How would you respond to someone who believes God doesn't love him?

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DeniseNY

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Title kind of says it all. How would you direct someone who trruly believes that God doesn’t love him? He’s at a point where he doesn’t want to go to church as he doesn’t think God wants him there (or cares that he shows up). The only thing he’s sure of is that God wants to hurt him, and punish him. He’s in a really bad place spiritually. Counseling is probaably best, but I’m not sure he would readily go.
 
Honestly, that sounds like serious, major depressive issues.

I think that really, your only valid avenue for his own safety is to do what you can to encourage him to seek professional help.

You may not be able to help with any words of wisdom at this point, and quite frankly I’d be concerned about his physical saftey unless there are other mitigating things that we do not know.
 
Can you share the age of the person approximately,Denise? Child,teen,adult…
 
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Thank you,Denise.
I agree with Xantippe. …The fact he thinks God wants to hurt him and punish him is difficult to handle…Why would He?
I d ask for help too. A priest,a counsellor.or even a doctor first .
 
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The question needs a bit more information. I would say he may need to go to confession. He may also have some issues feeling love from his earthly parents.

I find it very difficult to feel love from others. But it helps to love others and then hope they sometimes feel love for you. It’s just difficult because people are always letting you down, so how can you feel loved?
 
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Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta
I Thirst for You - A Prayer based on words by Our Lord Jesus Christ to Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta
It is true. I stand at the door of your heart, day and night. Even when you are not listening, even when you doubt it could be Me, I am there: waiting for even the smallest signal of your response, even the smallest suggestion of an invitation that will permit Me to enter.
I want you to know that each time you invite Me, I do come always, without fail. Silent and invisible I come, yet with a power and a love most infinite, bringing the many gifts of My Spirit. I come with My mercy, with My desire to forgive and heal you, with a love for you that goes beyond your comprehension. A love in each detail, so grand like the love I have received from My Father “I have loved all of you as the Father has loved me…" John 15:10
I come longing to console you and give you strength, to lift you up and bind all your wounds. I bring you My light, to dispel your darkness and all your doubts. I come with My power, that allows me to carry you: with My grace, to touch your heart and transform your life. I come with My peace, to calm your soul.
I know you like the palm of my hand. I know everything about you. Even the hairs of your head I have counted. Nothing in your life is unimportant to Me. I have followed you through the years and I have always loved you even when you have strayed. I know every one of your problems. I know your needs and your worries and yes, I know all your sins. But I tell you again that I love you, not for what you have or ceased to do, I love you for you, for the beauty and the dignity My Father gave you by creating you in His own image. It is a dignity you have often forgotten, a beauty you have tarnished by sin. But I love you as you are, and I have shed My Blood to rescue you.
If you only ask Me with faith, My grace will touch all that needs changing in your life: I will give you the strength to free yourself from sin and from all its destructive power. I know what is in your heart, I know your loneliness and all your wounds, the rejections, the judgments, the humiliations, I carried it all before you. And I carried it all for you, so you could share My strength and My victory.
I know, above all, your need for love, how much you are thirsting for love and tenderness. Yet, how many times have you desired to satisfy your thirst in vain, seeking that love with selfishness, trying to fill the void within you with passing pleasures, with the even greater emptiness of sin. Do you thirst for love? "Come to Me all you who thirst …” (John 7:37). I will satisfy you and fill you. Do you thirst to be loved? I love you more than you can imagine … to the point of dying on a cross for you.
 
