Monday, 09 June 2008
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Reader Stories #3: How I lost my faith
We at Revelife realize that not everyone currently has God in their lives. Some people believed once and have lost their faith, while others have yet to find God at all.
A Revelife user shared this story about how they lost their faith, and their experiences with Christianity. Struggling with your faith is something that a lot of Christians can relate to, so we thought we'd share his story:The first book I read was a children's Bible. Every 100 pages or so was color-coded, so I would try as hard as I could to finish each color. One month I might finish the pink pages, and then I'd race ahead to finish the blue pages. The color coding was a brilliant trick to motivate me to read this huge Bible. Once I was done, I would even go back and "read the red pages" again. I must've read the Bible cover to cover a couple of times.
Since I was so close to his Word, I felt incredibly close to God growing up. I saw how God talked to Moses and Daniel, and so it made total sense to me that I would talk to God. He was truly my best friend. I talked to him all the time and at night, those conversations would often turn into prayers. My parents weren't religious, and so I never went to church. But God was a big part of my life, and His love gave me a lot of comfort.
I could never figure out one thing though: if God loved us all so much, how come he never sent anyone to help me? My sister hated me and it seemed like she was trying to kill me. My dad drank a lot and when he got home from work, my parents would start arguing. I could see their marriage breaking up before my eyes. I was the middle child, and was basically invisible. I didn't really care about my own happiness; I just wanted my family to be happy.
I begged God to help my family, but things just got worse. But in the color-coded Bible that I read every day, God was always sending someone to help his people. He even sent 12 plagues to help Moses, and then he parted the Red Sea! I didn't get it: why was God not sending help? I prayed every night for him to send someone. Every time I met someone (a teacher, a family friend), I thought maybe they would help me and my family. But they all pretended everything was fine even when it seemed clear it was not. In retrospect, they probably had enough problems of their own to deal with.
After a few years of this, my faith was slipping away. I still read the Bible, but now God seemed to be taunting me. Every story in the Bible seemed to tell me, "I will help everyone in this book, but I will not help you at all." Most of all, I couldn't believe that so many people ignored my cries for help. I didn't expect a giant God to swoop down out of the sky, but I hoped that maybe someone on Earth would help - maybe one of his believers? I was losing faith in both God and humanity.
Then one night I was lying in bed with my covers over my head, trying to drown out the sounds of my parents arguing yet again. Something in me snapped. I had had it with God... who was He to ignore my prayers for so many years? I had believed in him with everything I had, and yet He refused to help my family. That was it. I was done.
I swore in my heart in that moment that if anyone ever needed help, I would help them. I wouldn't ignore them like God had ignored me and my family. I would go out of my way to find people who needed help, and do everything in my power to make their lives a little better. I told this all to God, and then I told Him that I no longer believed.
That was the last day that I spoke to God. I was eight years old.
Has God helped you in your time of need? Has that helped or hurt your faith?
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Comments (268)
God has helped me enormously- things just seem to fall into place when I praying.
But or three years I've been struggling with my relationship with God.
I don't always feel or hear him and when I do, I'm not sure if it's Him or just me.
There are days I don't believe.
And it's getting old. I don't know how much more I can take.
I either have to completely feel Him soon or feel completely abandoned by Him soon,
because I just can't keep going on like this.
God has always helped me in my time of need...
God never gives you anything you can't handle, it's not that God isn't there or that He isn't answering your prayers. He knows when to give you exactly what you need at the exactly perfect time. I know it sounds hard to believe, but it's absolutely true.
James 1:2-3
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perserverance."
Lately I've been struggling with my relationship with God. Somedays I litterally feel like I'm dead inside. I know that my prayer life isn't what it should be, but I persevere and I keep faith. I know that my walk with God isn't always going to be easy. God is there for me.
@Christie - I agree.
I absolutely disagree with the statement one commenter left that "God never gives you anything you can't handle." Do trials develop strength and the ability to persevere? Absolutely. Does that mean that God allowed them to happen specifically so one person could learn how to persevere more than another? I just don't think so. Many believers are given struggles that exceed their capability to cope-some of them fall away from God and others struggle horribly in spite of the fact that they maintain their faith. Obviously, in this particular situation, she could not handle it and she didn't get exactly what she needed at the time-a sense of security at home, earthly assistance, etc. It would take a very exceptional eight year old to find joy in that type of situation. Scripture is relevant to all of our lives but sometimes people need something a little more tangible, especially when they're young and vulnerable and they don't have the power to change their situation.
