what to do when your faith disappears.

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Permalink Reply by Carl on September 27, 2010 at 4:57pm

After that last line I'm afraid to respond :)

I'm also hesitant to respond because I can identify with your disillusionment with how thoughtless (like sheep) people can be; I don't think I have enough time to give a reply that won't sound trite, so please understand I don't mean to be careless in my response.

Unfortunately you describe way too many churches these days; it's part of human nature to want to believe what we want to believe and not question it because it's more comfortable that way. And you are not alone either; there is a mass-exodus from the church because they see the lack of substantive belief (regardless of the denomination). I don't know that I can give you an answer that will knock your socks off and convince you of one thing or another, but I can identify with your frustration. One book that really helped to put things in perspective for me was "Toxic Faith" by Stephen Arteburn. It's hard to not judge a faith by the people who maintain it. Unfortunately when people get saved, many never stop being the sheep they always were, lacking discretion and proper discipleship. The Bible does say that in the end times there will be many people who will think they even did things for the Lord in His name, and he will say to them that He never knew them. I think there will be a shocking percentage of people who claim to be Christians that fall into that category. And there are many destructive behaviors and beliefs that come with them; "Don't question God", "Christians are not allowed to be sad", "If God is for me, who can be against me, so any competition or sports game that I enter, I will win." Just because you only need the faith of a child to enter the kingdom of God doesn't mean you need to stay naive like a child.
That being said, there is a smaller amount of people who have found genuine faith, and it's so real you can see it and touch it. Find those people and learn from them. I hate to do this, but I have to go; there is a bunch more I'd like to say if someone else doesn't beat me to it.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Kent on September 27, 2010 at 6:48pm

thanks for your thoughts carl, Appreciate it.

I think, well, I hope you're right about people with a genuine faith. I'm going to try and seek them out, so I can really see God in action in peoples lives.

Out of interest, why do you believe what you believe?

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Permalink Reply by Carl on September 28, 2010 at 11:25am

It comes down to this:
The Bible was written over the span of 2000+ years by (arguably) 40ish different authors, even covering a few different continents. Yet, it is amazingly complete and cohesive as one work. While there are some apparent contradictions, there are reasonable explanations for each one. The likelihood that the prophecies in the OT about the Messiah would be fulfilled by one person is something like 64 million to one. Yet the historical accounts indicate Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled every one. Other extra-biblical historical accounts reference some of the same events as the Bible without contradicting them. This document, written by men who were inspired by God, has been preserved over the thousands of years despite many attempts to destroy it. Stevo raised a good point about Israel - Did you ever wonder why it seems like every Arab nation hates Israel? Aside from the historical reasons, it has to be that way for the end times. The world will be about to pounce on Israel and God will wipe them out single-handedly.
No religion has had such a complete and thorough explanation of world history and the things to come.

A few other things I might mention:
"It seems like everything can be explained" - I am glad for that; even miracles from the Bible such as the flood can be scientifically explained as to how it could have happened (at least to the level of understanding that we have as humans). But at some point God intervened, even if it's at the molecular level. I don't believe that God just set the world in motion and left it, but I do believe he uses the physical laws he created that keeps this world together to accomplish his purpose. Perhaps you meant something less catastrophic, like someone believing that God intervened by keeping them from spilling soup on their tie. If I theorize about that my brain hurts.

Ultimately, you can search the scriptures all you want (and we should!), and try to reason all you want (and we should!) but when it comes down to it, all you need is the faith of a child. I'm not saying you shouldn't work it out, because you need to be convinced that you are right in believing what you believe, but at the end of the day, you still make that step that says "I believe God is the Great I AM and He sent His Son to die in my place so that my relationship with Him could be restored." The rest is just details.

...more to come...

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Permalink Reply by bet nich on September 27, 2010 at 4:59pm

Being in a similar place from time to time, this has helped me -

Ephesians 2:8
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – (NIV)

Faith is a gift from God - not something that has to be developed or 'pumped up'. In another place in the NT a follower asks Jesus to 'increase my faith', and the Christ basically says to use the faith that he has been given. Sometimes it's a little, sometimes it's a lot (a gift of Faith for a person or situation).

