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Have any of you ever had an experience where you think you should have felt the spirit, but you just… didn’t? This has been bothering me for a while, so I’d like to know what you guys have to say.
Recently, I had had a really hard day. I felt alone, rejected, and abandoned. Finally, that night, I just had to leave my house and go for a drive to clear my head.
As I was driving, I came upon an LDS church. The parking lot was empty, so I decided to pull in and stop right there.
Looking at the church, I prayed verbally, pouring out my troubles to Heavenly Father. After a while, I finally asked the question that I had never before asked: is this the true church?
I waited with an open heart, hoping to receive some kind of feeling confirming my inquiry. I waited, and waited, and waited… but there was nothing. Finally, after a while of sitting quietly in my car, I left without feeling a single spark. For the rest of the night, I didn’t even think anything of it.
Basically, I just went home and ate pizza.
At the time, I didn’t worry about it at all, as I ended up having a very casual night afterwards. But looking back, I am quite disturbed by this. Why didn’t I feel anything? Did I ask in the wrong way? I really wanted to know, so why didn’t I feel anything? It makes me question even further. I just don’t know what to believe anymore.
Have any of you had a similar experience? What do you do to feel the Spirit?
Feeling the Spirit is one of those areas I struggle with a bit, and it was part of my faith crisis and is part of my transition. I do sometimes feel what I believe is the Spirit, and sometimes that is at church and such. Sometimes it’s not. When it’s not I haven’t been able to pinpoint a reason why I feel it at that point. I don’t think things like reading the scriptures or prayer necessarily “guarantee” one feeling the Spirit, and I also think it has little to do with “worthiness.” FWIW, I went years without feeling the Spirit, although I may have during that time and just dismissed it as emotion. I still do dismiss stuff as emotion as I try to learn to distinguish between the two.
I have only had one period where I felt like I struggled to feel the spirit. It started when I was just getting old enough to think about things like that – maybe about 11 or 12. And it has gone until now. So just that one period 
I am very analytical, so I know that I chalk many things up to emotion that others seem to say they felt the spirit. Generally I have not ever been able to pray and get an answer. But having said that, I do look back on my life and I do feel that I am getting some guidance. And I do have one experience that my logical side can’t deny as it makes no sense why a thought came into my mind about something I didn’t know anything about and it was crystal clear. That one experience is probably what kept me from leaving the church in my faith crisis as the earlier experience was just before my mission. But I have never felt the spirit in the temple and I have had prayers go on for decades unanswered. It puzzles me as when I honestly look, I don’t think I see any sins. I think the biggest issue is I don’t exercise as much as I should/don’t eat as good as I should/and I drink caffeinated drinks. Looking at church history and how long the saints had the WOW, but were not held to it as a commandment it doesn’t logically make sense to me that my sinning should be blocking the spirit.
I do remember one of my most urgent pleas I had was in the middle of my faith crisis asking if God was telling me to leave the church. I certainly didn’t get a YES, but over time I have watched a few others leave and many that stay and I am certainly leaning way far to the “stay” side.
So that was a long answer to say, “yes – I too wonder why the spirit seems so distant.”
I like the concept of studying things out in my heart AND in my mind. I also am analytical by nature, and I don’t accept anything fully unless it makes sense to both my heart and my mind – and even then I maintain the right to see it differently in the future, if either my heart or my mind changes. People feel things differently, and “the spirit” is such an ambiguous term that I don’t hold onto any objective, universal understanding. I had to come to grips with that a long time ago, and I no longer worry about it. I just do my best to understand things emotionally and intellectually and trust that God understands.
That’s a really good question. In this post I’ll try my best to be genuine to my past selves and not change my interpretations of past feelings based on my current beliefs. I lived a good portion of my life before I even knew there was such a thing as the spirit and there have been clear moments where I didn’t feel the spirit, clear moments where I did feel the spirit, and clear moments where I felt that I had lost connection with the spirit (which is different than not feeling the spirit IMO). I’m a convert so “feeling the spirit” wasn’t something that I was raised on. The missionaries that taught me would constantly ask “How do you feel?” “Uh… okay, I guess.” I really didn’t know how to answer that question so I felt a little weird every time they asked. I think the Mormon culture is much more prone to expect feelings (good or bad) when they are exposed to religious teachings than the average person. How do you feel? Should I be feeling something?
:think: I could make this post long, and I mean really long. In the interest of not boring people to tears I’ll cut down on the details. If you want some details I don’t mind sharing.
