I've lost my faith in HF and Christ.


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This is the problem as I see it...

 

You are trying to bend God to your Will instead of trying to understand what His Will is for you.

 

God is not like winning a lottery ticket that because you believe in Him and do works then all your problems will magically go away and you will have all that you want.  If this is what you expected, then your understanding of God is very narrow.

 

The purpose of making and keeping covenants is so that we can CHANGE to what God wants for us.  So, to exercise faith in God is to try to figure out what the higher purpose is for all these things that are happening and how this serves the Kingdom - how this serves God and how this serves not only yourself but others also.

 

Remember the 2 great commandments - Love God with all your heart and Love others as yourself.

 

 

I'll give you a story to illustrate what I'm talking about here:

There was this man who promised to love God.  He prayed to God and asked Him, "how can I serve thee?"  God replied to him, "I want you to move that mountain."  The man thought that was impossible but because he has faith in God, he got up early in the morning and after praying went out to push on the mountain.

 

The mountain did not move.

 

He asked God again, "I don't know if I understood you correctly, do you really want me to move the mountain?"  And God replied, "Yes."

 

So he woke up again the next morning and from sun-up to sun-down pushed on the mountain.

 

The mountain did not move.

 

He did this for a week and the mountain did not move.  He goes to his knees in prayer and plead with God, "This is an impossible task you gave me.  I can't move the mountain."  God replied, "Trust me."

 

And because his faith is strong, he continued to push on the mountain from sun-up to sun-down for a whole year...

 

... And the mountain did not move.

 

So, finally, in despair, he cries to God, "I have lost my faith!  Surely there is no God!".  So God rebuked him, "I simply asked you to move the mountain.  I did not promise you that you will succeed in moving it.  But look at your arms, they are big and strong and can carry big loads.  Look at your legs, they have grown to be as strong as tree trunks.  You have changed into a healthy and strong man that can be of great service to others.  Now go and serve others."

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Guest MormonGator

OP-

Don't get me wrong, faith isn't easy. My former bishop is a wonderful man (my current one is too!) who said, "We (the church) are all sinners. We all have private struggles with doubt and sin." He was exactly right. 

 

My favorite theologian is a man named Reinhold Niebuhr. One of his best quotes (and my goodness, there are so many of them) was "Frantic orthodoxy is rooted not in doubt, but in faith. It is when you are not sure that you are quite sure." 

 

Doubt is normal. Just try not to close the door 100%. Leave it slightly open and you'll never know what could happen. 

Praying....

Edited by MormonGator
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Guest LiterateParakeet

Bk, I'll send you a PM, don't give up.   I once thought I had lost my faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus too, and no I didn't "give up" my faith, or have any lack there of.  

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Nothing we say will change that. Really. And we know it. But at least we tried.

Actually it was your comment that just really hit the nail on the head. You say I want God to submit to my will, very much not the case. As I said before in the original post I want to do his will ever so much, and I wanted to do all these things. But it was the promises of people from church to endure and endure that doesn't make sense. So how can I give my all to Heavenly Father, sacrifice my family and friends and follow him. And for all he can see I do for him, the least I could ever receive would just be a sense of peace that he is there. A sense of hope or something. No, time and time again, keeping my head above water and never being given a lifeboat is the problem.

Your first response to lay into me with a story and judge me saying I do not know, Im trying to bend him to me and all of this. Have you heard to the story when the man says I'm waiting for God to save me? He waits and people come along? And he ignores? Well one person on this post came along and said lets talk and try and figure this out, the rest just jumped in and had a go accusing me of things before asking or trying to understand. What was needed was a helping hand, a moment of light and a sense of hope I needed and was clinging on for. I'm very grateful for the one person who just actually said "hands up, I've been there" and has thrown me the life line that is desperately needed. You did try anything! You just told me I had done wrong and my actions were wrong the same as those around me. So right now there really isn't a point in trying to fight for 'faith' where people almost force the wrongs on you and the adversary instantly before they help their fellow brothers and sisters of the church

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I am 38yrs old (born n raised mormon) and have a strong testimony of the gospel and faith in HF/JC.

 

- at 14 I had an internal knee injury (sports) in which I prayed and the pain dissapeared the next day.