continued
I THIRST FOR YOU. Yes, that is the only way to even begin to describe My love for you. I THIRST FOR YOU. I thirst to love you and to be loved by you. So precious are you to Me that I THIRST FOR YOU.
Come to Me, and I will fill your heart and heal your wounds. I will make you a new creation and give you peace even in your trials.
I THIRST FOR YOU.
You must never doubt My mercy, My desire to forgive, My longing to bless you and live My life in you, and that I accept you no matter what you have done.
I THIRST FOR YOU.
If you feel of little value before the eyes of the world, it doesn’t matter. There is no one that interests me in the whole world than you.
I THIRST FOR YOU.
Open up to Me, come to Me, thirst for Me, give me your life. I will prove to you how important you are for My Heart. Don’t you realize that My Father already has a perfect plan to transform your life, beginning from this moment? Trust in Me. Ask Me every day to enter and take charge of your life and I will. I promise you before My Father in Heaven that I will work miracles in your life. Why would I do this?
Because I THIRST FOR YOU.
All I ask of you is that you entrust yourself to Me completely. I will do all the rest. From this moment, now, I behold the place My Father has prepared for you in My Kingdom. Remember that you are a pilgrim in this life travelling back home. Sin can never satisfy you, or bring the peace you seek. All that you have sought outside of Me has only left you more empty, so do not tie yourself to the things of this world; above all, do not run from Me when you fall.
Come to Me without delay because, when you give Me your sins, you give Me the joy of being your Savior. There is nothing I cannot forgive and heal; so come now, and unburden your soul. No matter how far you have strayed without a destination, no matter how often you have forgotten Me, no matter how many crosses you bear in this life; I want you to always remember, one thing that will never change.
I THIRST FOR YOU - just you, as you are.
You don’t need to change to believe in My love, for it will be your confidence in that love that will make you change. You forget Me, and yet I am seeking you every moment of the day – standing before the doors of your heart and calling. Do you find this difficult to believe?
If so, look at the Cross, look at My Heart that was pierced for you. Have you not understood My Cross? Then listen again to the words I spoke there, for they tell you clearly why I endured all this for you:
“…I THIRST” (John 19: 28)

YES, I THIRST FOR YOU.
 
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As the rest of the psalm I was praying says of Me: “… I waited uselessly for compassion, I waited for someone to console me and I did not find it.” (Psalm 69: 20). All your life I have been desiring your love. I’ve never ceased searching for your love and longing to be loved by you in return. You have tried many things in your goal to be happy. Why not try opening up for Me you heart, right now, more than you ever have before?
When you finally open the doors of your heart and you finally come close enough, you will then hear Me say again and again, not in mere human words but in spirit: "No matter what you have done, I love you for your own sake. Come to Me with your misery and your sins, with your problems and needs, and with all your desire to be loved. I stand at the door of your heart and call… Open to Me, for I THIRST FOR YOU… "
"Jesus is God, therefore His Love and His Thirst are infinite. He, the Creator of the universe, asked for the love of his creatures. He has thirst for our love … These words: “I THIRST” … Do they echo in our soul?
 
He’s been talking a lot lately about how, outside of his immediate family, he’s never felt like he belonged or was accepted. He’s dredging up stuff from childhood- being called names, beat up by other kids… he thinks those were signs that God set him up as a loser and lesser than everyone else. It’s sad to listen to him. He’s hurting a lot
 
The poor hurt little boy inside needs to be healed…bless his heart…I hope he will be soon. I know what it’s like to believe God hates you and created you only to torture and punish you for kicks. It’s awful. Bless his heart, really.
 
DeniseNY said:
he thinks those were signs that God set him up as a loser and lesser than everyone else. It’s sad to listen to him. He’s hurting a lot
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Hi DeniseNY. I’m going through the exact same thing with someone I know. I literally cry when I talk with him. I don’t know what to say as well. I do know that I felt that God didn’t love me for most of my life. Then God took my depression away immediately after I prayed to him to help me and that I couldn’t live that way anymore. When I tell my friend what happened to me he just says “well that works for you but not for me.” He has no desire to reach out to God at all.

Maybe there is nothing we can say to such people. I just pray to God to help him in God’s way. Just yesterday God told me to call my friend and leave a message. I did. My friend did not return my call nor did I expect him to. God is working with me, I know it.

Pray to God for him and God will lead you in your actions to your friend.
 
With love.

Could you teach him the beatitudes, especially the last two, and show him the image of Jesus as a suffering servant in Mark’s Gospel?
 
It’s also possible you need to ask him to hone in on what his purpose is. The more focus he has on the future, the less he will have on the past. Personally, I don’t think it’s good to dredge up all the past hurts. So many people have been hurt as young people in many cruel ways. He mustn’t let his past define him, but move forward. He doesn’t want to be remembered as the poor slug who never felt he belonged. I actually believe reciting your wounds can be an excuse so that you don’t have to tackle life’s problems, but instead can just stew on the past. I’m sure the people who recommend counsellors will not agree with me. Facing onslaught.
 
