When you prayed to receive a witness

[bmy-]

This is just a clarification.

The chances of you hitting tails five times in a row is 1/32. That is not improbable at all.

I know that wasn't your point, as you meant it happened after you read the challenge.

However, IMO, it is a stretch to connect the two, given the probabity of 1/32.

Elphaba

I agree with you completely. It's why I generally keep the story to myself. I've flipped 5 in a row various times testing it. Perhaps i'm lucky.. but I seem to hit that about 1/20 times.

Again I just want to clarify -- it wasn't the coin flips -- it was the feeling of certainty BEFORE the coins landed and how I felt after.

A well timed coincidence is what I chalk it up to. One that ultimately has changed my life for the better.

[Elphaba]

An excellent question. I wish I had the penultimate answer.

I don't think there is one. Our experiences will always be trumped by someone else's. Yours trumps mine and mine trumps yours. It's just the way it is.

I know there are questions I wish I had answers to, which could easily leave me frustrated and angry at God, if I let it. >snip< as the ones I have received, will affect me in my daily decisions.

I am not frustrated or angry at God. I used to be long ago--then I discovered a website about atheism, and suddenly all of the puzzle pieces fit into place. That was MY epiphany. And it was a profound moment in my life.

Since then, I can no longer believe in a god than you seem to be unable not to believe. I believe your experiences, though I do not understand them. All I can say I understand, for sure, are my experiences. And as profound as your conversion was, so was my epiphany about the lack of any god.

Elphaba, God has given you wonderful gifts, such as the gift of thought and of thinking. You have studied the histories of many Saints and found them inspiring.

This reminds me of when a good friend, though one I rarely talk to, said the kindest thing to me months ago. Unfortunately, my computer is STILL not back, so I can't quote him verbatim.

But he told me that rather than assuming I should not be an atheist, or a non-member, or any of the other pejoratives some people believe make my comments easy to dismiss, his question was "Why did God put her in my life, and what I am supposed to learn from her."

I will never forget the profound experience of reading his words that validated I am perfect as I am, that I have worth just as I am, and that I had something to say worth listening to.

I don't believe his words were meant to be compassionate--they were meant to tell his truth about my truth.

That is not to say everyone should feel that way about me, and that's okay. This is a LDS board, and I bring myself here with the knowledge most people will not agree with me. I just hope to bring perspective, and hopefully some people will appreciate it.

Perhaps the beginnings of your testimony is your great joy in experiencing the witnesses and experiences of pioneers? Who knows just when and where that spark will come from that leads us to greater testimony and witness?

If it were going to happen, it would have happened by now. Especially given how much I have read about these remarkable people who gave everything they had to the God they loved.

Thank you for the kind post. I know you believe in my worth, as I do yours.

Elphaba

[mike_uk]

Funky

Thanks for sharing your story. It always makes me sad hearig about those kind of upbringings. I feel so lucky that my parents rarely argued or fought.

Overall prayer has been a massive letdown for me and I dont just mean Moroni's challenge. All my active church life has been wrought with dissapointment when it came to prayer. I remember once when going to the temple and realising that the Celestial Room would be the best place for me to feel the spirit and approach God about some issues I had. I truly believed that everything would be made right there and I would finally feel his presence or atleast something. I was truly excited and expected an answer, thus was my faith back then.

Well I really worked hard in there and pleaded and you know where this is going. I felt nothing, nothing at all. This stayed the same the many times I attended afterwards.

A whole life of trying but failing really does not help me off this road to Atheism.

Edited August 7, 2008 by mike_uk

[WANDERER]

Sometimes I think I'm on the road to atheism by pursuing answers...

the thing about praying to receive a witness is that the answer of not being sincere enough or not having faith is so black and white. The : either I'm God's or I'm not clause seems built into it. Do I really really REALLY believe? Faith to the point of fracture.

So how do I respond to that...well, whatever is God's plan is...very much so that God gives good gifts. Do I have to learn things the hard way? Is ignorance a blessing? Is this a judgement and am I completely and utterly flawed and so much harder of heart that I cannot receive an answer? Do I need to make a leap of faith? Do I need to come up with a plan of my own to avoid making the wrong choice...or dismally fail this test of faith?