Use whatever we have, and count on God for the increase. It's a great relief to realize that this is not on me, but Him. To see someone in a similar situation, watch the movie "Signs".

I think part of the issue may be with the 'all-or-nothing' personality type, which I share to some extent. Add to that the fact that many people do NOT want to deeply delve into your questions, and that can be a recipe for disaster.

I know my greatest crisis of faith occurred when I took my eyes off God to focus on people and their flaws....

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Permalink Reply by Paul Kent on September 27, 2010 at 7:50pm

Hi Bet, thanks for your reply.

"I know my greatest crisis of faith occurred when I took my eyes off God to focus on people and their flaws...."

Firstly, I can agree with this statement. But when I reason why this might be true, I am struck by some facts.

1) When we stand in a place of Faith, it becomes a self reinforcing paradigm. ie - Our perception of reality is filtered by a belief that God is at work, so bad stuff makes us stick more closely to God and good stuff makes us glorify God. Whether or not God is actually at work, this would still be true.

2) We are called "co-workers" with christ. However, people have a habit of letting God (and God's people) down all the time. Pauls letters are all about good practice in the church, the levitical law was all about holy living.. And yet, it often seems like there's no protection mechanism for Gods people. When does God step in with sin? It used to be that you slipped up and you got frazzled. (in fact confusingly Ananias and Saphira got zapped in the new testament) I'm confused by how God can impress upon us the importance of us building the church, supporting the church and being "holy as I am holy" but not actually (this is a bit heretical, but I'll go there) be very good at making it happen. I mean, God's God right?

The flaws of individual christians is a representation of the flaws of the God they serve. This is a fact. The world knows it, but christians are so insistent on being "approachable" that they've lost all reality surrounding it.

The problem is that I"m heading quickly into legalism, but I'm struggling really to see any other way. Other than simply not believing.

3) Crisis of Faith? if faith is a gift, why does it require upkeep? Given that the human mind is so easily deluded and perplexed, how can we possibly determine "truth" from "perceived truth" unless there is an external incident that provokes it. "blessed are those that have not seen and yet believe..." isn't it ironic that jesus says this to a man who he reveals himself to. Surely, if God is real there are plenty of externally verifiable instances of his interaction with the human world. Why aren't we documenting these better? why isn't this one of the most important things in our churches?

How does "test everything" relate to the bible if I'm not allowed to ask these questions? Why are people so offended by the notion?

ok.. 'm rambling now.. I'll stop..

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Permalink Reply by Benjamin Sealey on September 27, 2010 at 5:09pm

Hi Paul,

Good post!

I can share my experience. I got "saved" when I was 17.I did have a genuine encounter with God at that time. From the point on, I got caught up in the whole church thing, leading worship, becoming a church leader etc.

To cut a very long story short, when I was 24, God confronted me, and told me very clearly and harshly that I did not KNOW Him. I did all the things of God, went through the motions (genuinely believing I was being genuine,) but yet I had no real relationship with Him. When He confronted me, (again, cutting a v.long story short,) I was faced with the realisation that my entire "ministry" up to that point was as a sham. It was based on religion, and doing what looked good. I decided to resign from every leadership position, and gave my life to just seeking Him. As I did this, I encountered Him in a massive way, that completely changed me. This was around 10 years ago. i am now pastoring, but it is different to before. Before I did the whole church thing, now I just seek God, and do what He is telling me, and doing whatever He says.

because I've been there, I can say quite honestly how much of what goes on in church is just out of religion, duty, or whatever. Very few people (at least in the UK) are really operating in God, just in feelings, presumption, or in what they want. that is unfortunately the state of the church in this country. I don't mean that in a judgemental way - believe me, I have been far worse than anything I see going on in church, but it's true.

We have to restore relationship to the people of God - everything we do has to be out of that desire for Him, out of that place of intimacy. We need to stop doing the things of God, and just do God! Out of genuine relationship, he will tell us to do things, and when we do, it will be in His Spirit, rather than our own flesh.

