I am as sincere as I know how to be in asking this: Since I was a small child I prayed to God to reveal the truth to me.  I prayed to Jesus and to the Holy Spirit with more humbleness and honesty than anything I've ever done before or could ever do.  I've asked to be shown the way, to be touched by the spirit again and again and again.\n\nYet from all of this... nothing, except a deafing silence.\n\nI can certianlly see the beauty and awe in the world around me.  I am very happy and love my life and others.  But I've never had anything suggest to me that one religion was better (or more correct) than another, nor anything to suggest that there even IS a God.\n\nIs it not said that if you take one step towards God, that he will take two towards you?  I have been hiking for over 30 years, yet where is he?\n\nHow many people go to their graves with open hearts, ready to hear God only to be met with silence?
123670
If preacher's right, God plays favorites.  But Jesus said his father is not like that, that he makes the sun shine and the rain fall on good and bad alike (Matt 5:45, roughly).  Richard Bach (who wrote Illusions, Bridge Across Forever, and others) said prayers are always answered, but when the door of opportunity opens most people won't go through.  C.S. Lewis put an interesting phrase into the Narnia stories fairly often: Aslan is not a TAME lion.  \n\nPerhaps the life you love and the beauty of the world around you is your answer.  In the Gospel of Thomas Jesus says "the kingdom of heaven is already spread out on the earth, but men do not see it."\n\nIn my early 20's I sought an answer to the question, "Is there an important difference between the Buddhist Dharma and the Christian Gospel?"  God "said" no.  But don't think of it as spoken words.  "Still small voice" is closer.  Not words but knowing.  Knowing in the heat of an argument that "right now" I'm supposed to forgive her.  \n\nIf you really want to deal with God's silence, let me recommend The Silence of God by James Carse.  I consider his Finite and Infinite Games more my bible than the Bible.\n\n"Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and all else will be added to you."  Seems to me you've been doing a great job of it.  \n\nPeace
626736
UGH!  Again, you ask a faith question and you get a bunch of answers from non-believers!  Why do they even bother?  My answer is that the people I am most close to believe and have accepted Jesus and I believe then we will all be saved.  So I will see them again in heaven.\n\nPS Did the chick above me actually say she would b*tch slap God?  That's incredibly mature.  UNBELIEVABLE!!!
154583
I must tell you that it saddens me to hear that your experiences with Christianity have left you disenchanted with the whole thing. As a "christian" I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to you for any thing that anyone who calls themselves a christian has done to hurt or anger you.\n  I would like to say that i agree with one of the other posts in the fact that not everyone who calls themselves christian truly knows Jesus Christ.  You see "Christianity" has become just another religion where we humans try to reach God on our own terms.  That's where all the "bible thumping" comes from.  Jesus is Gods attempt to reach us humans through His love, unfortunately most Christians never fully experience His love and therefore can never love themselves.  They think that by being super zealous for the laws that God has set for us, and "taking a stand" for what they believe that they will some how please god more.  The bible teaches that we can do nothing to please God, outside of having a relationship with His son Jesus Christ.\n\nI would be honored to share with you how you can truly experience Gods love if you want.\n\n\np.s.  I didn't get the stamp of approval from my church or minister but that's OK cause I AM one of the ministers!:)\n\ncrazy that one of us guys would read something that challenged Christianity huh?  Hope i am up to the challenge
561925
I am a Christian and I'm also a human.  There are some people I'm still struggling to love.  It takes a total surrender to God for that.  For example, there is a man who molested me as a child and it took YEARS to come to the place where I can say I've forgiven him for what he's done.  I fervently pray that he accepts Christ as his savior.  I believe he hasn't thus far because he's afraid he'll have to confess to what he did to me and others.  He was even convicted (plead guilty) and was sent to prison for 2 years, but he maintains his innocence and said his attorney told him to plead guilty because it was a he said/she said case he couldn't win.  I still see this man at a lot of family gatherings.  The balance I've come to is that I am kind to this man, but I'll NEVER let him even pick up my child.  Luckily, I've never had to say that out loud because he's got the good sense not to try.  Sorry to be so long-winded, but I wanted you to see that there are some Christians who are really TRYING to live out the example that God set for us to follow.  It truly is a narrow path and it's difficult to stay on sometimes.