Are asking these sorts of questions really going with God's plan in complete trust? Can doing that ever be failure? In some things I am sure.

[funkymonkey]

Mike, thanks for your kind response.

I really do like reading your perspective and can truly see the inner turmoil, as it comes out in your writings. By the context in which you write, it looks like you are continually searching for answers...for peace. Thank you very much for being willing to be so honest.

It causes me to think and remember, and also to challenge my own perspectives.

Each of us are in a journey to find our own inner peace and happiness. It is so interesting to me how different that is for each of us!

A question kinda popped into my head...(and I totally don't have any magical answers, but this is totally just a thought)...Have you thought of having a completely honest discussion with your bishop regarding your frustrations?

Or even requested he give you a blessing? I like priesthood blessings. :)

[Vort]

An excellent question. I wish I had the penultimate answer.

"Penultimate" = "second to last". Methinks you mean "ultimate", or perhaps "quintessential".

Or, hey, I don't know, maybe you do mean "penultimate". Personally, I'm hoping for the antepenultimate answer. That will give me two more chances to get it right.

[lilered]

Im not looking to flame or interfere with your experiences but I am interested to learn what you felt when you took Moroni's challenge to read and pray about the Book of Mormon, how it came to you and what you experienced etc?

If you wouldnt mind sharing that we me It would be very much appreciated.

While I was being taught by the missionaries, I literally took the challenge to heart. I fasted and prayed about the truthfulness of the BOM as well as whether or not I wanted to accept this new way of living. The answer came the next day in the form of a perfect acceptatance in both my mind and my heart. Since that time many years ago, my testimony has continued to grow proportionally to my studying the scriptures and trying to be a better individual. As I have looked back on my life, I witness that when I am close to God is when I am the happiest, and likewise when I am in the service of my family and fellowman, I am the most blessed. I actually love daily reading and pondering of the scriptures.

I have witnessed many coversions as well as expierenced countless answers to personal prayer that continues to strengthen my testimony of the BOM and the church. Sometimes, the answers to my prayers come so fast, that it is a mind blowing expierence that leaves me speechless.

[candyprpl]

Overall prayer has been a massive letdown for me and I dont just mean Moroni's challenge. All my active church life has been wrought with dissapointment when it came to prayer. I remember once when going to the temple and realising that the Celestial Room would be the best place for me to feel the spirit and approach God about some issues I had. I truly believed that everything would be made right there and I would finally feel his presence or atleast something. I was truly excited and expected an answer, thus was my faith back then.

Well I really worked hard in there and pleaded and you know where this is going. I felt nothing, nothing at all. This stayed the same the many times I attended afterwards.

A whole life of trying but failing really does not help me off this road to Atheism.

It seems I'm always so drawn to your posts Mike, I don't know why. Sometimes I read your post and I say to myself, why respond, he's lost or gone or unreachable, etc. But then I find myself wanting to reply for some reason. I guess because I had people in my life (namely, my sisters) who never gave up on me. Boy, am I thankful now that they never did!!

I was wondering what you think it would be like if you had received answers to your prayers?

You are asking us what it feels like to get answers or revelations and then maybe judging to see if you have had any of these experiences in order to justify that you have not, so therefore saying, "I've not had answers to my prayers."

[mike_uk]

Mike, thanks for your kind response.

I really do like reading your perspective and can truly see the inner turmoil, as it comes out in your writings. By the context in which you write, it looks like you are continually searching for answers...for peace. Thank you very much for being willing to be so honest.

It causes me to think and remember, and also to challenge my own perspectives.

Each of us are in a journey to find our own inner peace and happiness. It is so interesting to me how different that is for each of us!

A question kinda popped into my head...(and I totally don't have any magical answers, but this is totally just a thought)...Have you thought of having a completely honest discussion with your bishop regarding your frustrations?

Or even requested he give you a blessing? I like priesthood blessings. :)

Thanks Funky for your thoughts and comments.

