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Weak faith: What to do?
Most of the time I am firm and confident in my beliefs, yet sometimes I slip into periods where I begin to doubt and lose faith, and doubt more and more. These periods last for sometimes only a few hours, but even up to a week or two. After which I find my "faith" in God and the correctness of Christianity just returns as normal.
This questioning and doubt that enters into my heart upsets me as it makes me feel seperated from God, and the unsureness about Christianity makes me feel further removed from God because I begin to doubt about who He actually is in the first place. What could be causing these problems and what can I do to combat it? I thought it may have been from lack of spiritual material in my life, but I have been reading a lot of spiritua books, listening to a lot of Hymns and reading the Bible and praying more and more each night, but at moments like now I feel my faith wavering, and it feels like it is constantly being drained to the point where I don't know what to believe anymore. I try praying for God to watch over me and to help me see the Light that is in Him, but the doubts and fears still creep into my mind, such as "What if I'm wrong and I go to hell?". So, in summary: What can I do to avoid moments such as this, and what can I do to come out of moments like this once I enter them? Please pray for me all, I really need your prayers right now. Thank you.
This questioning and doubt that enters into my heart upsets me as it makes me feel seperated from God, and the unsureness about Christianity makes me feel further removed from God because I begin to doubt about who He actually is in the first place. What could be causing these problems and what can I do to combat it? I thought it may have been from lack of spiritual material in my life, but I have been reading a lot of spiritua books, listening to a lot of Hymns and reading the Bible and praying more and more each night, but at moments like now I feel my faith wavering, and it feels like it is constantly being drained to the point where I don't know what to believe anymore. I try praying for God to watch over me and to help me see the Light that is in Him, but the doubts and fears still creep into my mind, such as "What if I'm wrong and I go to hell?". So, in summary: What can I do to avoid moments such as this, and what can I do to come out of moments like this once I enter them? Please pray for me all, I really need your prayers right now. Thank you.
Comments
"Obviously, I used to say, a sane man accepts or rejects any statement, not because he wants or does not want to, but because the evidence seems to him good or bad. If he were mistaken about the goodness or badness of the evidence that would not mean he was a bad man, but only that he was not very clever. And if he thought the evidence bad but tried to force himself to believe in spite of it, that would be merely stupid.
Well, I think I still take that view. But what I did not see then--and a good many people don’t see still--was this. I was assuming that if the human mind once accepts a thing as true it will automatically go on regarding it as true, until some real reason for reconsidering it turns up. In fact, I was assuming that the human mind is completely ruled by reason. But that is not so. For example, my reason is perfectly convinced by good evidence that anesthetics do not smother me and that properly trained surgeons do not start operating until I am unconscious. But that does not alter the fact that when they have me down on the table and clap their horrible mask over my face, a mere childish panic begins inside me. I start thinking I am going to choke, and I am afraid they will start cutting me up before I am properly under. In other words, I lose my faith in anesthetics. It is not reason that is taking away my faith: on the contrary, my faith is based on reason. It is my imagination and emotions. The battle is between faith and reason on one side and emotion and imagination on the other.....”
“Now just the same thing happens about Christianity. I am not asking anyone to accept Christianity if his best reasoning tells him that the weight of the evidence so against it. That is not the point at which faith comes in. But supposing a man's reason once decides that the weight of the evidence is for it. I can tell that man what is going to happen to him in the next few weeks. There will come a moment where there is bad news, or he is in trouble, or is living among a lot of people who do not believe it, and all at once his emotions will rise up and carry a sort of blitz on his belief. Or else there will come a moment when he wants a woman, or wants to tell a lie, or feels very pleased with himself, or sees a chance of making a little money in some way that is not perfectly fair: some moments, in fact, at which it would be very convenient if Christianity were not true. And again his wishes and desires will carry out a blitz. I am not talking of moments at which any real new reasons against Christianity turn up. Those have to be faced and that is a different matter. I am talking about moments where mood rises up again.
Now Faith, in the sense in which I am using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods. For moods will change, whatever view our reason takes. I know that by experience. Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable. This rebellion of your moods against your real self is going to come anyway. That is why faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods "where they get off," you can never be a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the sate of its digestion.”
