How do you trust God and have peace?

[Elena321]

I’m not sure if this is the right section for posting this but

How do you trust God?
Is it God or Jesus your meant to trust or does it not matter which?
How do you believe-let alone trust-someone your doubting exists?
I’m starting to think maybe belief of Jesus is a man made concept which people unknowingly create to help them with difficult situations/to make meaning out of suffering etc…
It seems to me maybe I’m only Catholic because I was raised Catholic and if I was raised Muslim(for example) I’d believe in Muslim teachings etc…
I’ve never really had a “true” belief in God,I just had a cognitive belief due to reasoning “well something must have created all that exists in nature because it’s too good and organised to just have happened randomly”
What is the feeling of peace that Christians talk about,is this an emotional state or a spiritual state or what please?
I’ve never felt this peace,including in Church,maybe it’s cause I’ve done mortal sins and I can’t make myself actually care about God?
At the same time,I dont think I ever felt it.

 

[pianistclare]

For me, I don’t believe people can ever come to know God without even having prayerfully entered into a conversation with Him.
If you want to have God draw near to you, draw near to Him.
Visit him in the Church. Pray before the Tabernacle, and then simply listen. Amid the peace and stillness, the quiet, the candles flickering, and the of doubt will slowly give way to a feeling of love. If you allow it. God never forces Himself on anyone. If people expect big miracles, showy sign, and the like, they are likely going to be disappointed.

Myself, I trust God. I don’t feel I can do otherwise and call myself Catholic.
I believe with all my heart that He desires me to be happy, to thrive, and to grow in holiness. I realize too, that it will be difficult at times, and will not come without trials and tests. I trust that He will not put me through anything that we can’t handle together.
It’s a matter of humility. I don’t expect to understand everything about Him. I just want to have a relationship with Him. I’m open to it. And I feel His blessing each day.

This Advent, I have received a special blessing every single day. Every single day. Something unexpected and wonderful.

I don’t know what’s up with that, but I’ll take it. I keep telling God He is too good to me…but He keeps on. I’m not rich, I’m struggling to make house payments, my children and husband are unemployed, but I receive many blessings nonetheless. God shows me He is close.

I’ll pray that some of the great people here will recommend some good spiritual reading for you. That will be a good place to start. God bless.
I hope this Christmas is spiritually fulfilling for you.

 

[PennyinCanada]

I think our trust can be cultivated. We can trust God a little bit, but as the years go by, we can grow in trust.

I used to sit and pray, make myself very quiet in my heart. That can take effort on some days. Then I asked God to tell me something, pick a scripture for me, and I’d wait on that. I would open my bible, decide which page left or right, slowly run my finger down, all without looking. Decide to stop. Read the passage. Tell God what it makes me thing of, what stands out, who I relate to most in the reading. Then I started to realize as I went about my week things would happen that would make me think Gee, that reminds me of the reading I did on Sunday. After some time I realized God was with me in my todays, had my tomorrows in his mind. I could learn to trust in little things. Peter stepped out of the boat and walked on water, but not on his first day with Jesus. He saw some things that made him think wow, heard Jesus speak. It’s like exercise. You don’t start lifting the big weights right away, you start small and let your muscles adapt. A year later you see how far you’ve come along. One step at a time.

 

[JamalChristophr]

I agree with what has been already said.

I would add,

Go out of yourself and seek the face of Christ in your neighbor. Move out of your comfort zone and give something to Christ in the distressing disguise of the poor. If you live in an urban place, the next time you see a homeless person, try hard to see Christ in that person. Do something to begin to give more and more of yourself- even in the smallest of things- to your neighbor little by little doing it out of Love for Christ.

Let go of the things that you cling to most dearly by your own effort and asking for help in prayer. Tell God: “It all belongs to you Lord. May your will be done in me and the circumstances of my daily life.” Somehow we have to begin to let go of trying to control everything, surrender the outcomes to do, and truly mean it when we say, Your Will Be Done!

God Bless.