As for the reader who shared her story: Life is hard. I think most, if not all people, have many stories that include feelings of hopelessness, pain, and abandonment. The fact that your needs were not met doesn't mean God doesn't exist; it means that we live in a world where people are allowed to make choices. If you haven't already, I hope someday you find what you're looking for, whatever that may be.
The unfortunate thing is that with our less than perfect human eyes, we cannot see the outcome of what God is doing by 'not helping'. Our God is a God of love and justice, He does not let you go through something for a sick joke. You have the oppertunity to grow ( see james 1:2-4) to learn more about faith and trust, and to totally hand over control to the author and perfector of our faith. I would strongly reccomend the blog http://audreycaroline.blogspot.com/ as one to read of faith in the face of devestating loss and grief. God could have changed the outcome. But what is happening because He did not, is so much bigger than these people ever sould have imagined.
Precious person who wrote the above article, I pray someone talks to you. I pray you will listen for the Lord's voice, becasue surely, He is waiting for you to call out to Him. You are still His precious child. He did not abandon you when you were small. He carried you, held you, and wept with you. He was not taunting you, but sometimes, the 'help' comes in a way not that we expected. As Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, the Jews thought He would come and rid them of the Roman oppressors; they had misundrestood His message. He came to free them of something greater... sin and eternal death. You are deeply loved by God, and He longs to be in relationship with you. Tell him your fears, your hurts, your anger. He has broad shoulders. And just becasue you are angry with Him, does not mean you can't still have a relationship with Him. You have a powerful testimony. I pray you are blessed in abundance.
uhhmm..who is this??
I think people tend to interpret God's presence as something necessarily active and useful. God may always be present, but he may not always do something. (If you're of the more cynical persuasion, you may think that God is actively doing something hurtful rather than helpful.) In regards to our expectations of God's rescue... well, I understate when I say it is not always in a timely manner. God didn't help the Israelites out of Egypt for a few hundred years; Christ didn't come until several hundred years after the book of Malachi; Joseph spent nearly an entire lifetime in exile and separation from his family before he was finally reunited. And more often than not, it seems that God doesn't bother sending help at all.
I recently have been struggling through a number of "hard times" for me over the past year: a relationship break-up, the death of two friends, depression in the lives of multiple friends. Through it all, I have found that the most helpful and healing things for me were people who demonstrated INactive presence: those who didn't try to fix things or spout off a platitude to try and make me feel better. I have a suspicion that God does things the same way. I am bewildered as to why he doesn't act to change things (being an omnipotent being and all that), but there is something about that inactive, "useless" presence that makes me pause. To know that God himself allowed his own son to be subjected to even more torture, despair, and insanity than I have ever experienced makes me pause. It doesn't take away the sting of the pain or my anger, but it makes me pause.
It has taken me over a year to arrive at these tentative, primitive conclusions, and I'm not sure how long they will palliate my pain, but they are sufficient for now.
I feel away from Christ in my youth; I have since returned and now can truly feel His joy. I only hope you can find the path.
There's this fallacy that God is perfect. Sometimes with all the powers he endows he doesn't realize you can't handle as much as he believes. Thats when you have to say "Give me a break." He expects great things from you but sometimes he needs to know that it overwhelms you and depresses you. He'll cut you slack. You just have to ask. He understands. Never lose faith. Never.
i skimmed throug this entry, sorry...but reminds me of Greg Laurie's new book, Lots Boy. i keep hearing it on kwave, the radio station. i so want to read it!
My heart breaks for your story...and although I realize that you were but a child back then...but did it occur to you that God wanted to use YOU, and not someone else? For, perhaps a child, within the family, who stood up, could've had more impact on changing the family than an outsider. I don't mean to sound arrogant or anything...because my heart truly breaks for your childhood.
dear brave one
i think you have revealed in your last sentences the spiritual gift that now empowers you. only a few consciously make the decision to help others. and whether you are angry with God or not, your determination in this gift gives you a purpose... and it came through your interaction with God.
it is perfectly believable for a child of 8 to become overwhelmed and run away/stand against the problem in front of them. You are brave and selfless in what you say "I didn't really care about my own happiness; I just wanted my family to be happy." and " I would go out of my way to find people who needed help, and do everything in my power to make their lives a little better." and i hope that you still live by these words and that it leads you back down the road to considering Christ.
thank you for being the better person
I think I remember seeing that post back in March, I think it was featured, seems like it was Benjaminyetagain, something like that, one big problem is he was 8 years old when he made this decision. I mean come on, an 8 year old sees things in a very small picture. I hope he has reconsidered now that he is older. For an 8 year old he seemed pretty wise for his age, but I imagine as he was older and thinking back, he recalled things a little differently than how he really felt or thought, no matter, it's a very sad thing for children to have parents that are selfabsorbed in theirselves and don't nurture their kids.
