God Testing Me. How do I deal with it?

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After I had come back to the Church a few months ago, I haven’t skipped weekly Mass, I pray regularly, confess my sins, and even try to read from the Bible daily. Also, it had seemed like everything in my life kept getting better and better.

Then it all came to a massive halt on Sunday. No one I love has died or anything like that, but everything else in my life started falling apart, and it’s gotten worse every day for the last few days.

I feel like I had starting taking God’s gifts for granted. Nice things were happening to me, and while I was still thanking God daily, I think I was starting to believe that I deserved all of the good things that had been happening, and all of a sudden perhaps my worship was starting to be a little selfish. “If I continue to be a good Catholic, the good things will continue to happen to me.” See what I mean?

Anyhow, since a lot of bad things have happened to me in the last few days (to the point that I keep losing my temper and I fear a nervous breakdown is on the way) I think God is testing me. I’m trying to pray for calm and resilience, but I feel like I’m failing.

How do you all deal with similar situations?

Many thanks!

Oh, and on a similar note, I was watching South Park last night and they told the story of the Book of Job. Coincidence?
 
Go to Eucharistic Adoration. Pour your heart out to Jesus. Ask Him what is happening. Ask Him for answers. Be quiet. Listen. Calm down. Wait and see what will happen.

Do this more often than once. In fact, make it a habit to go for Eucharistic Adoration at least for one hour each week. Guaranteed your peace of mind will return regardless of the troubling things coming your way.

God bless.
 
Dear friend

God makes the sun shine and the rain fall on both the righteous and the unrighteous.

Good things happening to you are no measure of your standing with God, all things are blessings though it is not always easy to see the measure of blessing in some events in life, but all is to work to the good of your salvation and the whole of humanities salvation.

Offer up your sufferings (as well as those things you enjoy) to God that has infinite redemptive value according to His Holy Will. Bear your sufferings for Love of God and humanity. Ask the Lord to hold you up in courage and perseverance during these times and for the Blessed Virgin Mother Mary to cover you with her Blessed mantle and console you.

Pride is always the greatest ‘pain in the neck’ ‘hole in the head’ complete ‘thorn in the side’ sin we must avoid at all costs by God’s grace. We can easily be led to spiritual pride about such matters as our standing with God etc. Best to stand before God as the sinner and name ourselves as the worse sinner alive than count our benefits and name others as worse than ourselves as the Pharisee did.

You are doing just fine, those who suffer are closer to God than they can ever imagine though in that suffering it feels that we are farther from Him than when things went along swimmingly. That’s a deception of feelings and we musn’t note too much the way we feel from day to day as feelings are ever changing. We trust in the One who never changes, God.

Keep on as you are and believe God is ever closer to you in the darkest hours.

Pray to the Holy Spirit, you will find Christ’s peace and He will grant it to you despite all surrounding events.

You remain in my prayers, friend.

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa
 
Often as we grow closer to God, our spiritual enemy tries even harder to draw us away again. You are most likely encountering some spiritual battles. Just remember that God loves us, and never does anything that isn’t good for our souls.

Say often “Jesus, I trust in You,” “Mother Mary, pray for me,” “Guardian angel be at my side.”

Do you know the St. Michael prayer?:

St Michael, the archangel, defend us in battle. Protect us from the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into hell satan and all evil spirits who prowl about the earth seeking the destruction of souls.

When you begin to undergo temptations, spiritual dryness, or feelings of inadequacy, remember that these do not come from God but from the enemy. Cast all your cares upon Jesus, lay all of your burdens at His feet, and He will get you through!

God bless you.
 
Actually what all the posters so far said is good, I ought to add also that, God loves us all and knows what is best for us, I once heard a very good priest say that sometimes God allows these things to happen, just to keep us close to Him. He wants you closer, and you may call upon Him more when you are going through these things, He is just calling you closer to Him. Just trust Him, know that He is there, and keep going. (I still would have said everything #3 had said, if it hadn’t already been said)🙂
 
A very important thing to remember is that God controls the switch on sweetness, not us.