“The first step is to recognize that your moods change. The next is to makes use that, if you once accepted Christianity, then some of its doctrines shall be deliberately held before your mind for some time everyday. That is why daily praying and religious reading and church going are necessary parts of the Christian life. We have to be continually reminded of what we believe. Neither this belief nor any other will automatically remain alive in the mind. It must be fed.”
~C.S. Lewis -- Mere Christianity
[shadow=gold,left]II. A side note:[/shadow]
Maintaining one's faith is a difficult challenge that befalls every Christian at one point or another. I myself have constantly struggled with doubt....rationalizing the extreme possibilities of what might or might not be facetious about Christianity. However, the more I have studied apologetics in attempt to defend the faith the more I have come to realize that Christianity is the only faith that truly makes sense.
In repsonse to your fear about experiencing Hell:
The notion of Heaven or Hell logically upholds itself only when a relationship with Divinity is introduced into the picture. For the presumption that after death one is merely assigned a "place" assumes the astuteness of a seven year old child. The very culmination of Hell or Heaven must be attributed to the relationship one has with transcendence.....for even the most tortured of men will talk of the emotional and psychological prevalence over the physical when it comes to the horrors one faces.
Christianity is the only religion where a Heaven and Hell are paradigmed on the basis of one’s relationship to Christ. For a man who despises Christ, even Heaven would be only a greater Hell. Christianity is the only religion where sincere interrelation facets with the Divine are made possible. Thus, it is the only religion where Hell is logically consistent.
When in doubt search for the truth, even as you are this very moment, and you will indeed find it; for the door shall be opened to each one who searches carefully.
God bless you.
Forgive me for the following short reply, but it is pascha (passion) week for us Orthodox, and so my time to write a response of proper length is limited.
First, allow me to say, that doubt per se does not necessarily need to be interpreted as a lack of faith, but rather may paradoxically signify the very existence of faith, as the blessed St Augustine states “doubt is but another element of faith”. This paradox is evidenced also in the cry of the father of the diseased child: “Lord I believe, help me in my unbelief!” – use this cry as your own personal prayer to our Saviour. Keep reading spiritual material, praying, seeking virtue, and abiding by His commandments.
That's about as far as my advice to you can go, considering that you are not Orthodox. According to our ecclesiology, The Orthodox Church is a spiritual hospital, with further and effective remedy for such sicknesses – that remedy is the Grace that Christ imparts through her via the life-giving Sacraments. If you were Orthodox i'd encourage Communion etc.
P.S. Do you live close by to a Coptic Orthodox Church? Many of our Churches have morning and evening Pascha services. Usually these services are a mix between English/Coptic/Arabic, but others such as the parish I attend at Bexley have strictly English services in the evening. If you are interested and would feel comfortable and ready to attend such a service (which do not involve any Sacraments and hence would be fine for you to attend), just out of curiosity or to have some real life Orthodox experience, you might want to PM me and we can arrange something for you.
from another post?
This Saturday would be a real bad time to attempt visiting a priest. It is Apocolypse Saturday, the priest won't be at church, except in the early hours of the morning (as in before 5 am), and in the evening to perform the Easter Liturgy. He'll probably be asleep otherwise.
Furthermore, you'll miss all the pascha services! Pascha week is a climax of Orthodox Worship. You don't have to be baptised Orthodox to attend, you can just attend to get a feel for the Orthodox experience: to hear our ancient Orthodox hymns chanted in their ancient Pharaonic tunes, to hear the commentaries and expositions of our Fathers on the relevant Gospel readings etc. I do not mean to sound pushy, but only to strongly encourage you to attend at least one service because Pascha week only comes once a year, and it is a truly unique experience.
P.S. I'm glad to hear you have your parents support. I doubt the priest would allow you to convert without your parents knowledge or approval, especially at your age.
It is a beautiful miracle your parents help and support your decision. Bless you and bless your truely loving parents.
You can keep your head and your heart from doubts by shielding yourself in prayers, listening to hymns, attending, reading or listening to sermons, praying near Saints and Martyrs while remembering their lives and sacrifices.
Avoid pride, anger, indifference and selfishness they are enemies against faith, but who really loves Jesus Christ will not loose warmth of faith to the point of no return, because the Lord helps him and wants him in his flock.