasted a long time, he called it his dark night of the Soul and Eclisestese mentions some very big fundamentals about why bad people seem to have it easy – look at they’re faces do they really look happy?
Bit most importantly THANK YOU for this blog
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You’re welcome. Thank you.
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I ask myself the same question everyday before I go to bed. It gets more confusing when you keep thinking about it. That is something I know for sure. You write wonderful pieces. I am looking forward to reading more. 😀
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Thank you very much. I appreciate the encouragement.
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I have witnessed events that leave no doubt about the spiritual realm. I am here to tell you God is here! He is listening and He cares. All the rest? The whys and the wherefores, I can’t say.
I have despaired much in the last two years. The above knowledge has not comforted me. As Chuck aptly said and I don’t like to look at it, perhaps I have taken my heart and eyes off Christ.
You are not alone on your ‘fractured faith’ journey, my friend. I truly feel your pain.
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Thank you.
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I know this feeling 100%. I’m a new Christian saved a little over a year, and I am going through this right now. I’m facing losing our home and all our vehicles are down and we have zero family to help us. We get told by friends in church things like you mentioned and they try to help but their words fall short. For they have never been where we are. They have never had ,and never have struggles like us. I think in some way they think it’s because we don’t do things the way God wants. But we do everything we know to do. I feel like if we don’t try to fight satan than we have no one left to fight and life will be easier. So no your not alone I feel this exact way all the time lately. I love how you can put it into such good words. I showed this to my husband so he could understand how I feel.
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Thank you Amanda. I’m always here to talk to you.
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I unfriended God around the same time Santa stopped coming down my chimney.
This may sound sarcastic but it is literally true.
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I’m of the mindset that it doesn’t hurt to spend more time listening, and less time asking, or demanding – as some do. I’m also a big fan of counting my blessings, another cliche that gets worn to the nubs, but when I look at all the good things there are, maybe I’m just being greedy in wanting more. Whether that “more” is better relationships with people, or something more financially oriented, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is perspective. There are people out there who would LOVE to live my life, have what I have with whom I have it. There are people who would be ashamed of what we have and deal with. I’m in the middle, and that’s OK.
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Questions abound!
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Indeed.
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Faith is potent, regardless of the god you select to worship. The notion of the all powerful and faith requires a level of forgiveness. Not just for yourself but for the very god you worship. There is a notion in many religions that the gods are models of perfection, yet when we dig deeper into the narratives of each, we find the opposite is true. My spiritual journey has been complex, I cant say the all powerful was with me at all times, but I some how find my way.
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I have found that in the darkest times in my life and I thought God had all but abandoned me that questions were many and answers few. I think of those times now as periods of time that deepened my faith. Yet all is mystery when it comes to God, and so I think, who am I to question divine wisdom? And yet, again and again I question it. We are mere humans doing our level best day by day. I think God knows this and loves us anyway.
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I understand this, so much. I have gone through these past two and half years what I can only call a “black hole”. I took what I thought would be a great leap of faith, and I ended up losing everything. I could not fathom a concept of God anymore; I could not even fathom “faith”. I’m a very black and white person, so to me, it’s either God, or nothing. I wasn’t going to accept any other alternatives, such as cosmic or karma or power of self. I too hate all the “Christianese” that fills the memes on social media and covers the wooden art decorations in the stores; it sounds pretty, but it often hurts more than it helps. I think a large reason of why it hurts when people say it is because we feel like they’re not listening when they’ve replied with it. We want to be validated, to be told that our “negative emotions” are real, and we’re not a failure for having them. We want to know we’re not alone, and that others have seen our pain. We don’t want to be told to just “be positive” and have to keep facing the darkness without a friend.
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I love that you so openly shared your thoughts about faith here! I think you speak from a place that so many people feel, but either don’t have the courage to speak the words to life or struggle to articulate them.