512246
I was raised in a Christian home.  My mom played (and still plays) the piano for church, and my dad was sometimes an interim pastor.  He was at the church we attended in South Carolina, when we were between pastors.\nWhen I was 13, I fell away from the faith, because of my bitterness regarding my father's death three years prior, and all of the other people I had lost.\nFor twelve years, I wandered in darkness, even ignoring the fact that God actually spoke to me.\nAbout three weeks ago, I recommitted my life to Christ completely.  I researched the faith, including the history of the church, and the scientific, historic, and archaelogical evidence that supports the Bible.\nSurprisingly, it isn't the research that necessarily led me to God, although it did strengthen my faith.  What REALLY led me to God was the Holy Spirit...there is nothing like the feeling of the Holy Spirit filling you.\n\nThank you for your question, and for giving me the chance to share!
126445
The way I look at is is, I will follow God with all my hart. There for I don't have time for Satan in my life. That doesn't mean he doesn't pop in every once in a while...But I always ask him to leave.If you are a skeptic wouldn't you rather be live and feel good and live a pleasant happy good life and find out there is a God then to do what you want as happy and good as it may be but with out God There is no Happy ever after?\n\n"acknowledge me be for man and I will acknowledge you be for my father"
365638
I think that we all struggle in our faith one way or another. Questioning God's existence doesn't really cross most of our minds. We may question why He allows things to happen or we may even question our own Christian walk and our relationship with God. My pastors -and I've had a few in my life -haven't been perfect. In fact there was one who was my Dad's boss that treated his underlings shabbily and used the church vehicle for personal business. I think he may've even taken some of the better donations given to the church for his own. I do know that he was eventually caught by his bosses with his hand in the cookie jar and in adultery. He was speedily fired. As for weird things in a worship service? I recall visiting a Charismatic service to see what it was like. I met one of those pastors who held rather rambunctious healing services. You know the type.; they call you forward for healing even though you haven't volunteered or asked for it. He claimed -a few times- to be given a word of knowledge about some type of secret sin in some person's life. I found this made me extremely uncomfortable because I do not believe that God would humiliate an individual in this manner. Nor do I think that Jesus would compel anyone to come for healing. God is a Gentleman, and He never forces Himself on anybody. Neither should His servants
66518
Ah Gabby, I have a similar experience.  I asked Jesus to come into my heart and to wash me of my sins, and to help me to believe in what is true, whatever that is.  And for 2 hours, I felt very warm and in the presence of Jesus - my old friend from when I was a child and believed in him before I began to study a lot.\n\nBut that was only 2 hours.  And then I didn't really believe anymore.  I believe that Jesus was a great man, a great servant of God with a great vision.  But I just can't continue to believe that he was God, or that he even believed himself to be God, or anything like that.  I have asked God and Jesus to help me see that he is the divine son of God, if that is what he is.  \n\nAs he has not shown me that, I have to assume that there is my answer.  \n\nIt's just frustrating because you have all these people who are sincere believers and think that if you are not a sincere believer like they are, that you are somehow doing something evil.  But I know I have done nothing evil.  I know that I have been sincere in my quest, and I know what answers I have received and not received.  Other Christians can't get inside my heart, mind, and soul to see my sincerity and genuineness.  \n\nBut I think they are threatened by the mere thought that someone might actually be able to genuinely ask Jesus to come into their hearts and fill them with the Holy Spirit and NOT have that happen.  Because perhaps it would make them doubt the source of their own experiences.  \n\nSearch your heart very thoroughly to find out what your deep driving desire is.  Are there desires you have which are in the way of you succeeding in your spiritual life?  Be willing to look head-on at your real motives.  Do you want to be a Christian because there is some prestige in that among friends?  Or because you truly believe?  Or because you love Jesus?  Or because you fear going to hell?  Or something else?  Whatever the motives are, try to purify your motives so that there is no selfishness in you at all with regard to this matter.\nWhen you are pure of heart and your motives are altruistic and not selfish, you will have peace, I believe.\n\nI hope I have not further discouraged you.  I wish you peace and spiritual strength!