To answer your question, all I can say is God's grace is always sufficient for me. I hope and pray I can always say that.
'But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is
made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly
about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10That
is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in
hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I
am strong.'
-2 Corinthians 12: 9-10
This verse has been my guiding light. I think a huge part of waiting on God is a test of patience. You think it's been too long a time of suffering.. for God, it is a time of sharpening, of growth, of rebirth. We never really know His plans for us..especially when so young, I don't think that its possible to fully understand the widths, depths, and reach of Christ..even though being childlike is so important nowadays.
Friend, I value what you shared - trust that God heard you..and still hears you today. He's always waiting for you, that perhaps one day you might turn your head towards Him, if only a little bit.
There have been some seriously rough times in this relatively young life of mine...there were moments where I seriously lost my mind..heart..almost my life, I was in so much pain. And I yelled at God, but I held onto Him so tightly because I realized that my own strength was simply not enough. That is when He works. And He has always come to help and rain down blessings in my time of need...but certainly not always right away.
god love everyone of us!!
While I can't fully relate since, fortunately for me, my parents never really fought that much...at least not in front of us kids. But I've definitely looked up into the night sky and screamed loud enough to wake everyone in the nearby houses, "God, What the Fuck are you doing? FUCK YOU!"
After my sister died (10 years ago)...long story short, I (and the rest of my family) became depressed (I have the psychiactric diagnosis on my medical record to prove it), I was a cutter, and I even attempted suicide a couple times. It sucked. And I constantly wondered, "If God really Loves me, surely He wouldn't want me and my family to be like this." But a miracle healing and lots of reflection later, I realized that as much as it all sucked, I wouldn't have had it any other way, because I know it made me stronger, both as a person, and as a Christian.
Unfortunately, He doesn't always--or even often--give miracle healings. I was lucky, I guess, but even still, the hard stuff in life is what builds us and makes us better people. It's unfortunate that's how we learn and are shaped, but it's true. And even though it never makes sense at the time--and sometimes never does in our limited scope--there's something God wants us to learn from all our trials. And when we look back while on our deathbeds, I'm sure we'll see that if things didn't happen the way they did, crappy as it may have been, we'll see that the best things in our lives wouldn't have been possible.
I'm probably rambling at this point, so I'll try to wrap this up quickly, but the question of why a Loving God allows bad things to happen to good people has been a question ever since the concept of a Loving God came about. There is no perfect explanation, nor is there a mediocre explanation that fits every situation. However, it's undeniable that the "low points" of life are what really make us better people (or at very least, have the potential to do so). I think that's part of the answer to that question. I wish it was a perfect world in which sin and suffering did not exist, but alas, it does...for now...but there's hope.
I feel such sadness for you in this post. It must have been an incredibly frustrating experience as a child to have your prayers go unanswered. You have my heart.
I struggle when I see prayers go unanswered, I can understand the pain and rejection you must have felt.
There is no pat answer for this. Nothing I can say, can restore a lost 'child's faith' in God. That is something you will need to journey through yourself.
I can identify with your situation, even in my adult life.
But because I have had such a 'real' revelation of Jesus, and I trust his words to me, I can see that just like him, and his prayers to His Father in the garden of Gethsemane, that sometimes, most times I don't understand the will of God.
Even Jesus cried out to his Heavenly Father.
"My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."
He was surrender to the ultimate will of God.
Bless you on your journey.
x
I remember being 5 or 6 and demanding that God prove Himself to me. He didn't at that time because the timing wasn't right. Since my family was secular, there's no way faith would have survived at that age. His timing is perfect, even when we don't understand at the time.