- at 18 I was comforted with a warm blanket of the holy ghost and felt its warmth and light through my whole body

- at 19 in the mission field I had another warm blanket holy ghost feeling

- at 26 in the hospital on the day of my childs birth i felt the holy ghost again

- at 31 a few days after my grandfathers passing he visited me in a dream and simply said "you know what to do"

 

dont live life looking for signs but live life and pay attention to the signs that are all around you.

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I've been a member for a year today and it's been one of the hardest years ever. But right now the problem I face is that I just don't have a testimony of Jesus Christ and God, I feel scared and lost and actually just feel very let down.

 

Please do not allow the discouragement to drag you down. You joined the Church because you felt very deeply that God wanted you to do that. You were right.

 

If you have "lost" your testimony, don't despair. You can find it again. It's not gone, it's been misplaced. Let your fellow Saints help you.

 
I did my best to be the best I could be, I was a counsellor for FSY and I did all I could to keep to the commandments. But bit by bit I just realised that actually no matter how much I tried, cried or prayed they both just were not there. I told myself over and over that sometimes paitence is the key, there are lessons in life we must learn so maybe I was being tested in my faith. But there was no end to it at all.

 

Friend, the challenges of life never end. That is what life is for. The gospel teaches us how to overcome those challenges, not to avoid them. (Except for the challenges we bring on ourselves because of wicked behavior; the gospel does teach us to avoid those challenges.)

 

If you thought the gospel would end your challenges, you were mistaken. it's like the joke about the new bride saying to her mother, "Oh, Mama, now that I'm getting married, all my problems are at an end!" To which the mother replies, "You just don't know which end."

 
I prayed with all my heart to meet someone in the gospel and start a relationship, I prayed to healed from my illnesses and I prayed to not be sent back home after univertsity because my life here is awful. I watched numerous amounts of friends this summer up until last month recieve all of these blessings and even though he knew how much my heart ached and how much those things meant to me, he went against EVERYTHING he stands for. "God will never leave or foresake you! God is the same yesterday, today and forever! He knows you from when you were in the womb! He knows all hearts!" all these scriptures that actually don't mean a thing. None of them apply to me and I'm so hurt and have lost faith in him.

 

So what you are saying is, unless God gives you what you want or expect, you refuse to have faith in him. But this is backward. Having faith in God means that you will trust him to do what is in your best interest.

 

God is not Santa Claus. God is the Almighty. Please don't confuse the two.

 
I wasn't able to go on a mission because I was ill and after that I started seeing a none member. For me now, I just feel like even though I can always be forgiven of my sins and the things I have done. I don't want to go back. It brought me nothing but disapointment and heartache being in the church and I did all I could. I could bearly afford to do a food shop, but paid my tithe and nothing. I lived all the commandments and nothing, nothing at all.

 

I don't mean to offend, but I think your expectations were out of line.

 

Consider the Saints living after Jesus' death, the ones Peter wrote to. They were being terrorized and were under immediate threat of death. So what did Peter, the leader of Christ's Church, tell them? Basically, he told them to be brave and die like men, and that this life was a miserable little charade anyway. He told them that God loved them and would take care of them -- even though they, and their wives and their children, were under threat of being massacred.

 

God wants those valiant in their testimony of him, and he gives his Saints opportunities to prove themselves. He offers blessings beyond measure to those who love him and trust in him. So love God. Trust in him. He hasn't asked you to suffer cruel death in defense of his name. He has asked you merely to be patient and wait on him.

 
The reason why I write all of this is because I just think it's best to leave the church. I think it's best to just stop going and pretending that things are going to be great, that I'll find someone and be sealed in the temple and things will be great. My heart is constantly broken by the empty promises of the Lord and his son and I cannot do it anymore.

 

This is your right, brother. You are an agent and are allowed to act as you see fit. But I urge you to reconsider.

 
As much as I love the teachings of the church and everything that comes with it. I am not someone who the Lord loves at all, I've seen enough evidence of it.

 

You are wrong. You have neither the right nor the insight to deny the Lord's love. Your problem is that you think that the Lord's love means your problems all go away. But that's not right. What the Lord's love mostly means is that he will make you strong enough to overcome your problems, or if need be, to bear them.

 

Don't go. Please reconsider your decision.

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