DeniseNY said:
He’s been talking a lot lately about how, outside of his immediate family, he’s never felt like he belonged or was accepted. He’s dredging up stuff from childhood- being called names, beat up by other kids… he thinks those were signs that God set him up as a loser and lesser than everyone else. It’s sad to listen to him. He’s hurting a lot
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Have you ever heard of Conrad Baars?

He’s a highly educated, extremely competent and is 100% Catholic.

https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Healing-Emotions-Conrad-Baars/dp/0882709666

If he does nothing else, reading this may help him get some peace. This is well-respected psychologist who supported fully Catholic teaching in face of peers who rejected all Catholic reasoning.
 
He NEEDS psychological help and many prayers.

Jesus GOD became a mortal human being to Show and PROVE His Love for HIM.

So what has he done to SHOW his Love for God?

It’s a “two-way” street

God Bless you,
Patrick
 
Thank you, everyone. I appreciate all of your thoughtful responses. I have not talked to him today (other than to just check in and see if he was ok - he said he was), but I do plan on discussing some of the very helpful suggestions from here.
 
he has a lot of healing to do before anyone will be able to get through

I think he is currently in the common state of mind what many people have where they think if God loves us, then he will intervene and stop anything bad from ever happening to us. it’s not so much that God made him a loser but a misuse of free will by the other people who bullied him.

Depends on your relathinship with this person, probably seeing a priest or counsellor is best, reading up on the lives of the saints, if you are not that close, then just pray for him
 
Hello.

Is this person suicidal? If so, I’d suggest immediate medical intervention.

How about Confession? Has this person been to confession lately?

Otherwise, I’d suggest being there for this person, showing them extra kindness, giving them some unexpected gifts, and praying for them, and maybe leaving some solid, spiritual books around. This is when a person really needs a friend.

Just my two cents…
 
I wrote a couple of prayer things at one time, as I know how it feels. I’ve not always had the best self -image, and there’ve been times I wondered if He cared. Like anyone, lots of tough times in life. I’ll share the prayers, for whatever they’re worth…probably not not relevant help:

‘Love others…as yourself’

Jesus when You command us to love others as ourselves, You require something more challenging than simply to “love others.” The embedded touchstone in that command is “love your self.” Help us therefore not to be uncharitable to ourselves.

Many people lack proper self-esteem, making it difficult for them to genuinely value others. However, Scripture exhorts, “value yourself at your proper worth. Who can justify a man who runs himself down, or respect a man who despises himself.” [Ecclesiasticus 10:28-29] If we do fail to love ourselves correctly, we cannot accept God’s love. Let us never imagine ourselves hidden from Your mercy: ‘“Can anyone hide in a dark corner without my seeing him?’ asks the Lord.” [Jeremiah 23-24]

The concept of rightly loving oneself in order to love others as God’s precious children may be confused with the selfishness that ruins unselfish self-love. It requires us to reject negative self-talk and responses. “If a man is mean to himself, to whom will he be good?” [Ecclesiasticus 14:5].

Growth in Christian self-love is facilitated by “filling your mind with everything that is true, everything that is noble, and everything that is pure and good” [Philippians 4:8] and serving “in works of love.” It is allowing the Spirit to direct your life and then “you will be in no danger of yielding to self-indulgence. What the Spirit brings is…love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control.” [Galatians 5:13, 16, 26, 22-23]

Jesus, help us to fittingly love ourselves. You do not wish us to disparage ourselves but to see ourselves as loved, forgiven children of God. A poor self-image may compare to our perception of ‘clouds’. To observers, clouds appear to be impressive, substantial and tangible. However, within themselves the clouds seem damp, insubstantial and misty.

Jesus, let us not belittle ourselves in comparison to others because of our personal uncertainties and inadequacies. Let us live in sincere acceptance of self, that unique gift of Your creative love. help us to see ourselves as loved children of God. Jesus, help me to know that You really love me so that I can love You and love others truly.
 
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