I have been officially dissafected for 7-8 months now and semi active for maybe 2 years before that and NOT ONCE has the Bishop been to see me. I heard that he instead has tried to get the missionaires to come round instead and changed my home teachers to someone that basically insulted me a few months ago. Rather pointless and stupid idea becasue I dont want either to come round now. Don't get me wrong I love the missionaries and would still regularly feed them if we were allowed to but to be realistic they dont even know about most of my issues so cannot help. As for one half of the new HT companisonship. He just refused to listen to me and my points and ignored them asthough these things didnt happen. I cannot stand that.

As for blessings. Cannot see the point as I dont believe in them after many many bad experiences with them. I have absolutley no testimony in the priesthood and that JS ever restored it. Even if I was to bite the bullet and have one my faith is so low at this point I would just doubt completely everything said.

It's hard. I think its just time for me to accept I cannot change. Perhaps if I can accept this then maybe this deep dark hole I am in will get smaller so I can crawl out and move on with my life.

[Misshalfway]

I went to the temple with a heavy heart and prayed long in the celestial room with tears streaming down my face. I went with faith believing that within the temple I would receive some kind of answer. Nothing happened. I felt rather alone. Well, I can't say nothing happened. I did feel what I generally feel when going to the temple; like my spirit gas tank has been somehow filled. But I wasn't sure anyone heard me....or cared that my heart was broken or that my world was falling apart.

I have tried to come to terms with this and other like experiences. I have struggled to understand why there are times that I pray with the most sincerity I can muster and it seems as if the heavens are silent. And I have asked for blessings where I only felt like the person speaking was saying the words they had said a million times. I have supposed that perhaps there wasn't a God and all of this spiritual experience was really just one big delusion!

I too have been less active. Not one time has any member of any organization asked me why or tried to help or reach out to me in meaningful ways.....even after a heartfelt appeal to the SP. I have instead felt the impatience and judgmental attitudes of would be friends. It has been a disappointing and heartbreaking experience and I still struggle to make sense of it.

But having said all of that and after having felt anger and disappointment and frustration...... I must be completely honest with myself. I have been to the temple and had spontaneous answers and impressions come to my mind. Once I received a very direct commandment. I have received blessings, one in particular from my older brother, that literally felt like God was speaking to me. You see I didn't tell my brother anything about my concern and he spoke as if he knew everything!

And then there is prayer. How many times I have looked up and asked "are you there?" I can't count.

But then, I remember when I did feel Him answer and those times are more plentiful than the empty times. And so I have had to get really honest with myself and really look at why certain seasons of my life were littered with spiritual abundance and why other times feel like famine. I don't have all the answers. But I have two that are starting to make sense to me. 1) Spiritual abundance is always connected to my obedience. During my time of inactivity, I wasn't reading, praying or attending the temple regularly. I wasn't exercising my faith. I was arguing with it. 2) I have been learning a little about what it means to be parented by God and I am learning that there are trials of faith. There are seasons of darkness that have purpose and challenge my endurance. I am learning that there is value to all of this difficult and complex experience.

I don't have anything close to all the answers. But I do empathize as I try to come to terms with my own experiences and what I believe God is trying to teach me. I think at this point I am pretty settled on the God question. But I still want the answer as to why so many things happened they way they did.

Edited August 8, 2008 by Misshalfway

[mike_uk]

It seems I'm always so drawn to your posts Mike, I don't know why. Sometimes I read your post and I say to myself, why respond, he's lost or gone or unreachable, etc. But then I find myself wanting to reply for some reason. I guess because I had people in my life (namely, my sisters) who never gave up on me. Boy, am I thankful now that they never did!!

I was wondering what you think it would be like if you had received answers to your prayers?

You are asking us what it feels like to get answers or revelations and then maybe judging to see if you have had any of these experiences in order to justify that you have not, so therefore saying, "I've not had answers to my prayers."