I’d later come to connect with my feelings and attribute those feelings to the spirit and of course even later I’d later have doubts in the level of trust I had placed in those feelings. There were several scriptures (ironically) working for/against me. The principle one:
Doctrine and Covenants 8:2 wrote:Yea, behold, I will tell you in your
mindand in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart. I saw the heart and the mind as the mouths of two or three witnesses, two in this case. Add another scripture (Isaiah 55:
: For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. This is how it played out over years and years.1) Something would appeal to me intellectually.
2) I’d have what I considered to be a spiritual witness communicated by feelings.
3) Something wouldn’t make sense to me intellectually.
4) I’d rely on the spiritual witness until I could figure out god’s thoughts. Sometimes this would take years and years.
Recognize something there? That was me putting things on my shelf. The intellectual side was important to me, I couldn’t simply dismiss my questions because the answer to them would help me understand the thoughts of god.
Anyway, I went through that cycle for a long time. The intellectual side outstripping feelings. Feelings outstripping the intellect. I struggled to find balance because I felt
bothwere necessary to establish truth. but they always appeared to be out of sync. I’m not sure where I’m at right now. Maybe I’d say that instead of feeling like
bothare necessary I’d say that eitherare necessary. I have to connect to the spirit with whatever will maintain that connection for me in the moment. If only the heart is present, then the heart it is. If only the mind is present, then the mind it is. I also may have greatly reduced how important it is to get at “truth” during the process. It’s not that I stopped caring about my pursuit of truth, it’s just that I now realize that it’s all about the pursuit. The pursuit is never meant to end, it can’t end, at least not in this life. I was so fixated on the outcome that I failed to recognize the effect that the
processwas having on me. I’ve put aside, or shelved (?) my pursuit of a one true church but I still try to exercise a connection to the spirit in looking for symbolism that either speaks to my heart or mind. Either will do these days.
I’ll brood over this one some more.
LookingHard wrote:I have only had one period where I felt like I struggled to feel the spirit. It started when I was just getting old enough to think about things like that – maybe about 11 or 12. And it has gone until now. So just that one period
🙂 Just A Girl,
I was going to write something more, but decided most of it was unproductive to your question. In short, I have no answers. I have prayed about things many times and have heard nothing. The only advice I could offer is to read For Those Who Wonder by Jeff Burton (you can get it on his website
http://forthosewhowonder.com/http://forthosewhowonder.com/” class=”bbcode_url”> -SBRed
Quote:Why didn’t I feel anything? Did I ask in the wrong way? I really wanted to know, so why didn’t I feel anything? It makes me question even further. I just don’t know what to believe anymore.
Have any of you had a similar experience? What do you do to feel the Spirit?
There are no straightforward answers to your questions. And honestly I think that’s a good thing.I don’t believe the Spirit is something that can be turned on and off depending on how much spiritual electricity we have wired up to the switch. In the church, we’re taught that the Spirit leaves us when we aren’t worthy for it, and that when we ignore it, it’s more difficult to detect, as if it’s a mental muscle we need to exercise like creativity or self-discipline (and maybe it is for some). While I’ve had personal experiences in my life where my feeling very distinct impressions, which I attribute to the Spirit, came during some of the most TBM periods of my life, I’ve noticed that throughout my life, no matter how spiritual or close to the Church’s orthodox teachings I’ve been, I’ve found some sort of guidance. It was usually in the form of coincidences, of outside reassurances and sources, with next to no accompanying “burning in the bosom.” And on reflection, it’s led me to believe that the Spirit isn’t the end all for how God and whatever fantastic laws govern the universe communicates with and helps us.
None of us have an answer on why you didn’t feel any powerful emotions or have an experience that you could attribute to the Spirit. Despite what we learn in the Church culture, I don’t believe there’s one single right or wrong way to feel the Spirit.
I don’t know if it will help, but here is one of my favorite quotes:
Quote:Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. -Albert Einstein
Switching that into spiritual terms, everybody can find guidance from God. But if you judge yourself by your ability to feel the Spirit in the same way and using the same process as the person sitting next to you, you will end up believing that you’re doing something wrong.
Not all of us can learn through feeling the Spirit. In recent times, I have imagined God more and more like a really great, wise parent. He knows how you learn. He gives us the best information we need according to our learning style. And then He trusts us to make an informed decision.
When I was going through my FC, before I started on my faith transition, there were many days where I begged and pleaded with God for an answer and for help. You know what? I don’t recall feeling what I identified as the Spirit even once. But I look back on the past few months and reflect on where I am now every once in a while, and I see the answers there, subtly hiding in the form of a quote that came right when I needed it most. In the views of a casual friend during a long drive. I don’t believe in coincidences. I do believe in logic and correlation. The God I believe in knows that.
West wrote:Switching that into spiritual terms, everybody can find guidance from God. But if you judge yourself by your ability to feel the Spirit in the same way and using the same process as the person sitting next to you, you will end up believing that you’re doing something wrong.
