I'm come to the realization that I've lost faith in God...  

When I injured my only good eye in a work accident and was told that my chances of ever being able to see again were slim, I lost my faith too. I was so mad at God for letting this happen and mad that I wouldn't be able to support my family. My prayers fell on deaf ears too. I have absolutely struggled to get by the past few years.
Then after I thought my prayers would never be answered how I wanted them to be answered, I got a call one day from my eye doctor. He said that there was a surgeon that was a specialist in high risk operations. The surgery was quite involved. I had to fight L&I for permission to go out of state and have this doctor perform the surgery. It took a year, but they finally approved. I came out of the surgery with eyesight that was 20/20 in one eye, I have never had sight in the other eye. I have some limitations and will always need trifocals to see at different distances, because I lost the ability to focus. I was legally blind and had little hope of even getting a risky surgery approved. But a miracle happened and I was given my eyesight back. You could say that the doctor was the one that performed the miracle surgery, not God. I will say that God intervened. My faith in Him is stronger today than its ever been. I fall well short of the person I could be, just like the rest of us. But I feel that God DOES intervene. Our prayers are always answered, just not the way we always want. Yes, filmbuff, I have had those thoughts too. Only my faith was restored along with my vision. Funny... I had to go blind in order to see. I can't blame you or judge you because you feel this way, I was there too. You may never get your faith back. I feel like I will never lose mine again. Thanks for listening filmbuff.

Well, assuming you 'were?' a Christian, the explanation given to you would be that Satan is the cause of all suffering. Honestly, that sounds an awful lot like a fable to me. A good guy and a bad guy.

If you want to retain your spiritual side and not become completely 'without religion' I suggest you take a look at some of the Eastern religions, such as Buddhism. You'll see that they have extremely efficient ways of dealing with suffering and sadness.

You can't make the basis of your spiritual life revolve around what happens to your brother, or anyone else for that matter. Perhaps God is testing your faith to see if you will continue to turn to Him in the times that you feel the furthest from Him... it can happen to even the strongest of believers at times, everyone goes through trials and tribulations when they feel as though God is distant, but you have to just stay strong and have faith - He knows what you are going through and he allows things to happen for a reason, usually to make us stronger so that we are able to encourage others when they are going through a tough time. Hang in there! He has a plan for you.

Hi film,

We can't blame God for all the bad and evil in this world. We live in a fallen and sinsick world that we have created because we have rebelled against God.

God is always with us, no matter what. He gives us strength to get thru the bad times. We need Him. To lose faith in Him will only make you weaker and more depressed and defeated. We shouldn't put our faith in this world because it is not perfect. We are not perfect by any means. We sin. Sin sometimes hurts the innocent as well. Sin separates us from God and hurts us and that is why God hates it.

We can have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He came into this fallen and broken world to give us hope...Eternal Life! He died the cruelest death possible in our place so that we can be forgiven of our sins and live forever with Him. This world will one day be gone, but the Lord will reign forever. We can have that assurance of Eternal Life if we put our total faith and hope in Him. He will never leave us nor forsake us. He promises us that and He cannot lie.

Yes, this world seems to be getting worse everyday, but God is still in control and He still has the final word.

Trust in Him! Pray and listen as He speaks to you. He wants you to be filled with hope, joy and peace...not the kind this world gives, but the eternal kind that only comes from Him.

He loves you so very much!

God bless you!

I am a believer, I do not know if I would let God go. He is the only source that I really have. We have to watch how we treat God. He is the almighty, the alpha and omega. He loves us all, and if you feel that your prayers are not going through, you should know that you are not in line. See in order for things to come far as blessings, or mircales. A lot of times he want us to have faith in him. You guys should know that not having faith or doubting is actually a sin. But I just believe that we should daily repent to GOD. He wants us to repent, that is how we keep fellowship with him. See the enemy wants us to be confuse and always feel we are not worthy. But when it comes to praying, some of us people our prayers do not get higher then the ceiling. Do you know that when we pray our prayers go up as an aroma to GOD's knows. Some of our prayer's stink. The reason it may be because you are holding on to jealousy, vengence, not forgiving, or repenting. But a good prayer smells good to GOD. This means you are walking in holiness, you are keeping your temple holy, you are living in righteousness. But I will say that we all humans are blessed with two things. He blesses us with grace and mercy. A lot of us are living off of grace and mercy. What this does is keep us, or give us another chance. See GOD he loves us that much. And when we go through he wants us to give all of our problems and cares to him. He do not want us to be depress, opress, or being in the state of anxiety. So God he is love. So just remember this scripture, John 3:16, For GOD so love the world that he gave his only begotten son that who so ever believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

People tend to lose faith in men and God especially during the time when we see sufferings, be it to ourself or to others. Because we also tend to associate sufferings as not of God's doing.
But personally, I see them as a challenge to be a better person.

