Dry faith, don't feel loved by God, don't feel anything

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I’d stop intellectualising, God cannot be fathomed.

Ask and you will receive.

Keep asking for your faith to be increased daily…then be aware

God works through all media.

God is real.

🙏
 
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In today’s readings of the Responsorial Psalms:
“Trust in the LORD and do good,
that you may dwell in the land and be fed in security.
Take delight in the LORD,
and he will grant you your heart’s requests.”
 
Excellently stated!!! That is why I often send people the poem “Buttprints in the Sand.”
 
I’ve felt that on and off for a long time. Peggy Lee sang a song titled, “Is That All There Is” and it describes my feelings quite well. There are times I don’t feel loved by God or anyone else and the loneliness all but overwhelms me.
I just continue to pray and hope.
 
Faith isn’t a feeling, it’s a response to God.

Our sonship/daughtership in our Father God is all you need to bouy yourself through these moments of dryness.

Nothing changes…God became our Father through Baptism. Feelings don’t matter. The REALITY of our filiation to God is all that matters.

It can’t change even if we sin. This truth is unchanging and it “exists” outside of our feelings about it.

The reality (knowledge in our intellect) of our Baptism can make us always joyful. We are loved infinitely by God Our Father.

By falling back on feelings…we’re essentially saying “our adoption” wasn’t enough for us…Jesus dying on the Cross wasn’t enough for us…my feelings are more important in my life than Your gifts to me.

The first and most important gift that we have ever and will ever receive is our Baptism which made us adopted sons or daughters of God. Our adoption, of course, is a perfect adoption. God does not half-adopt us; He fully and perfectly adopts us. Through our Baptism, God made it possible for us to share in his divine Trinitarian life.
This knowledge of the reality of our adoption should keep us buoyant and ever joyful, especially when the going gets rough. God is truly with us. We are children of a loving Father God, Who very much seeks always to take great care of us. What security, what joy!
• Do I frequently reflect upon my Baptism? Do I thank God for my adoption?
• Do I know its date? Do I quietly celebrate my Baptism and the Baptism of my family members?
• Do I draw upon the infinite graces that God set aside for me when I was first Baptized? They are still there for our taking each day, and they will be available to us until the day we die.
 
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or agnsotic insomniac dyslexia- staying up all night wondering if there is a dog.
 
God doesn’t have to condemn people to hell. They do so all on their own. The only thing they have to do to gain eternal life is say, “Sorry God. I screwed up. I’ll do things your way and stop being obstinate. I want God in my life.” How hard can it be? Just give in. You know who’s boss.
 
yammerGee said:
I feel miserable. I’ve always had a dry faith life. I never “feel” anything when praying. My faith has always been intellectual. But now that is failing me too, as I find it increasingly hard to accept the existence of a loving God.
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I am sorry to hear you are going through this. I agree with much of what other posters here have already stated. Taking the focus off yourself and refocusing on others is an excellent way to get back into the life of active faith. I would caution, however, against going to homeless shelters or soup kitchens to do this. Having spent the past twenty-eight years working for the Department of Social Services, I can attest to the fact that frustration, overwork and early burnout are virtually guaranteed if you go into a situation, with little experience, where you are serving the faceless masses. I would suggest, instead, looking closer to home. Is there a friend, neighbor or relative who is disabled or in some other way needy, that could use your help? This might be a better way to go.

Mother Teresa was, of course, a strong example for us all of ‘faith in action’. However, after her death, an examination of her diaries revealed that, for the last forty-nine years of her life, she had been walking blindly in spiritual darkness. She had lost her faith in a loving God, and even became unsure of Christ’s existence. Yet, she continued to live her life of service in the way she thought God would want, this God in whom she no longer believed. Apart from the ineffable heroism of this way of living, it also demonstrates that strong faith and belief are not prerequisites for serving others who are in need. Such a life may even have the potential to restore your faith with renewed vigor, and bring you to a stronger belief than you had before your crisis. Please consider this carefully. God bless you, my friend. I am praying for you. ❤️
 
Lara said:
God doesn’t have to condemn people to hell. They do so all on their own. The only thing they have to do to gain eternal life is say, “Sorry God. I screwed up. I’ll do things your way and stop being obstinate. I want God in my life.” How hard can it be? Just give in. You know who’s boss.
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When you put it that way, it makes God sound like an abusive parent. Just…ick.
 
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I don’t get your comment. What is abusive about God being the boss? He built the place. We are His followers. Explain.
 
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God has manifested Himself over and over. We know exactly what we need to do, but we keep looking for an easier path.

Not only was Jesus the mouthpiece of God, He also died for us.

I don’t get your lack of clarity.
 