When we pray and use the Sacraments often, God gives us graces. For example, you may find you are suddenly patient when you are usually impatient. You might find yourself being charitable when you normally aren’t. Or, that you are no longer cursing when you have tried so many times to stop on your own, it just suddenly stops without effort.

These are many signs of graces. My experience with them is that they can have many purposes. Sometimes God uses them as training wheels. In my case, I’m going through a conversion process and when I saw all of these things and more happen suddenly, I knew they were graces - graces that God could take away in an instant. What I’m trying to say is that I believe he sometimes uses graces as training wheels. He shows you “how” you should behave and how wonderful the results are. Then, he may take them off for a time just to see if you have learned anything and to give you a shot at practicing yourself. Then he may restore them for a time and then take them off again.

So, I set out to learn what I could about my own behaviors while the graces were in play.

Dryness happens too. You can feel sweetness when praying, or even just have the desire to pray. Then it disappears and the prayer becomes a burden. Guess what? He’s shut the sweetness switch off to see how you react. Are you going to stay with him for another hour? This is where discipline comes in. Set time aside each day at the same time, even if it is only 15 minutes in order to pray. Do this religiously (no pun intended) regardless of how it makes you feel, because the prayer is aimed at Him. It is so much more precious to Him when it comes during dry periods.

Quite honestly, I would make an appointment and go talk to a priest. It takes much humility - something we all need to practice. Ask God to send you a grace of humility so you can talk your concerns over with the priest. Be honest about attitudes as that can really be a key for the priest to help you with.

Never fall into despair or hopelessness. They are seeds of the devil and the angel of darkness hopes that you will reject God’s love and mercy. In fact, if you bite off more than you can chew - like, suddenly pray alot after not having much prayer time, you can get dejected when you cannot meet the demands that you set forth. Maybe the bar was too high in the first place. This is where a priest can help you balance out what you should be doing so you don’t burn out.

Don’t try to be perfect, just work continuously in small steps towards perfection.
 
I’m adding my two cents for what it is worth.

I have experienced, first hand, changes I can only attribute to God in the last few months. I know this is vague but please let me pass this to you.

My sister is an alcoholic. She only admitted this a few weeks ago. Since she has done so, my father has had his boat nearly sunk, his home flooded and his golf clubs stolen (terrible, I know)! After all these earthly things all he can think about is his daughter being cured.

All I mean is, put things in perspective.

Bless you.
 
“If I continue to be a good Catholic, the good things will continue to happen to me.” See what I mean?
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I just had another thought here based on this statement of yours.

This is an example of digging deep for hidden attitudes and you found a critical one. Being a good Catholic means not only following the joyful Jesus, but the one that was crucified. Pursuit of holiness means we must take up our crosses and follow Him.

We cannot imitate Christ without the cross.

There are many crosses. It can be as simple as being tolerant and charitable towards someone in your home that has a tendency to get under your skin. It could be do do work that you must do, but don’t feel like. It could be giving up an afternoon of golf or shopping in order to visit someone who is in the hospital.

The cross also signifies acceptance. Christ accepted the authority of Pilot because Pilot got his authority from the Father. He accepted the will of the Father in being led to torture and death.

Your cross will also have pain and suffering related to your faith. As you work to live your faith, people close to you will not understand. You will need to stand up for your faith at times and it may become necessary to choose between family, friend or that faith.

Likewise with acceptance, is acceptance of church teachings - all of them - in your heart, mind and actions. This means you place total trust in the Holy Spirit to be guiding the teaching institution - the Magisterium - to guide the Church. For all of us, there are those teachings which are difficult to swallow. These too are crosses and should be beared with humility and without complaint.

With disciplined and moderated approach to the Sacraments (moderated meaning not overloading yourself suddenly), God gives graces to make these things easier. Once again, he may take them away for a time to see how you respond in the absence of that grace.
 
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Theodora:
Go to Eucharistic Adoration. Pour your heart out to Jesus. Ask Him what is happening. Ask Him for answers. Be quiet. Listen. Calm down. Wait and see what will happen.

