How do you keep the faith?

I once read that even the greatest believers had crisis of faith. I'm catholic, and apparently even the greatest doctors of our religion had a lot of crisises on the way. I keep praying, keep loving, and keep doing good. In the case of my religion, pain is part of the beauty of life!

Praying, talking to others of the same faith, and reading spritual books can often boost your faith. But, it is very common for people of faith to have times that they feel they have none, or that their God is not really there....we call it the "Dark Night of the Soul"....which is part of the journey that we are all on.

I am like you in that I am more spiritual than religious. When I'm feeling low, I think about all the people in the world who are worse off than I am. It helps me to put my problems into perspective and makes them so much easier to deal with, emotionally, at least. That, to me, makes all the difference. Love still baffles me.

Oh, by being it, I guess..like giving a dollar to the fella looking for a bit of change or waving and smiling back at the little one peek-a-booing around mom at the store or being nice to someone who needs to be kicked around the parking lot a few times or helping out a friend who needs but didn't/couldn't ask..I guess what I'm saying is to be the reflection of that greater good rather than a representative of the other side...Enjoy!

Just keep praying. It provides solace to the soul and strengthens my faith. Give credit to God - he provides the many blessings that are bestowed upon us through the year. Little things and large things. Realize that without his help and guidance my life would go astray. Everyone experiences crisis of faith - that's when praying is even more important. Sit back and take stock of life and realize you couldn't have got here on you own.

For me, it's a matter of prayer and recognizing the small miracles that are present every day. It's easy to look at the war and famine, and feel the weight of our own problems and lose faith or at least start to wonder. But look around you. You have family or friends that love you (both, if you're lucky!). Women bring new lives into the world every day. The sun rises each morning, and even if it's not a beautiful day, at least it's a day that you get to live! Even if it turns out to be a horrible day, the miracle of you was alive for it, and will feel the joys more keenly for it. I encourage prayer as well, even if you don't recognize a specific 'god'. Whatever higher spiritual being you feel is out there is listening. The more you attempt to connect with that entity, the more you may find yourself led to one religion or another, and there you may find a strong community to help you keep your faith. Even if you don't feel led to a particular religion, prayer can help you remember that something is out there that loves you, cares about you, created you, and is working toward some purposeful goal for the good of all.

I believe in science. Believing in God is very unclear to me. People don't want to feel alone or helpless, so they tend to think there's someone watching over them. Isn't that a little bit childish? I mean, you grow up with parents looking after you, but when you grow up you're supposed to take care of yourself, yet, you keep believing there's some old-white-bearded guy sitting on the clouds and watching only YOU.

Like you, I am not religious, but I am spiritual. I have been blessed by seeing my world in a positive light, as the glass being continually half full (as opposed to half empty), and I see life as a perpetual roller coaster, while things will not always stay WONDERFUL, if they are bad or low at one point in time, they won't ALWAYS be. There have been only a few seriously low times in my life where depression has set in, and those have been very situational, in most cases related directly to deaths or losses of loved ones, or to a big loss in my life of some sort. I always bounce back because at my heart, I am NOT a negative person and although I am cynical about some things, I am not apathetic or care nothing about my self and my worth is measurable, I feel that I matter. Because I have a healthy sense of that, I feel that I could likely survive almost anything - I say almost because I can't know, all I have is an idea of my own strengths and weaknesses and my experience with life thus far. As far as reviving my faith, I constantly think of how far I have come, where I excel, and what I know I can do. There is a lot of power in yourself, whether people recognize it or realize it or not. I don't allow people to use threats or the word 'can't' or the word 'shouldn't' or any other ways of trying to stop me from accomplishing the things *I* want to. People who are successes are not successful because they never fail. They are successful because they do not let failure stop them, slow them down, or make them give up.

Hi Phaedra_Scythe, I admit that in moments of crisis, god has been victim of a great deal of disrespect from me. I tend to treat him like he is my friend or somebody so I tend to be sarcastic with him. But then, I start thinking what is it that I would like at that moment, set my imagination free kind of thing, and I tell myself - well that is what god is planning for me, so if he'd given this to to me, I'd be too complacent and not look beyond. :) That is how I return to faith - if I might call it that. :)

I pray and the days that I'm feeling particularly low I read the psalms and I feel much better. But what helps at other times is talking to others who do have strong faith and they can help you.

Man created religion, true, but god created man, & therefore has the perfect right to demand what he will from him.

I'm confused as to in what or whom you have placed your faith. It seems to me that this is likely your own problem. If you don't know where your faith is placed, its as easy to loose it as anything else you've misplaced.

I am feeling low at the moment ...

I usually verify if the teachings of the religion of my choice is true or not. Applying the pricniples it teaches to your daily life. If it brings results, at least that ia a start. If it teaches honesty, righteousness, and obedience to the divine, and it brings results, keeping me from harms way, then I think that will hold my faith to the religion even in the most testing time PCT htttp://ForThePeople1.BlogSpot.com

I keep the faith by keeping the no doubt state.