Candy

I guess I am lost, gone and unreachable. You know, I guess it could look like im just pleading for sympathy or wanting people to feel sorry for me or just being a drama queen overexagerating my concerns. but Im not at all. I like this site whether a agree with what people say or not. Sometimes though I feel I need to mention things that the church do not and will not teach us. It upsets me when people mention an event when reliable evidence shows a different side of things. Not sure where Im going with this lol. Anyway, don't feel like you have to post just becasue! That said, Im happy that you like my posts which surprises me really as I thought most people here hate me for my negativity!

I really think that when I was strong and very much active it would have made me so much more spiritual and stronger but it would not have changed the facts of history. Maybe it would have given me strength to brush them under the carpet or just shelve them. However, even the strongest of convictions can crumble and in many cases has done. According to Scientists, those strong spiritual witness's can be explained by natural occurences whether thats true or not is anybody's guess. The mind is a powerful thing. I think there could be elements of truth in this though. Maybe that is the reason some feel that witness and others dont. Maybe that is why we are counselled to bare a testimony to receive one etc. Do we just convince ourselves its true? Just some ideas I have had regarding my own problems and certainly not something I can say any more on really.

Yes, the reason I started this thread is to see where you and I differ. What you guys felt and what I did not. Maybe an answer came my way many times by the frequency was so poor I was unable to hear it. Maybe. Some of you had profound experiences which are great and I feel that I got the wrong end of the stick there which I feel is unfair from a God that wanted me to come home and from a God who suppsoedly thinks of me as "a choice spirit who is both humble and teachable". Nobody should have to struggle if they try hard, nobody at all.

I guess it all boils down to severe dissapointment, hurt and feel like I have been lied to. Most of the nice fluffy things the missionaries tought me that I believed is not how it really happened. Most wont agree with me and say something like "but does it matter?" Yes it matters to me a great deal and now my marriage is struggling becasue of it.

[Misshalfway]

Nobody should have to struggle if they try hard, nobody at all.

I understand this statement. I have probably said something fairly close to it and probably on more than one occasion. But I am not sure it is true. We all struggle with something in this life. I think we all have seasons when nothing feels fair and sometimes those circumstances may absolutely be unfair. But that doesn't mean that there isn't profound purpose in such strugglings. I look at the lives of so many who decided to follow a path of faith. I am not sure any of them had an easy road. Some of our testimonies are hard fought victories and come after great periods of suffering.

I think there is a God and I think he does love us. I think he loves us so much that he allows us to struggle. He waits for us. He allows us to decide on our own some days. He lets us wander in the dark and carry heavy burdens. Why? Because learning the lesson is more important than our comforts.

There have been seasons in my life were I thought God was picking favorites and I was sure I wasn't one of them. There have also been moments.....very recent moments that I have been experiencing things that is changing my mind about that.

And just one final thought......I never have found much foundation in the nice fluffy interpretations of spiritual experience. They haven't ever been warm and fuzzy. My valid spiritual experience has been much deeper and much more broad.

[Maya]

In fact I am notsure if I ever prayed about it...I just knew.

I was warned a lot against LDS by my mother at the time I was getting the lessons. I remember we did have a prayer together with missionaries every time they visited, and sure there was a plead about restoration aso.

So when I red the BM I was reading it with prayer all the time ... I prayed inside me while I read that He would show me the wrongs in the BM, instead I got a feeling that it can not be false it must be true. I felt so happy every time I read and I rejoiced over the beautiful things in it, that were just alike in the Bible, but sometimes even more clare. It was such a great proof of Gods love thoward us that it had to be what it claimed to be.

I wondered sometimes of the possibility that JS could have met with HF and JK and all the others and I came in to the conclution that if God would want to do that, He could. I saw it not as an impossible hapening but possible one.

The thing that really got me was to see the love of God in everything, in the BM in the ward, in teh leaders. Everything good comes from God and this sure was good!

I got a testimony of it all in a lump. My knowledge has grown step by step... and I hope it keeps growing.... but the testimony, I cant tell when it happened, but I just knew that it all was true.

[rameumptom]

"Penultimate" = "second to last". Methinks you mean "ultimate", or perhaps "quintessential".