342702
One night in a reckless act of youthfulness, I drove my jeep 12 miles up a canyon on parallel snowmobile tracks.  When I finally got buried, I was on my way back down but going too fast so I drove quite a distance off the trail.  I uncovered the jeep, but had no traction, so I prayed to God.  He immediately answered, like he had been watching me, I asked him to put me back on the track, and he said why.  I said Jesus said, and he told me to get back in the jeep and he would put me back.  He did and as I continued the journey down the mountain I asked what I owed him.  He laughed and said I owed him nothing that he didn't already own.  My life became really interesting after that because others saw the tracks and wondered. A local religious person even offered me a Motor home to live in as we together would make money with this message.  I declined because its not any different than what others teach if they have learned what Jesus teaches. Proof I suppose would be pictures of where I had been buried in the snow and my exit out back to the trail?  Someone must have pictures because I told no one in the area of that drive.
463883
Dear Solomon R.:  I DO believe God through his Greatest Teacher and the Partnership of the Holy Spirit CAN do that for us.\n\nI am a Christian and Spiritually oriented person.  My path is alive through "tight" relationships with both the Holy Spirit and Jesus.  Many do not know. . ., but Jesus and the Holy Spirit can and DO teach something non-traditional religions have named Transcendence.\n\nWill you bear with me, if I expand a picture for you to look upon and possibly contemplate?\n\nThe Crucifixion is looked upon as physical torture - to the degree that we have to turn away, and hold on to ourselves.  Many learn to love Him by witnessing the pain aspect.  Some love Him without dwelling upon it.  The meaning of the Crucifixion is far greater than the seeming display of physical vulnerability and pain:  Our vulnerability to each other and to our bodies.\n\nThe Crucifixion was undertaken by Him as the greatest learning tool He could use and teach by.  After the people saw  the ultimate physical abuse taking place - to an extent that leads to death - He then offered the Final Statement:  What God Created. . . cannot be destroyed.  The physical is perishable, but not what God Created.  Notice. . .He reappeared in his physical image again, and remained in it until He desired to leave.  Note:  The physical image he appeared in contained a "hole" for the others to see, but the blood, the bruising, the torn and tattered flesh were all absent !\n\nInside of us, and coupled with our human Intellect is a thing called soul or spirit.  Jesus and the Holy Spirit teach how to live through that - more than through the logic of the Intellect.  They both SERVE us in this physical life - the Intellect and the Soul.\n\nJesus can also TEACH how to use our God-given soul or Spirit-Mind to block out or transcend the pains of the physical.  He willingly teaches that WE ARE NOT VULNERABLE ;  to each other, or to the human Intellect !  Not all of us become Masters as He did and master life.  But, Jesus can teach level upon level of God's Thoughts and Knowledge to us - IF we choose to learn it, and ask for that.  \n\nPresently, I am working on that very thing.  Transcendence and Detachment.  To do this, you must have something to "go up against."  Something to test against.  I have experienced the inflictions of physical pain - and, according to His instruction, through my Mind, have learned to "banish" it.  Many, many of us have learned this.  Ghandi spoke of the horrifying beatings he received at the hands of his opposers.  He was taken to the hospital more than once so bruised, bloodied and purpled that it was not understood how he bore the pain.  He said, that although the body showed the infliction - he did not FEEL it !  We have no idea how powerful our souls or spirit-minds are.  And the joy of tapping into its power.  Many non-notable people, as you have mentioned, and now me too (!) have experienced the gifts of Spirit and some degree of Mastery over the physical.  It's real.\n\nWhen we are taught that after Ascension Jesus rose to rest and sit at the right hand of God and is no longer teaching on earth - we should be aware that there is a slight mis-perception in that.  He DID go before our Creator.  He was allowed to "speak" with Him.  But, He was quickly placed in charge of the Sonship and ceaselessly and intensely teaches us through Mind-to-Mind.  We receive His tutoring when we invite Him and then learn to hear his voice through our mind.  \n\nThe Sons of Man (Us) are much more. . .than we appear to be.  Something else Created our Minds.\n\nBest regards, Lana