I am not sure if you're coming from a bad experience (which makes you feel this way). I don't think it's ever a blasphemy to doubt the existence of God.

My only advice would be not to shut your doors.

For all you know, your God suffers with you, silently enduring every inch of your pain into his.

That's what happened in the cross. Jesus never spoke aggressive words. He just was there - being silent most of the time. Yet torment all throughout.

Give it a thought.

You're not completely abadoned.

He is right there, silently suffering with you.

I understand you very well. I am actually experiencing the same thing at this moment. But all of these happen because there is another power at work. And the "good and evil" thing is not a fable. It is real. He is not responsible but let them happen only so we could see the difference.
I have had your exact thoughts and even more given the situation I am going through.
He is not deaf and he cares. Keep insisting in your talk with Him. That's what I do. My faith is not restored yet, but I'm praying about it too. Don't give up and don't stoop to blaspheming. Keep in mind that all of this will soon come to an end when he restores his reign and destroys the enemy. I am not just being theoretical. Trust me, I know how you are feeling. Ask him to talk to you and pay attention to when he will respond.
I hope this helps. Keep us posted on your progress.

Do you remember Job and how he lost everything. He lost all his livestock then all his children. God allowed Satan to do so much to Job because He loved God. God pointed Out Job to Satan to let Satan know how Job loved God. Well Satan said that Job loved God so much because God made him rich. So God allowed Satan to take Job's live stock and his children. But Job still loved God and didn't turn his back on God. So Satan said the God was still protecting Job. so God allowed Satan to make Job miserable with his health. Job still refused to turn his back on God. This gave God a chance to bless Job with so much more than he had in the first place. If we get connected to God and keep connected to God he will bless us beyond our wildest dreams. If not in this life than in the next. Remember that even if you have doubts and turn your back on God He will not turn his back on you even when it seem he has. We always seem to want to blame God for all the horrible things that happen in the world. We forget about Satan and his part in this world.

Hi Filmbuff,

I am not going to try and convince you of anything. But I want to make a couple of comments and then give some things to think about.

I have been where you are now. In fact I return there periodically. Me parents divorced when I was around 7 years old. At that time I was one of only 2 kids in my school that had divorced parents. I felt alone and isolated. To make matters worse, we went to live with my grandparents where I was abused. No one came to my rescue though all of my extended family knew what was going on. So not only did my family abandon me, I felt God had as well.

Much of the feelings that you shared with us I felt as well. I shook my fist up at the sky and told God I didn't believe in him aanymore. I thought that if He did exist that I wanted no part of him if he allowed this to happen to me. Honestly I still feel that way from time to time. Those thoughts and feelings were with me for a big part of my lifetime and are hard to forget.

The trials in this life can be overwhelming. Though life would seem to be easier if everything was in order and perfect, that would prevent us from being full human beings. There would be nothing to achieve, no trials to overcome. I think we would become lazy and unmotivated. We need to be able to live our lives and make our own decisions, and that means that others would be able to make decisions that we don't agree with ie: abusers, terrorists, criminals, pedophiles etc.

As far as not feeling God anymore, I assume that means you felt him at one time. So I would ask you, what has changed? Has God changed or have you changed? I would also ask you why is it important that you 'feel' God? If I had an ant farm that I took care of where I provided the dirt for them to live in, the food that they ate, the environment that allowed them to thrive etc., they would never feel me or even be aware of me. That doesn't mean I don't exist. There may even be rare moments where one or two of them became aware of me in their small ant way, that would be a blessing to them. But whether or not the experience me does not change the fact that I am still in control. I understand that this analogy is not perfect but it makes the point.

If there is a God, and I believe there is, it is almost as impossible for us to fully understand him as it is for those ants to understand me. That is what faith is.

But for Christians, He gives us a means to experience him through his word, the bible. Though we will always struggle with comprehending his will, the perspective should not be on the trials of this life. God's view is longer than that. His view is eternal. That is not to say that he is unconcerned with the present, but his ultimate concern is eternal. We can let the trials of this world influence our view of God, or we can let God influnce our view of the world. That is why we can either choose to believe in him or choose not to.

I hope this made some sense. I feel like I was rambling on. Sorry.