I heard one preacher put it this way. What do you see when you look at the cross? Do you see your sin? And sure, it is quite right that you should. But when you look at the cross, you should also see your value to God. Jesus on the cross is the most extravagant expression of love to each one of us that any of us have ever received or will ever receive. Each one of us is extravagantly and obsessively loved by God. That is simply a fact, and while it is nice to feel that it is true, not feeling it does not make it any less true.
 
yammerGee said:
Why is God so silent?
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Fight!..

Anything worth having has been at the long end of a struggle. I had to fight for my faith, i had to fight for understanding, and you will if you really want it.

People say they want to understand God, a being that is for the most part beyond our comprehension, yet not many want it enough to fight for it.
 
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I’m not going to fault you for being assailed by temptation.

When Our Lord went into the desert and was tempted by the devil, how did that go?
" And a voice came from the heavens, saying, “This is my beloved Son." Matt. 3:17
Then out into the desert he goes…
How was he tempted?
“If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread.”
“If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you’ and ‘with their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’
"All these I shall give to you, if you will prostrate yourself and worship me.”

When someone is pleasing to God, the tempter’s strategy is to raise doubts. It doesn’t mean the person exposed to the doubts has been weak or unsatisfying or has strayed. The psalms are full of this; we live in a vale of tears, and God understands.
 
From C.S. Lewis (in parts…)

MY DEAR WORMWOOD,

So you “have great hopes that the patient’s religious phase is dying away”, have you? I always thought the Training College had gone to pieces since they put old Slubgob at the head of it, and now I am sure. Has no one ever told you about the law of Undulation?

Humans are amphibians—half spirit and half animal. (The Enemy’s determination to produce such a revolting hybrid was one of the things that determined Our Father to withdraw his support from Him.) As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation—the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks. If you had watched your patient carefully you would have seen this undulation in every department of his life—his interest in his work, his affection for his friends, his physical appetites, all go up and down. As long as he lives on earth periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty. The dryness and dulness through which your patient is now going are not, as you fondly suppose, your workmanship; they are merely a natural phenomenon which will do us no good unless you make a good use of it.

To decide what the best use of it is, you must ask what use the Enemy wants to make of it, and then do the opposite. Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks; some of His special favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else. The reason is this. To us a human is primarily food; our aim is the absorption of its will into ours, the increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. But the obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself—creatures, whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in, He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; He is full and flows over. Our war aim is a world in which Our Father Below has drawn all other beings into himself: the Enemy wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct.
(cont)…
 
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(cont…)
And that is where the troughs come in. You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. But you now see that the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to over-ride a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve. He is prepared to do a little overriding at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. But He never allows this state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs—to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. We can drag our patients along by continual tempting, because we design them only for the table, and the more their will is interfered with the better. He cannot “tempt” to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger, than when a human, no longer desiring, but intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.

But of course the troughs afford opportunities to our side also. Next week I will give you some hints on how to exploit them,

Your affectionate uncle

SCREWTAPE’

By posting this, I mean to say that you are not alone, you are not a bad Catholic, and you do have very good reason to stick in there even though this time is very hard on you.
 
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yammerGee said:
  • Praying is painful. I have to constantly reassure myself that someone’s actually listening.
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Have you tried silent prayer? No words, just attentive listening, being available. Yes, it is boring. But I believe God is subtle. God is present within that deep silence, within the heart. Sometimes it feels as though most of our spirituality is about convincing ourselves God is there and our teachings are true. Many of us need more than, “because the Church teaches, Because the Bible says so”. If God is here God mus also be accessible. I think we are too distracted and to involved and focused on the practical things in our lives.
 
Thank you all again for your replies and kindness. I was expecting maybe 3 or 4 when I first posted this, certainly not 40 😍 - and that has brought me some joy.

I’ve pondered all your replies and will continue to re-read them. At least for starters I’m going to look into the writings of St. John of the Cross, and silent prayer too. And volunteering, not just out of charity/take my mind off this but I think just being able to do something tangible and useful will do me some good.
 
Very similar to how I have been feeling lately. It doesn’t matter if I volunteer to help others because it’s not really about me, I wonder about others who are like me, seeking for years in earnest and anguish with terrible outcomes and no comfort and not a sliver of hope they can hold onto.

I posted this earlier. Yesterday I saw a photo of children on their way to a death sentence going to a concentration camp. All of a sudden I thought, surely there were mothers there who sought the Lord all their lives who prayed for a way out, who prayed their babies would not be taken from them.

This dark thought (a reality nonetheless) made me feel sick when I thought of my own prayers for my children. Would Jesus whom I love who allows atrocities for reasons beyond my mind answer my prayers for safety for my children. That awful moment where everything seemed like chance instead.

I’ve sought God for years and although MUCH closer to Him than ever before, still that photo lingers as I try to reconcile it to my own motherly prayers, to my faith and my trust in Jesus. I’ve even gotten to the point where I’ve said “Jesus, you know I’ve done all I can to understand and have more faith, if I’m still stuck perhaps it’s because Youre leaving me here, how can I build more faith if it is a gift”.
 
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