337789
thijelica_luv,\n\nI am only scratching the surface of God, but I have been scratching the surface for over 35 years now. There are 2 times when God spoke to me that really stood out to me as I read your question. As you can imagine, God has spoken to me frequently over the years, but these 2 times are very special to me.\n\nOn September 21, 1980, I was a 25-year-old Baptist singing a hymn in a Brethren church in Long Beach, CA, and God spoke to me in a voice so clear that I would have sworn it was audible, but I could tell when I looked around that I was the only one who heard it.\n\n“India?” He asked.\n\nI said, "Yes."\n\nHe asked, “Will you make up the hedge and stand in the gap?” This time I didn’t even pause to look around because I knew what was going on.\n\nI said, "Yes." I didn't know what I was saying yes to, but I knew WHO I was saying yes to. Later, I read this verse, and I understood better what God meant.\n\nAnd I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none. Ezekiel 22:30\n\nHowever, in this case He had found one.\n\nMany years later as a 46-year-old Pentecostal, I was attending 4 days of meetings in a Pentecostal church in Riverside, CA. It was May 5, 2001, and I had attended a morning session and stayed in the sanctuary “marinating in the Spirit” for 4 hours when God told me that I am “the voice of a generation.”\n\nThese 2 times that God spoke to me really stand out. Many people on Yahoo! Answers doubt God’s existence, but I will never doubt it, and I have never doubted even once that I heard God both times and many other times in addition to them.\n\nGod bless.
1103
It is possible for God to speak to people with a voice that you can hear.\n\nHowever, in my case I've never heard the voice of God in that way, either, although I've received many answers from Him.  Often I recognize answers from God through the peaceful, comforted, or happy feelings that I feel.  If I do get a "He told me" kind of answer, it's often through very still, quiet thoughts in my mind.  It took me a while and quite a bit of prayer to learn to "listen" and recognize those answers.  But it is possible.\n\nIf you'd like some help, why don't you talk to someone from my church?  Check out the website below.
321992
sallyezs,\n\nGod is omnipresent. He is everywhere. You can feel His presence anytime and anywhere.\n\nThere is a feeling of God’s presence in corporate worship that is very special. It is unmistakable. I’m not trying to make it sound too simple, but it really is. You will not figure it out. You just experience it. Stop trying to figure out if you’re experiencing God’s presence and just lose yourself in worship. You won’t have to ask what it feels like again.\n\nWhoever has My commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves Me. He who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I too will love him and show Myself to him.  John 14:21\n\nThe greatest thing in life is knowing Jesus. He said if we obey His commands He will show Himself to us. There is nothing that compares to knowing Jesus – nothing. If you want to feel God’s presence – if you want to “know” Him – obey Him. God takes pleasure in revealing Himself to those who obey Him.\n\nWhen you are reading the Bible and something just jumps off the page at you, you are experiencing a “rhema” word. (Greek – rhema means the word that God is speaking presently.) You may have read the same passage many times for many years, but this time it comes alive, and you see something that you’ve never seen before. It was always there, but God has made that portion of the Bible come alive to you. You may not sense His presence in a tangible way, but He is personally opening your spiritual eyes to see His Word.\n\nPlease purchase “The Practice of the Presence of God” by Brother Lawrence. It is published by Whitaker House, and it only costs $4. It is a very short book, so you can read it very quickly. In my humble opinion, he is the best expert on the subject – maybe John “Praying” Hyde comes close.\n\nIf you read that book, you will understand more about God than many preachers. God is everywhere all the time, and I guarantee you that if you follow the simple truths in that book you will experience God’s presence anytime and anywhere that you want to. \n\nI am experiencing God’s presence as I write to you. Once you experience it you will not have to ask if it’s real or what it feels like.\n\nGod bless.
