I Don’t Feel or Hear God Anymore
by Fred Pruitt
Dear Fred,
I just read your post on Lazarus and wanted to respond.
Lately, it seems I have fallen into disbelief. It is not so much that I look at myself and doubt that God could take up residence in me. I believe that on faith. It is just that I feel a lag, like I have taken by faith my union with God, that I am Lazarus, dead but believing and waiting for the Lord to call me into life. I have felt for a long time now that I am in limbo…waiting for His voice to call me forth. I honestly don’t know if I know what joy is and am wondering about abundant life. If what I have is abundant life, then I am sorely disappointed (I know that may sound like an awful thing to say). There was a time when I felt His prescence and heard His voice but it seems so quiet now. I keep wondering if I have done something to “blow it” but I know that cannot be because it is not about me. My mantra seems to be “don’t worry”. well, I was just wondering if you have many of these times.
Thanks for listening.
_____________________________________________________________________
Dear _____________
There’s hardly a week that goes by that I don’t feel the onslaught of what you are talking about. I think we all do. It’s a great place to be because light shines in the darkness. That’s what John 1:5 says. “If I make by bed in hell, lo, thou art there.”
Hell (worry, onslaughts of temptation to unbelief) is the place where we find Him. I would say to you to rejoice, for your redemption draweth nigh! It is not about “feeling” Presence or hearing His voice in the same way you used to know. This is sometimes pure believing (standing in the truth) when you cannot perceive anything tangible. When you realize you cannot even believe anymore, hallelujah, then you are at the bottom, because believing is all that is required of you, yet you cannot even do that. Hallelujah!
Then you begin to see it is His faith operating in you. When you cannot say it or see it He in you is saying and seeing it. It is all too much for us, but we find ourselves anyway confessing to the Lord, “I don’t think I can go on with this, but I have no other way to go. So you must do it, because I cannot.”
Maybe we seem to hold on with our fingernails, afraid to let go because hell is below me ready to swallow me up, but I let go finally anyway and find myself upheld in the Everlasting Arms.
There are times when I’ve said, like the children of Israel, that life was better before I knew Christ. Why would I want to get anybody involved in this crap I’m feeling? It’s great to come to the bottom.
And then to realize that Christ went down to the lowest depths only to be raised to the HIGHEST heights, and He took us there together with Him. Look at the emphasis on the word “together” in Ephesians 2:5,6. “Quickened us TOGETHER, raised us TOGETHER, and has made us “sit TOGETHER.” You see, there we are TOGETHER with Him, so that where He is, we are, and where we are, He is.
So that’s your reality. That is what you are living in at this present moment. That is your truth. So you don’t “feel” it, but you are being taken into something beyond “feeling,” and into “knowing,” but it isn’t an objective knowing like you know the sky is blue and 2+2=4, but rather the same kind of “mixed-together” knowing as when Adam “knew” Eve, his wife.
You now know subjectively, rather than objectively, that is, God has moved Himself in your consciousness from outside you to inside you, and you just “know” it, from within.
Right now you say you have taken the faith stand but do not have the “knowing.” Don’t make too much of that. Stand on what you have taken in faith as your present living truth. Don’t wait for some kind of “experience” to overtake you because you can just live right now walking around as He every day. It becomes an unconscious/consciousness. You don’t wake up every morning and have to remind yourself who you are, you just are you, with no particular feeling about it. You can’t help being you. Well, He is joined to you in this same inner way. He and You are One, and you just live in it.
It isn’t an experience that you know outside yourself as something that has come on you, some “thing” you are supposed to feel or see, but this inner knowing is simply you being you and you being Him in your world. You don’t “feel” that but you just are that. Like in your daily activities, I don’t say, “OK, this is Fred doing this, this is Fred doing that.” No, you just do your stuff, not even thinking about “I am doing this stuff” because you’re just doing it. You forget yourself and do what you do.
Same with this. He and you are one, so you just walk around doing what you do and you forget yourself and you forget you’re Christ in you but you’re just you being you and it IS being Him. This does not make any sort of sense to reason but is the Truth of who you are.
Just accept it and say, “Ok, Lord, you are one with me and when I am walking it is you walking,” and then forget it and get on with your life. There will always be times that doubt will assail you but He will uphold you in all those times and walk you through, because, remember, He isn’t doing this just for you, but for all those in your world that He reaches by you, because He flows out of you. You’re right on the money!
Bless you,
fred
Jo Ann Parker
/ September 18, 2010Just today I was with a friend; our situations, and our revelation of Christ and our oneness with Him was just what you articulated in this “note.” Lately, for ex.,, my “problems” have increased, and my deliverance is always the same. It is the truth you mentioned: a switch from natural to spiritual, or from living by sight into living in the glorious truth of having been raised together with Christ. That (being raised with Him) was shown as being after having been identified with Him in His death. Now, we are alive to God in Jesus Christ. His resurrection life is our life. And His grace is sufficient for the “trouble” or problems facing us “in the world.”
Again, faith, His faith given to us, is the victory that overcomes the world including all the problems/trouble in it.
Lyn Myers
/ January 9, 2012Oh my gosh, I have been ‘feeling’ like that for about 5 years now, and have been through so many trials and problems, and am at the point where I’ve just told Him that I don’t know if I EVER loved Him and am I born again and what have I done wrong, has He left me. OH God I have cried, Please don’t take your Spirit from me!!
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Thank you for sharing this, it has helped, although I do wish this opposite awful feeling of apprehension as opposed to faith, would leave my trembling heart!
Fred Pruitt
/ January 9, 2012Bless you, Lyn. We ALL experience this from time to time. Just keep standing in the faith-awareness the Spirit has given you, even against those “feelings” of the opposite. Tell the Lord you can’t do it yourself, He’ll have to do the standing and believing in you. He is already fulfilled in you, Lyn, and you already are all that He says you are. But we are given these times of “negatives” in order that we might learn to walk in Christ whether in feeling or not feeling, whether sad or elated, in whatever state — He lives His life as you and me. “Be not weary … for you shall reap in due season, if you faint not,” and, since He is the One in you holding you, (Is 42:1), and keeping you (1 Pet 1:5), is the Doer in you. Relax, love, you can let go in Him and find yourself upheld in the Everlasting Arms, that never fail. You’ll see!
jeremy c.
/ April 25, 2012I’ve been feeling like for some some time now, I cant help but wonder if Im doing anything right and Im trying to be more positive in life and to be cheery around other people but I cant if Im down. I just feel like im going in the wrong direction and doing something wrong, is this the feeling of doing something wrong or is this whats right???
Fred Pruitt
/ April 26, 2012Jeremy, one thing that is positive in what you have written, is that “disturbance” in ourselves is the means God uses to move us into greater knowledge and understanding of Him. It is difficult for me to tell you much more than that because I do not know you or your circumstances. I know the Lord, however, and because I have been one who has been where you are, I know He will bring you to Himself and resolve these issues in you in due time. Something “general” I can tell you is that God is faithful. He is not angry with you even if you have messed up in some way. His compassion and love for you is endless and abundant. I know you want to know and experience that in your own life, and I want you to do so, also. If you would like, I could be more personal with you and you with me via email, which would be just between you and me. This “comment” section is public, but I think it might be good if we perhaps chatted a bit via email, to maybe offer you something more specific than I have told you, if I have a better idea of your personal circumstances. My email is fhpjrrom@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you.