Struggling in my faith

rocknrollchuck · 2019-08-28T13:54:10+00:00

You're right: no one can convince you to have faith. And while it does take a certain amount of faith to believe, we don't have blind faith. There is plenty of evidence, both historical and archaeological, to support what is written in the Bible.

I would suggest 4 things:

Read the Bible. God's Word is powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. Start with the Gospel of John and go forward from there, and when you get to the end then start with the Old Testament in Genesis. This will give you the best basis for discovering your faith.
Pray and tell God how you feel. Tell Him you're not sure if He even exists, and ask Him to reveal Himself to you.
Read The Case for Christ, which is the best breakdown of the evidence, by interviewed experts, that I've ever read. The author started out as an atheist who set out to disprove Christianity once and for all. He ended up becoming a believer through what he discovered.
Understand the Gospel - this is where sinful man recognizes his need for God's forgiveness through what Jesus did on the cross. Most of us have heard the spiel many times before, but most have not heard it presented in this way. You may not believe it, but you will finally understand why God did it the way He did.

Feel free to ask questions if you like. My inbox is always open as well. May God bless you in your search to find Him and trust in Him!

Rifleshoot · 2019-08-28T13:53:26+00:00

Have you ever just sat down and just read the Bible like it was any other book? Starting from page one and just keep going? I was never a big church goer when I was a kid. My family was nominally Christian, but we never went to church, never really discussed the faith much. I always believed in God, but it was just a background thing for me. One day, I just decided to start reading the Bible. I had run out of other books to read, and the Bible was literally the only book I had lying around. I started reading and my faith has never been the same since. Its been many years since then, and though I don’t remember details as well, I still remember a lot of it. I think it gives you a much better appreciation of God and who He is and what He finds important. It was what really locked in my dedication to God and Christ.

Part of what’s so freeing about Christianity is the fact that I no longer have to fear death. I know my salvation lies with Christ and I have faith that He has saved me. I know that what awaits me after death is infinitely better than what this life has to offer at its peak. That offers a real sense of peace. One thing that is a refrain in the Bible are the words “don’t worry.” There’s no need to worry about what’s going to happen when you know that God is leading you. It’s when you turn from the path that He has laid out for you that you start worrying. My wife has asked me before how I’m so calm and easygoing even when things get hectic. It’s because I know that there’s nothing to worry about.

CarelessBowler5 · 2019-08-29T04:06:52+00:00

There have been many times when I identify with the dude in Mark 9:24: "I believe, help my unbelief!"

A man shared with me earlier this summer some really key advice: Read the Bible and pray, every day, and if you ask God for nothing else, ask him to fill you with the Spirit - every day.

Faith is a gift. There is no magic incantation to activate it. However, you can position yourself to be a ready recipient of God's grace. I recommend "Habits of Grace" by David Mathis to explore that more deeply. Plus all the great stuff in the RPC sidebar.

Red-Curious · 2019-08-28T15:30:41+00:00

Glad to see you here, friend. I've known plenty of guys in your shoes. The most recent was a life-long atheist who started going to small group with his wife because he was suspicious of what she was doing. He ultimately decided it was good for family bonding because he wanted to talk to her about something she was passionate about. Then he started deciding that many of the moral philosophies were worth his time, so he began serving alongside the group when they would go out and preparing for the content in advance so he was fluent enough to talk openly and engage. The fellowship itself was entertaining for him. Eventually he noticed how his internal compulsions were gradually being transformed the more he started following Christ alongside these people, even though he didn't believe in any of the Jesus stuff in the first place. He noticed that the changes happening in his life through following Scripture (even as an intentional skeptic) were more significant than the changes that happened in his life during countless runs through secular groups for things like alcoholism, a history of drug addiction, a gambling problem, etc. He noted: "Even though I don't believe it, I can't deny that there's something to this Bible thing that works that all the PhDs and professionals out there are missing."

So, he started bringing his Bible to those secular counseling groups, led by PhD trained psychologists. He really respected their intelligence, but as they would teach a counseling tactic he started saying things like: "No, I've tried that for years and it never actually worked. I've watched the men in this group try it, and we're still here." Then he'd pull out the Bible and quote a verse and say, "Then I started trying this and suddenly it worked. I'm still an atheist, but if this Bible stuff works, why aren't we using it to help more people like it helped me?" The psychologist would argue that not everyone believes in the Bible, so it wouldn't work for everyone, but that if he found value in it because of his faith then he was welcome to keep using it. Of course, he replies: "But I don't even believe in the Bible - and yet it's still working. Why not give the other non-believers here a chance?"

Now, the guys in his group were pretty desperate with how broken their lives were, so they chose to give it a shot and asked my buddy to lead a few sessions on how the Bible helped him. The psychologist wasn't okay with this, so they stuck around after the meetings to start reading the Bible with him - and that lasted for about 2 months before many of the guys reading the Bible with him (which was about 1/3 of the group) started noticing the same changes in their lives.