Or, hey, I don't know, maybe you do mean "penultimate". Personally, I'm hoping for the antepenultimate answer. That will give me two more chances to get it right.

I meant penultimate as a joke. Everyone wishes they had the ultimate correct answer (just read the Hitchhiker's Guid to the Galaxy series, for instance).

As it is, we always find what we're looking for in the last place we look. Well, given eternal progression and ever learning, I figure I'll never get to that ultimate answe, just the second to last. And perhaps it will give enough information to satisfy me, until I get to the next penultimate answer....

[lilered]

Candy

I guess I am lost, gone and unreachable. You know, I guess it could look like im just pleading for sympathy or wanting people to feel sorry for me or just being a drama queen overexagerating my concerns. but Im not at all. I like this site whether a agree with what people say or not. Sometimes though I feel I need to mention things that the church do not and will not teach us. It upsets me when people mention an event when reliable evidence shows a different side of things. Not sure where Im going with this lol. Anyway, don't feel like you have to post just becasue! That said, Im happy that you like my posts which surprises me really as I thought most people here hate me for my negativity!

I really think that when I was strong and very much active it would have made me so much more spiritual and stronger but it would not have changed the facts of history. Maybe it would have given me strength to brush them under the carpet or just shelve them. However, even the strongest of convictions can crumble and in many cases has done. According to Scientists, those strong spiritual witness's can be explained by natural occurences whether thats true or not is anybody's guess. The mind is a powerful thing. I think there could be elements of truth in this though. Maybe that is the reason some feel that witness and others dont. Maybe that is why we are counselled to bare a testimony to receive one etc. Do we just convince ourselves its true? Just some ideas I have had regarding my own problems and certainly not something I can say any more on really.

Yes, the reason I started this thread is to see where you and I differ. What you guys felt and what I did not. Maybe an answer came my way many times by the frequency was so poor I was unable to hear it. Maybe. Some of you had profound experiences which are great and I feel that I got the wrong end of the stick there which I feel is unfair from a God that wanted me to come home and from a God who suppsoedly thinks of me as "a choice spirit who is both humble and teachable". Nobody should have to struggle if they try hard, nobody at all.

I guess it all boils down to severe dissapointment, hurt and feel like I have been lied to. Most of the nice fluffy things the missionaries tought me that I believed is not how it really happened. Most wont agree with me and say something like "but does it matter?" Yes it matters to me a great deal and now my marriage is struggling becasue of it.

Mike_uk - In reading your posts it almost seems to me that you are struggling on several fronts. Church, God, Family, etc.. Little wonder you feel disappointment, bewildered, hurt, etc.. Many of us have a times had these same feelings and expierencings, but granted perhaps not all at one time and perhaps not as long. I would suggest that your struggles are real but not hopeless. God does love you and does consider you to be a special spirit. You came to this earth for a special purpose and reason. I believe that with every fiber of my body. I would also suggest that you may not know what that reason was or is but I beleive you can find that out if you are but willing to and desire to know.

If you are, then I suggest you start fasting and ask God on your knees in prayer to reveal the purpose for which you were placed here on this earth. I know it will be revealed to you. The reason I know this is because God loves you and wants you to be succesful in fulfilling his plan for you. The caveat here is that you must be willing to seek him with a broken heart and contrite spirit and believing that he will answer your prayers.

I would also seek his help in blessing you and those around you, that you may succeed in overcoming your doubts, etc. and receive honest and truthful answers and blessings to those issues causing difficulties for you.

Try it for a few weeks, then report back as to your status. Please give it a try.

[funkymonkey]

"That said, Im happy that you like my posts which surprises me really as I thought most people here hate me for my negativity!"

We like you, Mike! :)

[Still_Small_Voice]

The Lord blessed me with the gift of spiritual discernment when I read the Book of Mormon. I felt much as Parley Pratt did as he read the Book of Mormon. I knew it was true as I read, as plainly as a man knows that he exists. No man could have wrote that book without the hand of God guiding him. No man could have wrote the truths in the Bible either without the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

As I look at some of the pictures brought back by satellites we have in orbit above the earth, I am in complete awe at what I see. Reasoning certainly cries out that something organized the trillions of stars and galaxies out there. It is so complex and beautiful. Surely chaos could not have organized something so vast and intricate.

