Things havent been going pretty well at all and I feel like no matter how much I pray,fast,do good works, I get no results. It hurts me to say this but I dont feel the presence of God with me. It seems like theres always a way around God not revealing himself, for instance quotes like blessed are those who believe without seeing. I know all kinds of people have their own ways of God revealing himself, but i just dont feel it. Im going through some tough times, any advice would greatly help. thank you
John, don’t worry to much, be patient and remember that loving God is more important than knowing Him, seek God for Gods sake, meaning, without any self motive, and God will reveal Himself to you,
and do not seek Him with a time limit, you have to understand that while God loves you immeasurably, He does not owe you anything, and does not need to meet your demands, which quite frankly, if He did things your way, you’d be much worse off.
however, God does not ask us to believe without reason or proof, faith is not blind belief, you just need to educate yourself,
i would recommend the writings and talks of Fulton J. Sheen -
alabamacatholicresources.com/archbishop_fulton_j_sheen.html
youtube.com/user/AFaithfulServant#g/c/291A7A1EB7543269
and this -
audiosancto.org/
God will help you, He will give you the inspiration and grace you need to grow in virtue, which includes the love and understanding that you are lacking,
but you have to do your part, do not just pray or fast or do good works, those things are not exclusively catholic practices, although they are really very good and important and necessary things to do as a catholic, but you also need to educate yourself,
and even still, knowing your faith is not enough, it’s more important to understand it, so always pray before reading, and when you don’t understand something, ask someone who you can trust to give you a good answer.
The catholic church does not ask us to believe everything we are taught without question, instead they encourage us strongly to question everything(not in a doubting way however) and to seek answers and reasons, to understand what we believe and why we believe it, and not just about our faith, but about absolutely everything,
another problem is, you want to “feel” something, but you need to understand that that can actually be a dangerous thing,
if God does not give you the consolations of “feeling” His presence, then He has very good reason,
some people are very much the type to get attached to their feelings and connect them with their love for God, when in reality, love is not a feeling, and those kinds of people end up loving the feeling more than God, so that when God withdraws those consolations, they start freaking out and thinking that God has left them and He doesn’t love them anymore, or that they are not close to Him and just don’t love Him anymore…
of course that is not always the case, but the reason it happens may simply be because they do not learn their faith properly or practice their virtues or do all of the things they need to do first.
but anyways, don’t worry about “feeling” God, worry right now about learning to love Him, because you already know He loves you, He has shown us that He loves us in many ways, but more particularly by His life and death on earth,
although you might ask,“well why should i? what will i get out of it?”
well, first of all because God loves you so much, you will never find a human being on this planet that loves you more or more selflessly, God thinks only of you, never of Himself, we owe Him everything, but what can we give Him that He has not first given us? and yet He owes us nothing, and gives so very much, even though we deserve hell, He offers us heaven,
but besides that, another thing to always keep in mind is, this life is so very short, though it doesn’t seem that way now, one of the methods many, if not all of the saints used to keep focused on their goal, was to keep death always before their eyes, always recalling the day they would leave this world,
when you think of it that way, then everything else just seems so vain and fleeting,
and the more you learn and understand about God and your faith, the more you will see the great wisdom and care behind everything,
but you have to learn and pray, God does not ask us to believe without some kind of proof, even if it isn’t visible proof, there are many things that can convince you,
but first seek to love God without reserve and without a time limit, seek to earnestly know, love, and serve Him for the rest of your life,
i really can’t tell you everything you need to know to understand why God has made things the way He has, simply because there’s not enough time, but the answers are there, and those sites i gave you will definitely help greatly.
but if you want to ask some more specific questions that you are having trouble understanding, i would be glad to try and help further.
ok? hope this helps, take care.
try to trust Him that this is part of His plan for you.