Grat thought!
:thumbup: I believe that I have felt the spirit. Whether it came from within myself of from without – I cannot say and generally withhold judgement. I know that I have felt something and at the time it was important for me to feel it – it altered my course.
OTOH I have known good righteous people (even church leaders) who say that they have never had the spirit manifest to them in this manner. I also understand that some people that were prone to feeling the spirit were unable to feel it after they started anti-depressants.
IOW, some may feel the spirit often and describe it a certain way – this does not work or fit for every body and that does not mean that we did it wrong (or lacked true intent, or had a sin preventing us, or….or…or).
I read through Rough Stone Rolling and got the feeling that Joseph could not tell at times the difference between his feelings and the spirit speaking to his spirit. I figure…if he couldn’t always know that difference…I’ve got no shot at always discerning it.
Best I can do is use logic, reasoning, knowledge from scriptures and prophets, spiritual promptings, emotional impressions…and all my other faculties to try to have confidence I can be led to know what the Spirit is telling me to do.
It’s not a highly reliable process. I have to accept it. But I still have faith it is valuable to consider, among all other data points to consider in decision making.
Quote:“Communing with God is communing with our own hearts, our own best selves, not with something foreign and accidental. Saints and devotees have gone into the wilderness to find God; of course they took God with them, and the silence and detachment enabled them to hear the still, small voice of their own souls, as one hears the ticking of his own watch in the stillness of the night.”
― John Burroughs
Wonderful thoughts everyone Looking at these posts has given me much more perspective- everyone feels the spirit in different ways and at different times. Not all of us have to experience the exact same feelings.
This is the core of my own faith crisis. I had a very similar experience to you, except I didn’t just feel nothing—I actually felt lonely. Looking back over my life, I can only remember one time feeling an emotional response in a church setting. It was in a seminary class in response to a gospel-oriented music video. I didn’t really analyze it at the time. But since then I’ve grown to believe it was the same kind of emotional response I often get when listening to inspiring music or reading beautiful prose. I have come to the conclusion that reality must be one of two things. The first is this idea:
West wrote:In recent times, I have imagined God more and more like a really great, wise parent. He knows how you learn. He gives us the best information we need according to our learning style. And then He trusts us to make an informed decision.
So it might be possible that either you aren’t wired to feel or believe in the kind of spiritual experience you were expecting, or that God knows that type of experience isn’t best for you, but God is giving you experiences and interacting with you in other ways that you need to learn to recognize or just trust that God knows what he’s doing.The other idea is that maybe it doesn’t actually matter whether you got an answer or not, or what an answer actually feels like. What really matters to God is seeing what you do with what you have. He’s not watching you like a helicopter parent, waiting for just the right moment to give you answers or bless you. He’s watching to see what happens to you and how you make use of your agency—what kind of moral choices you make—in response to the experiences you have, whatever they are. In this model, experiences that some people interpret as spiritual might have nothing to do with God or the Spirit, or they might, and it wouldn’t actually matter either way to God. What would matter to God is whether people act with as much goodness and integrity as they can given their life’s circumstances.
Daeruin wrote:What would matter to God is whether people act with as much goodness and integrity as they can given their life’s circumstances.
+ 1
JAS, you said: Quote:…I prayed verbally, pouring out my troubles to Heavenly Father. After a while, I finally asked the question that I had never before asked: is this the true church?
I waited with an open heart, hoping to receive some kind of feeling confirming my inquiry. I waited, and waited, and waited… but there was nothing. Finally, after a while of sitting quietly in my car, I left without feeling a single spark.
Many of us on this site have had similar experiences. My wait for an answer took 15+ years. When the answer to my question came it was in a format that I didn’t expect. I believe there are episodes or problems in our life where the answer comes on God’s schedule. There are things where we are expected to work it out on our own. Other times we work on it & the answers come quickly. I wish all of my answers came quickly. The reality is: they don’t. So, we do what we can with what we’ve got & try to move on.
When I didn’t get my answer, I got angry. Every time I when to church without an answer to my prayer I got angrier. That only magnified the issue out of proportion & created problems personally & within my family.
We fortunately, worked them out & got through to the other side. This forum helped me through this process.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Just A Girl wrote:Looking at these posts has given me much more perspective- everyone feels the spirit in different ways and at different times. Not all of us have to experience the exact same feelings.
I think so too…it’s highly personal…which can be a blessing, but makes it messy, hence the need for Priesthood line of authority and personal line to maintain order.I even wonder if there is a God or a Spirit…or if we just have these things inside us as humans. But I still can’t explain away some of my experiences…so I chalk it up to the mysteries of God and find it is usually a good thing to seek the Spirit and tap into the goodness in the universe…whatever that means.
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