The Bible is full of people who suffered. Many of the Psalms were written by people in the midst of suffering. What does one think that the Book of Lamentations is about? Sadly, most children's Bibles of today concentrate on the good, happy and victorious stories of the Bible, giving children warped expectations of life. Hundreds of years ago, children were witness to frequent death and disaster, and they were told the truth about the pain of life. Now, life has been sanitized of pain and no one knows how to deal with it when it comes.
Jesus said in John 16:33: "In this world you will have trouble." Jesus, the Son of God, was crucified because of our sins. What makes anyone think that they deserve to have life better than the Son of God? The great thing is that along with the trouble, Jesus tells us in the same verse that there will be victory: "But take heart! I have overcome the world." In Heaven, God will make sense of all the pain and suffering we endured, and He will wipe every tear from our eyes (Revelation 21:4)
Perhaps the Lord allowed the writer of the post to suffer in order to bring about the result of this person going out to help others in need. After all, that is what God's people are supposed to be doing -- helping others in need. And as long as there is life, there is hope that God will bring this person back to faith in Himself. I pray that that may be very soon.
One night a man had a dream,
He dreamed he was walking along
the beach with the Lord.
Across the sky flashed
scenes from his life.
For each scene he noticed
two sets of footprints in the sand,
One belonging to him and
the other to the Lord.
When the last scene flashed before him,
he looked back at the footprints in the sand.
He notice many times in his life there was
only one set of footprints.
He also noticed that it happened to be at
the very lowest and saddest times in his life.
This really bothered him and
he questioned the Lord about it.
"Lord, you said once I decided to follow You,
You'd walk with me all the way.
But I have noticed that during the most
troublesome times in my life,
there is only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why
when I needed You the most
You would leave me."
The Lord replied:
"My son, my precious child,
I love you and I would never leave you.
During your times of trial and suffering,
When you see only one set of footprints,
It was then that I carried you."
I know in my heart, you still believe. Â Light the fire again. God's blazing love doesn't always come the way you expect it to come. Â Peace and love, your brother in Lord Jesus the Christ, holding you down in SD. Â God bless.
That last comment was beautiful.
What Mizmazed said is totally false. God IS perfect. He IS the standard. Nothing can come above Him. He couldn't be any better. It's just hard for us to accept that because we have limited understanding. He was unlimited knowledge and wisdom. It is foolish to think that he overestimates us or underestimates us. Think about each creature in this earth. How complex we are! He did not overlook one detail. All glory and honor to Jesus.
Mamma_sez nailed it right on the head with that bible verse. Jesus didn't want to do it, but he did because it was His father's will.
It may not have been in God's will to have your family together for whatever reason. Your prayers may have been butting against God's will. Then, again they may have been in conjunction with his. However, God held off fulfilling your desires for family peace and happiness for a reason. It may have been because of your father's sin and hard heartedness. Also, I want to say that I would also be extremely frustrated if I was in that situation. I can't say what I would've done if I was you there, but God bless. I pray he uses this situation to bring you back and more importantly for His glory.
I am only just beginning to receive Revelife. Only just deciding whether or not to spend my time with it. And this discussion has held my attention for half an hour! Interesting comments by my brothers and sisters!
I used to be heavily involved in ministry to abused and neglected youth. And I received the persecution of the world for that. Now I work with adults who feel hurt by "Christians" (at least by the people who go to church) or by the church itself. All these barely hang onto whatever faith they may have had. And through all this, God has continued to call me His "fellow servant."
My own relationship with God was on again/ off again for many years. But now I understand some of the why's behind God allowing the "rug pulled out from under me" times. In my own personal life -- and in each of yours out there? -- God is completing His work of making me -- and us? -- into His likeness and image! Job is the pattern of how this fallen world works for God. Faith is a substance which must be fired and tested and proved.
http://www.jerusalemhill.net
Yes, God sent 12 plagues to help Moses and the Israelites... after 400 years of slavery. One problem with reading a children's Bible is that they usually skip the less-than-palatable parts of the Old Testament. God is utterly faithful, but He works in ways we do not always understand--and it is good to understand that. David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, often says how God has never let him down, and yet also laments often about how his enemies are drawing close, and even how God, it feels like, has forsaken him. God is not beholden to us. But he saves his children out of all their troubles nonetheless. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not for 400 years. Maybe not in the way we would've liked him to. Faith is hard. Wait upon the Lord.
@waiting_for_the_final_trumpet@xanga - Well said.