Not Feeling The Spirit

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone else here has decided to stay lds if they can’t feel the spirit at church. It seems to make going to church difficult at times but even though I haven’t felt the spirit the last two times I went I got a lot out of it. Also, I think this may be a very stupid question but I have to ask because I am not totally sure. I have not done anything serious or bad to keep me from feeling the spirit but I haven’t taken the sacrament in a long time. Do you have to take the sacrament to feel the spirit or does it just help. I also wonder if I don’t feel the spirit should I not go to church? I guess I feel welcome to go to church anytime and know I can go but it feels hard going when I can’t feel the spirit and I can’t help but wonder why..

Sorry for all the questions.. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

I think you have very valid questions! They are not stupid at all. I get confused a lot as well. I am on a few sites, and so far this one seems to be the most useful for me. The people here have been through a lot of similar yet completely different experiences, making this a great place to learn and share.

Quote:

=”mormonmom” I have not done anything serious or bad to keep me from feeling the spirit but I haven’t taken the sacrament in a long time. Do you have to take the sacrament to feel the spirit or does it just help.

Does it help you? I think that the process of baptism, sacrament etc. are really ways of each of us expressing and accepting our love in Christ. That being said, some rituals mean more to one person then another. I don’t believe you have to take the sacrament to feel the spirit. In fact, I know that people who have major sins on their heads can still feel the spirit, else how does one repent? Also sin is a subjective word. What one person thinks is a sin is not to another.

I also wonder if I don’t feel the spirit should I not go to church? I guess I feel welcome to go to church anytime and know I can go but it feels hard going when I can’t feel the spirit and I can’t help but wonder why..

I have been struggling with this as well. Does the benefit of going out way the disappointments? It sounds like you are still learning at church which is really great. Different people go to church for different reasons. Some supplement there spirituality with other sources but enjoy the friendships at church. I think the spirit comes from God and is available to all. I felt very numb of the spirit for a long time. I wanted to feel it, but it felt gone. Though I sometimes still feel this way, I am starting to feel better about myself and the spirit seems to come a little more frequently.

Sorry for all the questions.. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Thanks. What you said about the sacrament makes a lot of sense.

[Anonymous]

I guess it is a question of what you believe is “feeling the spirit”. If you are looking for a true witness from God I do not think you need ot be in church for that. In fact I have never felt much at church. Church for me is more of the administrative part of the process. If I want o get close to God I will go climb a mountain, or go out into the desert. For me personally being in Gods creations is much more of witness to me of his existence than church will ever be. That being said I think it is important to attend. YOu build social relationships that are important. You may receive instruction, or you may feel the spirit, but I would not think it a bad thing that you do not always feel so great while at church.

[Anonymous]

I feel good most Sundays at church, but that’s largely because I have tried hard to develop a true love for other people. I “feel the spirit” regularly, but I’m not sure exactly what that means, really. Perhaps I just feel the “warm fuzzies” more naturally than some.

As far as where you can feel the spirit, I agree with Cadence that different people feel God’s love for them (solely or more intensively) in different situations and different places. I go to church to be and worship with others I have CHOSEN to love, no matter our differences – so I tend to feel good while I’m there regardless of what’s being said in talks and lessons. When I am edified by a talk or lesson, which happens quite regularly given my attitude toward them, great! When I’m not (and even when I cringe or disagree), great! I’m still with people I’ve chosen to love in a setting I’ve chosen for myself.

It’s all good – even when it’s not all good.

Oh, and the sacrament hasn’t been accompanied with an outpouring of the spirit for me in a long, long time – if ever. It’s something I do as a token of my remembrance of him and commitment to live a Christ-centered life – not as a vehicle to feel the spirit. It just doesn’t work that way for ME.

[Anonymous]

Hi, Mormonmom,

I feel the same feelings as you. This StayLDS site has given me so many different ways to think about things. I get frustrated when I go to church and hear talks or lessons that I disagree with but then because of this site I realize that my neighbors and friends, who I love, are at church because this is what they believe and that is part of who they are and why I love them. I also realized that I am on their turf, so to speak, and I can choose to be there or not. There are so many times when I don’t feel the spirit but there are also times when I do and I learn a lot about being a better person and daughter of God. I’ve also learned I need to surrender to the goodness that is there and as so many posters have said and let go of the bad feelings I have while there.

I actually love to take the sacrament. I can repent of those stupid things I do or say and tell God that I will try harder during the week to do better, to be more loving and kind. It helps me to remember. Oh and I like what Cadence said, I do feel the spirit in all different places other than church.

I am so grateful for your post, I actually feel much better about going to church.

So thanks.

[Anonymous]

The ultimate goal IMO, the one down the path a little ways perhaps, is not having a dependence on external factors for “feeling the spirit” or making meaning from ritual and ceremony (like the sacrament).

To put this into the form of different questions, they would look something like this:

1. How should I be in order to feel the spirit? Not what location or building should I go to.

2. How will I make a ritual or ceremony meaningful and valuable to me? Not so much what are the right conditions, or what are the “real” rituals.

When I find answers to those questions, I am rarely disappointed . And if I am disappointed, it points me to new questions and new answers. It isn’t a failure. It is trial and error towards progress. It’s ok to fall down or get it wrong.

In regards to the sacrament, I have really connected with this ritual in the past year or two. This isn’t the new correct truth everyone else is missing. This is just a personal way of making meaning for me. It is a spiritual experience that I value. It makes me “feel the spirit.” When I am taking the bread, I imagine the bread as symbolic of the perfected physical ideal of the resurrected Christ. Ingestion and digestion is symbolic of assimilation. I am what I eat. I imagine this coursing through my body, making my body perfect and whole, sanctified. Blood is symbolic of the life force and spirit of a creature. When I take the water, I imagine it coursing through me and becoming a part of me, or also that I am becoming Christ, sanctified.

Now on one level, I know I am imagining this in my head. On the other hand, I am experiencing what is in my head. My conscious existence *IS* what is in my head and heart. And again on another level, I believe that this is how I access the other 95% of my subconscious brain. I am programming myself on a very deep physical and psychological level to run these types of routines 24/7 in the background. I am programming my personal evolution in a direction. I have to believe and imagine it for it to happen. There is no other way to access ourselves so deeply like this. All other ways end up looking just like religion, so why not use the tool I have.

Now my main point in sharing this very personal part of myself is to point out that NONE of this depends on what is going on around me. I could theoretically do this in my own home or out in the woods somewhere communing with nature, although I think it is symbolically important for someone else to serve me (and for me to serve them) in ritual. It does not depend on anyone else’s opinion of what the sacrament ritual means though, or who is allowed to act it out. I am creating my experience. I am responsible for it.

All this is happening while the person next to me might be thinking and experiencing something completely different. For them perhaps, they just renewed their baptismal covenants, and have shown they are ready to obey the Church programs so they don’t miss any blessings in the Celestial Kingdom at some distant point in the future. Please don’t hear mockery in my voice when I write that. Their experience doesn’t concern me. Power to ’em! I believe we are all experiencing things just right for our needs, and for what we need to make progress towards something new. That example I gave might be exactly what that person needs.

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