I am a person of faith, but I will be completely honest when I tell you that I, too, can’t stand the “Christianese” and the “just think positive” messages that our culture pushes. And you can be assured that I have no wooded art hanging on my walls! Ha! I believe the intentions of this community of people are pure, but I know from experience that a lot of times they just don’t know what else to say. Personally, I tend to shy away from the platitudes. I’m in the business of being real, of being present, and instead of giving advice asking, “How are you?, What do you need?” Our culture is quick to solve problems without first genuinely seeing the person we say we’re trying to help. That is not the model Jesus left for us. I digress.
Simply, I wanted to thank you for being real. I wanted to tell you too, some of us filling those pews feel an awful lot like you do, we just have to look for something beyond us and our ability to trust in, to hope in because life here on our own, in our our strength is just too damn hard.
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The hypocrisy & falseness of supposed Christians are what led me to leave church several years ago.
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I get that more than you know! 🙂
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I’m glad to have connected with you 🙂
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I’m currently stuck in a mental health related fallow time, so this post resonates with me a lot.
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I’m glad it’s helped you.
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Again, I love your vulnerability and realness.
Admittedly, I have wrestled with my faith–“what we hope for and the assurance of what we cannot yet see (Hebrews 11:1)” I want to see it. I want the tangible. I so easily become entangled in that part of the equation that I forget about the cross—that grace stooped down for me. I forget that my faith is not based on conditions and circumstances, but on something, someone far bigger than my mind is humanly able to comprehend. Could I be wrong about all of this? Sure. But what if I’m not? What if every word in the Bible is true, what if the experiences I’ve had, where I’ve labeled them as “God-winks” or “God-incidences” are in actuality God. I’d shutter to think I missed His beautiful message to me so I embrace it. I embrace Him.
And not to get too far into this, but I think about the story of the Israelite and how once they crossed the Red Sea, safe from their enemy, they built a monument in the city center to remind them of what God had brought them through. I imagine that at times that monument served a great purpose in reminding them of God’s ever watchful eye over them and His ability to rescue them because of His great love for them, but that it also became so common a structure after awhile that they didn’t really see it anymore. They needed fresh eyes to remember what God brought them through after so many years. I need fresh eyes every single day.
Praying specifically for you this morning that the Lord would continue to speak to your heart, nurture your faith, and provide for you whatever it is you need to feel confident in this walk.
Love, love this post! Love, love this topic and your realness with it! Keep on Keeping on!
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Thank you. I don’t really know how to respond but I am grateful for your kind words and thoughts.
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“Believers tell us God knows best or the timing isn’t right, but such glib cliched responses do little to ease the pain of those who are in the firing line.”
This is so…damn….true. Going through a rough patch right now and really questioning if I even want to keep trying to live. I feel like God is there, but he really doesn’t care right now because he’s too busy with people with “real problems.” My depression and anxiety apparently aren’t “real” enough for him or other people to care about. I am a great pretender at church and work but sometimes I get tired of trying and tired of hearing “just let go and let God.” Okay I’m lying on the ground crushed to death by sorrow and I am literally not holding on to anything. Where is God?
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Thank you. Keep going for those around you, who you CAN see and hear. They need you.
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I feel this in my soul. I am great at pretending as well, because, like you, my problems don’t seem large enough. Plus, by the time you finally work up the mental and emotional energy to tell someone EVERYTHING – you hear “well, just keep holding on, God’s got a plan” and then you just can’t even do it anymore.
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True
Been there done that
Done enough of that
Time to get back to reality!
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Thank you 😊
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Since you are a writer of fiction yourself, I will comment by sharing only this: Lately I have been rereading C.S. Lewis’ Science Fiction Trilogy, “Out of the Silent Planet”, “Perelandra”, and “That Hideous Strength”. I have found them more helpful right now, than theological works, which I have and read aplenty. I also find them as helpful as the mythological stories (or as Lewis quoted, the “true myths”) of people and God as related in the literature in the Bible. Not answers, but paths. Not preachers, but seekers.
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Thank you Jane. I’ve never heard of those books.
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Dear brother, I am, feeling my faith and spirituality uplifted. I was able to conquer the phase of depression and disappointment. Than you for sharing your words Anand Bose from Kerala
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You’re welcome Anand. Thank you for reading.
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