I USED TO BELIEVE, BUT I’VE LOST MY FAITH

For some of us, faith in God may be wishy-washy. Maybe at one point in our life we believed in Jesus and all the promises about Him but now, we say we don’t believe. We say “How could I have ever believed in that stuff!”

How can we go from believing to not believing, or to be out right angry at ourselves and anyone else who believes in God?

None of us suddenly woke up one morning and decided that we no longer believed in God. It is a down spiral, a slow steady drifting away and a slow steady hardening of our hearts.

The guarding of our hearts should begin when we are little children and last for the rest of our lives. But it seems we sometimes forget to guard our hearts, we don’t even think about it. Both our innocence and faith are lost when life’s constant bite-sized disappointments, hurts, and the allure of the things of the world start to take their toll. Of course, satan is only too pleased to draw us out into the deeper waters of unbelief and to pervert our thinking.

The things that draw us away from Christ are the things that are in us, those things that the Bible calls the “desires of the flesh” and these desires want to rule over us. These desires are what satan uses as stepping stones to entice us.

We all can probably remember that day or point in time, that friend we met or the teacher or professor, or that circumstances that started us on the road away from God. 

When we’re young, peer pressure is usually the culprit. We want to fit in and be accepted so badly that we’ll do practically anything for it. Even though we know it’s wrong we’ll do or try something, even when our conscience is yelling for us to stop. As we all know, it becomes easier and easier to do those things that we know are wrong and our conscience becomes seared. Those wrong things are now our lifestyle, and we forget God. Maybe He even becomes a joke — this is all because of our heart becoming hard. 

Worldly knowledge can be the same, we long to fit in, to be known as intelligent and, the more intelligent we seem the better, the higher the IQ the better. But worldly knowledge tells us you can’t be intelligent and believe in God and His truth, a choice has to be made. Eventually, that worldly knowledge puffs us up with pride and as with any pride, we think we have all the answers.

If we have lived long enough we’ll have the ups and downs of life, the hard knocks and losses, and the hurts and disappointment, and finally, we find ourselves bitter. This is the type of bitterness that affects every part of our life and even the people around us. This is the bitter root the Bible warns about.

There are so many ways to the road of losing our faith but really, it’s not so much that we’ve stopped believing or that we’ve lost our faith, it’s more a matter of our heart becoming hard and our understanding becoming darkened.

Maybe you’re at the point where you can honestly ask yourself, am I happy and at peace? Do you miss the relationship you once had with God? Has the road you’ve chosen led to fulfillment?

The story of the prodigal son tells us so much about our Heavenly Father’s love and longing for His children, especially the ones that have strayed. In the story, the father was actively waiting and watching for his lost son, and when his son appeared the father was over joyed. Jesus told this story because that’s how our Heavenly Father feels about us. The ones who’ve lost their way, who’ve strayed and in their wandering probably have done some terrible things, and maybe even carry a lot of guilt. But because of Jesus, everything is forgiven and forgotten, and our relationship with God can be restored. The prodigal in the story had sunk pretty low and was in terrible place in his life when he had an epiphany, he realized he could return to his fathers house! It is the same for us, no matter how far we’ve sunk or what we’ve done, we can return to our Father! 

But, just like the prodigal, we need to have our spiritual eyes opened to see our condition and to know that we can return to our Father. Outwardly, it may seem like we have the prefect life and have all that we need, but having our spiritual eyes open will let us see our true state.

Our internal unrest and discontentment should be a clue to us that something is wrong.

The Bible teaches that there is now peace between God and men and He is not counting our sins against us. We are only enemies of God in our minds.

Remember back to the days of your youth, the joy you had and the presence of the Lord in your life. It’s never too late, return to your Fathers house today and receive times of refreshing from Him.

C.L.F