I'm like you - I'm an all or nothing person. If I'm going to do God, then I'm going to do it properly, passionately, and completely focused on Him. I don't want to play church, I want the genuine things of God.

Incidentally, I have spoken on this recently in Church - you can hear the MP3 here:

http://www.restorationchurch.co.uk/resources.html

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Permalink Reply by Paul Kent on September 27, 2010 at 7:54pm

Thanks Benjamin,

I listened to your sermon. All good stuff. I was quite inspired. Thanks.

I have found myself so far out of the paradigm of faith that I'm reluctant to "step back onto the merry go round" of faith in the realization that all I've ever known is hyped up "feelings". I'm not looking for feeling. I just need to know that what I've given my life for is really worth it and that the process of sorting my life out again is really worth the pain and struggle of overcoming.

If Jesus saves, nothing else matters.

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Permalink Reply by Toni on September 27, 2010 at 8:11pm

Hi Paul,

I've walked a somewhat similar path, and experienced some of what you're describing there. I don't want to talk about things here publicly, and I'm not really up to writing deep stuff when I'm tired either.

Let me tell you that what you're going through is both normal and part of 'growing up' as a Christian, including the stepping away from faith (though deep inside I suspect you know it's true still, and you'll come back). You're moving from the world of black and white - where everything you read and are told is literally true to discovering that things are much less clear-cut than many would believe.

It can be a bit shocking as you've found - that doesn't make God any less true, real or faithful, but He's also not the plain and simple God/holy slot machine that we're often taught to think He is.

Hang in there feller.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Kent on September 27, 2010 at 8:29pm

Whilst my initial reaction is "blimey that's patronising" I'm willing to accept that much of what you said is true, in fact, I really hope it is!

It seems strange asking for prayer when I'm not sure what I believe, but if it's all true, then I need all the help I can get.

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Permalink Reply by Stevo on September 28, 2010 at 2:58am

If it's a matter of proof for your faith to be strengthened, then here is what helps me:

Why do I believe? One - the world is full of evil. There has to be sense to it all and Christian belief is the most sensible. If there is evil as powerful as I've seen (and felt and practically smelled), the only way for any good to exist is if there is a greater restraining power than the evil. I'd say that's God. Two - Israel exists and all through history has been universally hated. That's very scriptural. The holocaust shows a huge outbreak of evil upon the chosen people. That's so iconic and big that I can't ignore it. Three - OT prophecy. Precisely the weeks of Daniel and the amazing accuracy of that book as it predicted the triumphal entry - down to the day.

But I suspect the real problem is sin. Not being able to break free from it will shake your faith and make you question God because we always say that He will give you victory over sin. And if you can't break free from it and stay that way, is there really a God with any power? Am I correct?

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Permalink Reply by Paul Kent on September 28, 2010 at 11:50am

Hi stevo, thanks for your thoughts.

To condense the sin thought further, I would say that in my experience there has been no experience where God has really stepped in with my sin. Let me quickly run through the things that I have previously attributed to God and how I am now seeing them.

1) Conscience = Holy Spirit.
Well, it's easy enough to attribute conscience to the holy spirit. After all, we do something wrong (sin) and we feel the spirit urging us to correct it and put it right. We feel a "seperation" from God until it is corrected.

except, it is also evident in non christians. In fact some of the most inspirationally morally good people I know are non-christian and I have known some very morally corrupt christians. The notion of good and evil exists universally outside of the concept of God and though it has a specific meaning and regulation in the "christian" world, it is naive to think that it is solely experienced within it. The problem comes when christians try and understand this because the indicator of Good and Evil is so strongly structural within the christian faith that in order to understand the argument one must suspend the "black and white"ness of the argument, which appears dangerous. (and maybe I'm proof that it is..)

The separation we feel makes perfect sense. Like when we do something naughty and we physically display signs of anxiety to our parents, boss, partner. Except imagine if there was never anything you could hide from them.. hmm. Begin Awkwardness/self inflicted sense of separation/lack of joy/peace.