Just look at the photo gallery of some of these pictures of our universe:

HubbleSite - Wallpaper: Spiral Galaxy NGC 3370, Home to Supernova Seen in 1994

[funkymonkey]

This is totally my own opinion, and I'm sure this is going to spark a debate of some sort....

I personally don't believe the statement "God won't give us anything we can't handle". I think that God doesn't give us commandments we can't handle.

[WANDERER]

Changed:

I'm sorry I don't understand what you mean?

Mike:

I don't get the whole lost idea : I guess I am lost, gone and unreachable.

In my belief, God can do anything. While we sometimes feel that way or people may communicate it to us...I see it as deception.

Edited August 13, 2008 by WANDERER

[mike_uk]

Changed:

I'm sorry I don't understand what you mean?

Mike:

I don't get the whole lost idea : I guess I am lost, gone and unreachable.

In my belief, God can do anything. While we sometimes feel that way or people may communicate it to us...I see it as deception.

From a believers point of view I am lost. People here or lets call them the good shpherd have tried to find me by advising me and giving me a helping hand but I wont take hold of theat hand. I have wondered from the path of righteosness into the wilderness and am unable to find my way back. I am that sheep who has wondered to far from his master. Now I reside in the Wilderness.

Yea I am sure if God exisits he could do anything but that does not stop people loosing their way hence the Parable of the lost sheep. In many cases the good shepherd finds that lost sheep but other times maybe that sheep refuses to be found.

The other issue is I feel empty when I pray, I feel so alone. He does not reach out.

[Misshalfway]

Is it possible, Mike, that God is coming after you? Is it possible he is using other people in your life to find you and communicate with you? Or maybe he is waiting for you....if indeed you are determined to be lost. He does let us choose... and if we move away from the light he lets us feel the darkness. And he doesn't give blessings, even when we want them and demand them and are hurt because they don't come, before we obey first.

"How oft I would have gathered you..........but you would not."

"Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden...."

"Come follow me, The Savior said."

"Seek me and ye shall find me"

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock."

Come unto Christ, Mike. Come unto Christ.

[Misshalfway]

Is it possible, Mike, that God is coming after you? Is it possible he is using other people in your life to find you and communicate with you? Or maybe he is waiting for you....if indeed you are determined to be lost. He does let us choose... and if we move away from the light he lets us feel the darkness. And he doesn't give blessings, even when we want them and demand them and are hurt because they don't come, before we obey first.

"How oft I would have gathered you..........but you would not."

"Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden...."

"Come follow me, The Savior said."

"Seek me and ye shall find me"

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock."

Come unto Christ, Mike. Come unto Christ.

[WANDERER]

I like the Prodigal Son...all he had to do was come home...didn't matter what state he was in and what he had done or how short he thought he was...he didn't even think his father wanted him back especially...not even as a servant.....but he hoped that he could be a servant...he certainly didn't expect to be welcomed like that. He thought he had lost everything and would never get it back...but he still went and asked anyway. The question...can I serve you....flawed and all...not to matter...he was his son.

[rameumptom]

I do believe that many times God answers us in ways we do not expect. Many times he works through other people. It may not seem so miraculous, but it is, as it allows us to serve God in performing his miracles.

Often I find we reject God because he does not want to respond to us in the way we wish. If Joseph Smith could have a First Vision, then why not me....?

[candyprpl]

I do believe that many times God answers us in ways we do not expect. Many times he works through other people. It may not seem so miraculous, but it is, as it allows us to serve God in performing his miracles.

Often I find we reject God because he does not want to respond to us in the way we wish. If Joseph Smith could have a First Vision, then why not me....?

I agree rameumptom.

And sometimes those miracles are not always pleasant ones. How 'bout the times when it takes something horrible happening to bring a person back to the fold? It took me almost dying to know that my family loved me and that my Heavenly Father loved me.