One of those people was so overwhelmed by the transformation that the Bible brought that the world never could that he finally asked my buddy: "I can't help but believe this now. I didn't believe, but I tried it and I was wrong. It works. How can you still see all the good that's coming from this and not believe it's true?"

That was the moment he changed his mind and realized: I guess I've actually been a believer all along, I was just too tied to my atheist identity to admit it.

I don't know if that story is helpful to you, but it's one man's journey. To finish the story, yes, he's a full-on believer now and planted a ~~church~~ congregation as a layperson (i.e. no pastors) to the homeless community in my area that his primary congregation eventually adopted and now fully funds. They've been meeting for a few years now and seeing numerous homeless in the area come to Christ.

If you want to believe, here are a few things to note ...

Don't try to persuade yourself. Logical argument can certainly persuade you toward Christ. But as easily as you are persuaded toward Christ, you can be persuaded away when a better argument on the reverse side comes up. Don't abandon logic, but remember that the boundaries of logic are higher than the boundaries of our awareness and thinking capacity. Even the best argument you've heard in your life can have a better argument on the other side that you're simply unaware of yet. In this sense, logic-ing your way into the faith creates unstable faith on sand, but logic can certainly help you understand what you believe once you're there.

Jesus tells a parable of two sons who are asked to work in their father's field. One says no, but relents and does it anyway. The other says he will, but is lazy and never goes. Who is the faithful son in this scenario? You are saying no to your Father. But are you going to follow him anyway?

It's also important to understand what faith actually is. Many people try to make it look like faith is absolute confidence. It's actually quite the opposite: room for doubt is what creates the possibility for faith, otherwise it's false knowledge. Consider:

A note is slid under your door threatening to kill you and your family. What do you do? You've got a few options:

You deny that the threat is real, treat it like a fake threat and go on your way.
You acknowledge the possibility that the threat is valid, but just don't care enough about your own life that you go on your way anyway.
You are absolutely convinced the threat is real and take measures to protect yourself by setting up security cameras, calling the cops, buying a gun/baseball bat, etc.
You have serious doubts about the validity of the threat, but you figure you'd be a fool to take chances, so you take protective measures anyway.

Which options will save you?

Yes, this is a rhetorical question. The point is simply to note that the 4th is still faith. It says: "I have no clue if this is right or wrong, but I'm going to orient my life and actions around the truth of it anyway because I'm not willing to bet my life on it."

Faith in the biblical sense can also mean: "I have no clue if Jesus is God or rose from the dead for me or not, but I acknowledge that it might be true and I'm going to orient my life and actions around it being true anyway because I'm not willing to bet my soul on it."

From there, I've had countless conversations with atheists who have told me that the "true atheist position" is not that there is no God, but that they don't know if there is a God or not, and therefore they decline to let the possibility of God affect their life. They call this agnostic atheism (as opposed to gnostic atheism, which claims to have affirmative knowledge that there is no God).

Gnostic atheism is the first option. If it turns out they're wrong, they die. The second option is nihilism, and that man still dies. The third option is blind confidence, but his confidence is placed in the right direction, even though he has no real way of knowing his belief on the matter is true, but he is saved all the same. The fourth option is faith. And such a person is saved from the oncoming threat.

There are, of course other options beyond those 4. I could add #5, for example: the man investigates the threat by looking for finger prints on the note, locating the guy, and discovering his base where you can see the weaponry he intends to use to carry out the threat, and then overhear him talking to someone about his intent to kill you. Now, technically you still don't know for sure - it could be a really elaborate prank and you're on candid camera the whole time. There's never absolute certainty of anything. But at this point you've jumped into a higher category I call "informed faith."

Faith and faithfulness are heavily linked. You're welcome to entertain doubt for any amount of time, but it is faith that compels you to live as if it is true even despite your doubts. This is what Jesus means when he says, "Blessed is the one who has not seen and yet believes." That is, blind faith is better than knowledge. But even better than blind faith is informed faith - the kind that acknowledges, "I still can't know, but I trust enough to investigate and orient my life around this and as I see the results and receive confirmation, I become more and more persuaded."

That's what my friend did throughout his story - he want from absolute rejection to nihilism (though I didn't go through that part of the story), into being the son who says "no," but does it anyway, and on to subconsciously blind faith and ultimately consciously informed faith.

2019-08-29T06:18:09+00:00

[permanently deleted]

Title	Struggling in my faith
Author	DethronedJackal
Upvotes	3
Comments	7
Date	August 28, 2019 1:34 PM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/askRPC
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/askRPC/comments/cwkw3n/struggling_in_my_faith/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/askRPC/struggling-in-my-faith.304649 https://theredarchive.com/post/304649