2) "God will never give you a trial that you cannot bear"

This is a fairly non provable/disprovable statement. But it is a source of hope, which is fair enough

3) "we are more than conquerors through him that loved us"

and yet I'm not. and neither are the people I know well enough to know.

it's a kind of self delusion that makes us feel strong enough to combat sin, and yet keep on failing. Paul obviously felt the same with some of the things he said. Probably this really means that at the end of the day our sins are forgiven and we're set free from the eternal death of sin. But salvation is so impalpable that it's very difficult to see this as a motivation to "be holy , even as I am holy". I guess I'm not really getting it.

I understand fairly well the underlying concepts here from a theological perspective. I'm just not happy with the idea that I have to live a crummy life without experiencing the "victory" that it appears that I'm promised. It seems like most christians are happy to delude themselves and claim "victory" when in fact they are just propping themselves up daily and using psychobabble to keep themselves engaged. That doesn't seem very victorious to me. It's the same with many healings, revelations from Gods etc.

the church is so desperate for reality that it's happy to conjur up it's own and I've fallen in to that trap an awful lot.

4) God set me free from sin

I wrote a pretty powerful blog post on HMI about how I felt God helped me to overcome some habitual sin.

Looking back, I can pretty much attribute it all to positive mental thought, Using the idea of a perfect other (God in my case) to be a focus for an altruistic reaction which I could never create myself, the support from other people who had a similar problem, good advice about removing opportunity to sin etc.

They're all pretty physical/psychologically based methods. And guess what.. they eventually failed.

once again, I'm losing my train of thought, so I'll stop there...

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Permalink Reply by Stevo on September 28, 2010 at 6:29pm

I don't know if any of this helps:

CONSCIENCE = HOLY SPIRIT

This one is interesting. It gets to an important mistake I see people making all the time and I tend to agree with you. The Holy Spirit is seen as a whispering and prompting person who tells us things and guides us and convicts us. But most of His roles are corporate an sovereignly accomplished. He is here to (not comprehensive):

Comfort-John 14:16,26 - I don't often need it. But He works through others sovereignly. People need to stop looking for some "energy jet" from the Holy Spirit. Not, "I feel his comforting voice", but "Thank you God for sending John over to comfort me." We are the body of Christ, not the bodies of Christ.
Be with us forever-John 14:16 - nothing to feel here.
Lives in us-John 14:17 - Nothing to feel here.
Reminds us of Christ’s teachings-John 14:26 - The Apostles heard the teachings, He reminded them of those teachings and we have them written down.
Has testified about Jesus-John 15:26 - evangelism yesterday and today. Corporate activity.
Convicts the world of guilt-John 16:8- we don't know the world without the Holy Spirit. Revelation shows us that it's ugly, so I've always thought that it's a very invisible restraint of evil that we don't even realize because we're so used to it this way.
Guides us into all truth-John 16:13- I think this is related to the formation of the New Testament. It not only contains Jesus' teachings, but extra truth that was revealed to the apostles.
He takes from what is Christ’s and makes it known to us-John 16:14-15 - I honestly can't comment on this. Clueless at this moment.
Helps us in our weakness—Romans 8:26-27 - this can and does play out in many ways. I know too many folks who felt blessed when a teacher or musician felt at their worst. That's because it's the Spirit who is doing the ministering when we are doing our thing. I'm not strong on this point.

There have been some exceptional communications from the Holy Spirit such as Paul on the road to blindness, Agabus the prophet, Peter and so on. But most of the time, I don't see any promises of anything that you would feel or sense. In fact, I can't remember the passage, but a good conscience and maturity is said to be built upon the regular exercise of right behaviour.

MORE THAN CONQUERERS:

This statement doesn't promise that you will have victory over sin. It only promises that nothing will separate us from the Love of God - specifics being persecution in this context. On the contrary, the New Testament is full of exhortations to put away sin and put on good behavior. It seems like we need to realize that we are expected to stop this and that by whatever means.

GOD SET ME FREE FROM SIN:

AA is a good example. Accountability and mutual support is the key to killing some of these habits. What should bother you isn't whether or not you feel some power from God to kick it, but what it's doing to your eternal state - if you're sowing sin, you'll reap death.If you sow righteousness, you can reap eternal rewards so that you will have a rich entry into the Kingdom.

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