 

[John_Martin]

Elena,
It takes “singleness of heart”. When you love many things, and think of God as one of the many things, or think of God as someone who might help provide the many things to you, you are a divided person, one day loving one thing most, the next day loving another thing most. But God requires your whole heart: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength”.

God created you to be his friend and to be one with him, but not one with all the other things you find you love when you experience them. Food is for nourishing your body to keep it healthy and able to learn of God and aid others in learning to know God. It is not for satisfaction and feeling that life is full and complete when you eat overly well. The same with everything else that we hunger for.

The other posters encourage you to practicing prayer. This is not just because you know God, but in order to become familiar with the Lord. We do not know him “naturally”, but are taught who he is. Ask yourself, “Why did the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray?” Why indeed? The were Jews; surely they already prayed…?? He told them, “When you pray, pray like this (repeat after me), ‘Our Father…’” He was showing them how to become familiar with God, and who God was to them (their Father), And this means he was also showing them who they were (Sons of God). Right now, you perhaps feel you are a person of the world, trying to figure out who or what this thing called God is that everyone says they have peace from. But if you ask and learn to pray, you will come to know something different about who you really are as a Catholic, that you are in the world, yes, but you are not of the world; instead you are from your Father.

Learn to pray and practice it: softvocation.org/2014/01/25/prayer/

 

[Aloysium]

I’m not sure if this is the right section , . . I’ve never felt this peace,including in Church,maybe it’s cause I’ve done mortal sins and I can’t make myself actually care about God?
At the same time,I dont think I ever felt it.

I hear God calling you. Whether this turns out to be the “right” place, it’s a start, one of the first steps to really come to know God. Your doubts sound like a realization that you merely picked up some ideas about Him, and they are not enough. We are not satisfied just knowing about those we love; we need to engage with them. So how do we do this when it comes to God? We pray (talk with Him), we contemplate what He has revealed (as lovers do) about Himself. In addition to sources such as forums and blogs (check out Fr Barron), there of course is scripture itself and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Participate in the mass and sacraments. Behave charitably towards others and yourself. Let us all pray for one another that we will grow in love.

 

[GaryTaylor]

By believing Him then finally practicing correctly worshiping Him. All everyone wants is inner peace, and for some its hard to obtain and even harder to keep. The inner peace comes from trusting the Lord. In essence you are contemplating your own morality. For Christ it was a matter of entering the physical world in time and God putting on the flesh in the world to show the value of the world-flesh, so for man its a matter of understanding this perspective and letting go of the flesh in trusting Him in which comes inner peace through salvation. Its really an amazing paradox. You can confront this alone or with Christ, the later would be my sound advice, if any motion toward inner peace is to be achieved any time soon.

 

[God_I_Love]

I’m not sure if this is the right section for posting this but

How do you trust God?
Is it God or Jesus your meant to trust or does it not matter which?
How do you believe-let alone trust-someone your doubting exists?
I’m starting to think maybe belief of Jesus is a man made concept which people unknowingly create to help them with difficult situations/to make meaning out of suffering etc…
It seems to me maybe I’m only Catholic because I was raised Catholic and if I was raised Muslim(for example) I’d believe in Muslim teachings etc…
I’ve never really had a “true” belief in God,I just had a cognitive belief due to reasoning “well something must have created all that exists in nature because it’s too good and organised to just have happened randomly”
What is the feeling of peace that Christians talk about,is this an emotional state or a spiritual state or what please?
I’ve never felt this peace,including in Church,maybe it’s cause I’ve done mortal sins and I can’t make myself actually care about God?
At the same time,I dont think I ever felt it.

Well that faith and peace is a Gift. And it is a gift given freely. But as we are the recipients we do not know when we shall receive the regenerating Spirit of Christ. But I tell you, if you lifted you mind to God now, and prayed ‘‘Father I know I am weak in my faith. I desire to know the Truth and to experience the Joy and Peace that only you can bring. If I already have received your Spirit renew in me that which I once knew. If I have not hasten the coming of the Comforter. Hasten. In the name of Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen’’ The Lord will provide when He wills, but He will provide.