Do this more often than once. In fact, make it a habit to go for Eucharistic Adoration at least for one hour each week. Guaranteed your peace of mind will return regardless of the troubling things coming your way.

God bless.
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:eek: A good suggestion for me as well. I’ll go as soon as I can get a ride to the adoration chapel.
 
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Jabronie:
Anyhow, since a lot of bad things have happened to me in the last few days (to the point that I keep losing my temper and I fear a nervous breakdown is on the way) I think God is testing me. I’m trying to pray for calm and resilience, but I feel like I’m failing.
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why do you think God is testing you? do you really believe that every bad thing that happens in life is a trial sent directly by God? it is true God allows the evil things that happen, and that through cooperation with His grace there will be a good outcome, but that is not the same to say that God devises these things to test us. Before you start blaming God, why not look at circumstances leading up to the unpleasant experiences of the past few days. You will probably find that a lot of it is entirely outside your control - global, national, community events and trends, downsizing, germs whatever. Some might even be traced to your own actions and choices early on. There might actually be something in all this that God is using as a sign to get your attention.

If your reaction to bad things is to get upset to the point of a nervous breakdown, while that may be a spiritual crisis it is also a psychological and health crisis and you should seek out diagnosis and treatment. That is not a normal reaction.

On the spiritual plane, it takes us sometimes a long time after we have finally yielded to a relationship with God as a loving Father to get over our own perceptions of what that relationship entails, which is often colored by our experience with our own parents and earthly authority. That agains is not only spiritual maturity but psychological maturity.

You say your conversion to this relationship is recent, so bear in mind that like all love relationships there is a honeymoon period, and then reality sets in. We are all praying for you, because we have all had to get over the phase where, like a small child, we think if only I am good, God will love me and be good to me. As today’s gospel reminds us, fathers always want good things for their children.

p.s. the idea of a South Park version of veggie tales bible stories is the most appalling thing I can think of on TV
 
Someone once told me that when we are feeling at our worst, like nothing is going our way, like we are being tested like never before, that it is really the devil trying his darndest to get our souls. In times like this, I pray and pray and pray some more. And by not “blaming God”,but rather “letting go and letting God”, I figure there isn’t too much me and Him can’t handle.
~ Kathy ~
 
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puzzleannie:
why do you think God is testing you? do you really believe that every bad thing that happens in life is a trial sent directly by God? it is true God allows the evil things that happen, and that through cooperation with His grace there will be a good outcome, but that is not the same to say that God devises these things to test us. Before you start blaming God, why not look at circumstances leading up to the unpleasant experiences of the past few days. You will probably find that a lot of it is entirely outside your control - global, national, community events and trends, downsizing, germs whatever. Some might even be traced to your own actions and choices early on. There might actually be something in all this that God is using as a sign to get your attention.

If your reaction to bad things is to get upset to the point of a nervous breakdown, while that may be a spiritual crisis it is also a psychological and health crisis and you should seek out diagnosis and treatment. That is not a normal reaction.

On the spiritual plane, it takes us sometimes a long time after we have finally yielded to a relationship with God as a loving Father to get over our own perceptions of what that relationship entails, which is often colored by our experience with our own parents and earthly authority. That agains is not only spiritual maturity but psychological maturity.

You say your conversion to this relationship is recent, so bear in mind that like all love relationships there is a honeymoon period, and then reality sets in. We are all praying for you, because we have all had to get over the phase where, like a small child, we think if only I am good, God will love me and be good to me. As today’s gospel reminds us, fathers always want good things for their children.

p.s. the idea of a South Park version of veggie tales bible stories is the most appalling thing I can think of on TV
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Thanks for the response. I wouldn’t usually consider every little bad thing as a test from God. In the case I had posted, I considered it a test because, in my youth, I was the type of person who would blame God for everything, then I left the Church for many years. Now that I had come back, everything in my life was perfect. After things took a 180, I considered it a test to make sure I wouldn’t walk away again. I passed by the way 👍
 
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