400081
You say that you don’t know how to let Him in, but as you are writing that you are opening the door to your heart because you have with your written word prayed a prayer for help, and help is what you will experience.  It is easier to learn of truth when your thought is less hardened by the human experience, but there is never a time when a heart has become immune and yet searches for truth.\nI understand what you are feeling and experiencing because I was there for awhile myself, thinking that somehow God didn’t hear my inner voice and He didn’t care.  But the truth is that God does hear you, even when you don’t talk.  He supplies you with the means to ask your question, or to get an answer that is needed at the right moment.  \nI think it will also help to keep in mind the truth about yourself when you do ponder stories in the bible and why they are there. The truth is that you are a reflection of His infinite individuality, which is not subject to human conditions, and you are not just a mortal that walks awhile and then dies.  So you begin to see that God loves you, but does not love a lie about you or lies that (for now) you believe are true.  The truths in the Bible will lift you out of the quagmire of lies about life and God, as you learn His true nature, power, and love.
254881
First off don't be discouraged at all of the hateful responses you'll see posted. They just haven't see God's love yet. Pray for them.\n\nAs for me, to make it brief because it's kind of long, I was instantly healed physically from the damage that alcohol abuse done to me. I was never interested in God or the whole "religious" thing until one day I went to my cousins church and they prayed for me and I was delivered in an instant! It was truly a miracle. Ever since then (June 9th, 2002) I haven't had a sip of alcohol and have completely devoted my entire life to serving Him. I cannot fully express the joy I have experienced in these almost four years of walking with Jesus. But I know I still have a lot of work to do for Him.  God Bless You amanda2008 God be with you.
192451
Hi Josh. I'd like to take a stab at your question, because I am always interested in helping either fellow christians or woould be christians that have an open heart get closer to god in a sincere, but non-pushy way. \n\nThat being said, have you ever felt like you were in a no-win situation? Maybe even a life or death experience, where you thought there was no way out? And yet you could feel ro sense things beyond your control either rescuing you from harm's way or voices or forces pulling you to go in one direction or another that ultimately made the difference in your life?\n\nWell those are points of evidence towards God. They could be angles helping to keep you on the right path or simply preventing you from going under. Whatever the case may be, God is all around us. You can't see bacteria or the wind, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, does it?\n\nToo often people who have lost their way or never even knew the way write off things they can't readily see or explain. I feel bad for athiests because they deny or block the love God has for them. They really enjoy being angry. These people are much like the rich: hey are consumed by material things that they can see, and yet even when they seemingly have it all they're still not happy, becuase it's never enough. God won't come to you in a box, or in the form of a house or from a steering wheel. But that doesn't mean he's not there. \n\nPlease don't let the world block out god from your heart and from your life. God is all around you, but he gave you the free will to choose to believe, so have the faith and know that whatever energy you spend on letting him into your life will not go unwasted. It never does and in the end the truth will come out and you will have been better and wiser for knowing it when you meet God someday. \n\nHope this gave you some hope.
419298
Hello Jett.. :)\n\nI wish that I could convert you to Christ..but if that was possible..all would be knowledgeable about our Lord..\n\nOnly you can make that decision..for we all must make our own choice..\n\nAs for asking Christ into your heart..you are correct it is not logical..for if it was, would not all believe in Christ..it is a matter of the Heart..if you are sincerely longing to know if God is real..He will reveal Himself to you..there is NOTHING WE can say, that would change your mind nor your heart..but God can, if you Truly seek Him.. :)\n\nUsually one does not ask Jesus, to be the Lord of our lives..until they reach the lowest point..and all else has failed.. :(\n\n\nhttp://fathersloveletter.com/fllnarration.html\n\n\nYou are in my heart and prayers..I pray, that you to will find Jesus.. :)\n\n\nIn Jesus Most Precious Name..\nWith Love..In Christ.. :)