been dealing with this for years and idk what to do anymore.i know the gospel intellectually. i believe Jesus is the Son of God, died for sinners, rose again, salvation is by faith and not works, etc. my problem is that i can’t seem to actually believe it for myself and rest in Christ.i’ve spent years obsessing over what “real faith” is, whether i’m believing correctly, whether i actually trust Christ or if it’s just intellectual assent. the more i analyze it the harder it gets.what scares me most is the thought that i’ll just stay like this forever. that i’ll keep wanting to believe but never actually come to Christ, and eventually the door will be closed and it’ll be too late.i’ve tried talking to Christians/church people irl and honestly most of the answers have been too basic to help. usually just “trust Jesus” or “pray more,” which obviously doesn’t answer the problem when the whole problem is that i don’t know how to trust Him.i also barely pray and the Bible often feels dry to me, which makes me worry even more.so what am i actually supposed to do? keep reading the Bible? pray for faith? try harder to believe? stop examining myself and just take God’s promises literally? if salvation is by simply believing, am i making it worse by treating faith like some complicated thing i need to produce?not really looking for “just relax bro” replies. if anyone here has actually gone through something similar, especially Christians who used to feel like they wanted to believe but couldn’t, i’d genuinely like to hear what helped.
God treats you better when you accept yourself as a broken human being like everyone else, instead of forcing yourself to be an idol to be accepted by the world.
>>34911242Not sure why you’re trying to cram yourself into a predefined mold…sounds like you need to make some life changes to get some perspective on things. Travel, retrain, move, something to activate your brain, challenge you, and actually grow as a person.
>>34911242Your story bears certain parallels to my own life. In mid-2022, I developed a deep interest in Catholicism (despite having been baptized five years earlier), approaching it from both an intellectual and a theological perspective. I specifically chose Catholicism as the focus of my interest because it is a highly literary faith, with a vast history of philosophers and thinkers of the highest intellectual calibre. I firmly believe in the Catholic Church and in the true faith that Christianity represents, and I have gone through a process in which I have officially considered myself a believer. However, my relationship with religion is very strained due to certain circumstances in my life that prevent me from being consistent in my practice and leading a deeply religious life. Perhaps you could try to identify the specific causes that are creating a sense of tension between you and the Christian life, if that is indeed the case.I wish you the very best of luck and encourage you to persevere until you finally manage to work out how to deal with this whole situation.
>>34911242Well, if you take the parable of the sheep and goats seriously (Matthew 25:31-46) whether you believe or not doesn't actually matter when it comes to being saved, all that matters is whether you behave well towards your fellow human beings.
>>34911242Wanting to believe and believing is the same thing. You already believe. What you are asking for now is strong emotions, but being Christian is not going to a circus. You have to have a living relationship with the person Jesus Christ, not just some hypnosis that you never question and call "faith". You are caught in a classic Protestant problem: everything is your fault because you don't believe enough. This is not true. God wants to help you along the way and has sent agents to do so - your neighbors in the Church. The priest is there to help you. The saints are praying for you. The people you meet in your life are members in the body of Christ, or have the potential to be. If you feel like I used to feel, you are right now alone in a dark room with God, and He won't show Himself to you. You blame yourself and your lack of faith - but Jesus Himself said that he will be right here with us when two or three are gathered in His name. Go to Church (in full communion with the Pope) and meet the rest of the body of Christ. Right now you are the hand saying to the foot that you don't need it, but that's not the case. You might think that this is peer pressure, but you can walk away at any time, and any priest will be open to a dialogue. The living relationship with Christ means a relationship with the other members of His body. You can't sit in a room and think your way to faith, because faith is not an intellectual exercise, but a relationship. Go to Mass this Sunday and introduce yourself to someone afterwards. "I'm new here" is all you need to say, you don't have to vent all your problems. If they have coffee afterwards, hang out with people there. "I'm new here, can I sit with you?" is all it takes. The point isn't to find theological answers but to see Christ in your fellow man. If you still want theological answers, the priest will be there for you.
>>34911242>i know the gospel intellectually. i believe Jesus is the Son of God, died for sinners, rose again, salvation is by faith and not works, etc. my problem is that i can’t seem to actually believe it for myself and rest in Christ.(1/2)I was raised Christian, and this was very much my struggle, that I acknowledge God more than Believe in God.I ended up becoming an atheist for about ten years until I was called to what I believe is a true faith.What did I do? Well, nothing really. Around year 8 I started praying again (and stopped mocking Christianity, I figured it's not fair to ask for help from someone you mock), and when it didn't work I prayed again.You can't open your heart with even the slightest bit of frustration or entitlement, you have to know and feel that you are dead in your sins.
>>34911242 (OP)>>34911534 (You)(2/2)>salvation is by faith and not worksI thought the same growing up protestant. But while I haven't officially joined a denomination yet, I've come to think that the relationship between faith and works is probably more "interwoven" than two distinct categories, (kind of like spacetime instead of space & time), primarily based on this passage in James>What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.>But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “AND ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS,” and he was called the friend of God. You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.https://biblehub.com/passage/james/2/14-26/nasb
Faith is release. Faith is trust, when you do a trust fall you release your tension knowing for a fact your friend will catch you. Just focus on living a good life and doing the best you can every day and carry God in your heart and everything will work out.
