What do you do with doubt?

Your analogy to your friend "Steve" suggests strongly that you are in a different place than Mother T. She never doubted God but she did not feel his presence. It didn't feel like He was there. She had had such a strong, personal relationship when she was first called to leave her home and go off to foreign lands. When God withdrew, she was devastated. But who knows why God would do that? Who knows if Mother T accurately understood her situation? When it comes down to our souls, our innermost most life, we are not known to any one fully but God.

One thing that I have heard from former evangelicals is that they came to think it was all nonsense because they didn't see miracles every day (Why doesn't God heal amputees?). They see their loved ones die of the same illnesses that everyone else dies of. They may be too smart to handle rattlesnakes, but, as we just saw, not always. So when the pastor dies of snakebite, God did not do his part. Is it because the pastor was a sinner or because God is not there?

Or, worse, they may have been brought up in a hellfire and brimstone denomination and when they realized that the sins they were told God would send them to hell for were the common lot of humanity, assumed that the whole thing was a sham. God too. There are lots of variations. It is pretty hard for me to blame someone for falling away who was taught, for example, that dancing is wrong, moderate use of alcohol gets you sent to hell as surely as murder does, and that avoiding sinners means tossing out of the congregation anyone who fails. They knew that they were not perfect and faced temptation but couldn't own up to it to the very people who ought to have been available to help.

Now this is not the case for everyone by any means. We can find thousands of happy, productive people who have grown up in what I am lumping together as "evangelical" churches. But we are not all cut from the same cloth so it is no surprise when someone who is unusually reflective becomes dissatisfied. The answer to that dilemma is to find out exactly what Christianity really teaches. It is appropriate for a 6 year old to believe what his parents and the adults around him tell him. It is appropriate for a 16 year old to ask questions and test what he has been taught.

If you care to answer the questions I posed above, I will see if I can find something useful to offer. But it is perfectly possible that God intends for you to look for Him no matter how far away he seems.

It was probably a lot of events from the past 6 months. At the end of last summer I was finishing up an internship and was basically told that they didn't want me back. They said I couldn't work in a team and that I lacked focus and initiative. Truth be told I hated that company and was going to leave anyway. I tried to rationalize the fact that everyone has a terrible boss at some point in their life but it just made me worried. I just couldn't get how something I worked so hard at just didn't matter to them and it felt really unfair. Plus it made me question my abilities as a future engineer.

I've always tried to improve myself in the areas of things like self confidence and social grace but it doesn't come naturally to me. After that I just sort of started to question myself and my abilities more and more.

After the summer ended and I began my next term of class, I had long periods of depression and anxiety. I tried to avoid being alone by myself because I would always start going back to how much I hated where I was at right now. There were even times when I entertained the thought of...well you know

I had more time now to get involved with my church though. I started doing small stuff to help out and even did ministry for awhile. I would go around campus and talk to people about God and would try to answer questions and everything else. But I started to notice that my faith was so intellectually based that there was really no substance to it. I ended up giving in and asked God to help me with what I was going through. I ended up feeling a little better. After a while I started to get things back together a bit. I started taking medicine and ended up doing counseling which helped a little bit.

After term ended and winter break started I went back home and tried to keep myself busy. It didn't really work out though and I spent a lot of time not doing much of anything. I guess I felt kind of like a loser and I started thinking the same stuff again as last term. Finally I started developing just this general anger of God.

I had to know why he wasn't helping me. There didn't seem to be any purpose to it. Was God trying to teach me something? I didn't see what it could possibly be. Maybe he is making me stronger so that I could help other people through this type of thing? It didn't seem likely because I definitely have gone through this before. What more could another bout of depression be useful for? Or was it maybe possible that God doesn't care or that God doesn't exist? That's where this started I think.

After a few more weeks I kept praying and then started acting pretty blasphemous. I would do things like ask God out of my life and then regret it hours later. I started not knowing what to think about it all and would counsel myself by thinking that every Christian goes through doubts at one point in their life.

But later I was having a long overdue talk with a good friend of mine. We talked about how he used to be a Christian and still thinks about it a lot but now he really doesn't know what to think about it all. The situation was so familiar to me that I admitted that I was going through the same thing except I had more hatred and contempt for God and not just a gradual falling away.

Admitting that made me realize that I wasn't really a Christian. If I ever went back I wanted it to be by doing things correctly. I want to know that it's true and not just assume it to be true because it might make me somehow cope better.

Overall I think my anger has died down. I still serve in my church but don't do anything to teach scripture obviously. I stick around mostly Because they're some of the best friends I've ever had. They're all smart and I've told many of them one on one what I'm going through. Not a single person has been judgemental and can empathize with my situation.

I just don't really have a plan for what to do next I guess. I told a good friend of mine once that I planned to wait for an answer and see where that takes me. She responded by saying "so basically you're going to do the same thing you did to get where you are now." Really it's just not a wise or smart way to find the truth but I still don't really have any other plan.

I hope this helps. I'm not really sure how much more specific I can get about how I got to the point where I'm not sure what I believe in.

Oops. We crossed paths! Well, HB, I can honestly say that you have cause to be angry, hurt, and depressed. You took some hits. I can't offer any opinions about whether you have chosen the right career path. I do know that when I was teaching, I met student after student after student who was in a major because that is what his (or her) family expected him to study.

Some, who were unhappy and confided in me, I succeeded in convincing to investigate other subjects of interest and a few found their passion. Could something like that be worth considering? Do you like engineering? Did you do well in school? If so, could another internship in a different company be a possibility? You are in a field that I am entirely ignorant of, so I can't offer much help. I do know that if it isn't your passion, spending the next 40 or so years of your life in it is not likely to make you happy.

I hate giving advice in a vacuum! But it sounds like the problem may not be your relationship with God, so much but, rather, in where you find yourself in life right now. Are you still in college? If so, do you have a favorite or, at least, trusted professor to whom you can talk? It would be interesting to find out if there are other things you can do with an engineering degree. But if you determine that you really don't like it, don't look back! Find out what you do love and pursue it. You are still young. Yes, it stinks that you might have to go back to school for another year of two but what are 2 years against the 50 or 60 more you are likely to live?

You need advice from someone who knows what s/he is talking about and I am not it. I do know that I would ask you to pray this prayer as often as you feel down, depressed, or angry. It goes like this:

Help, God! Help!

I kid you not. I prayed that for months in a rough period I went through when I just could not pray any other prayer. But I decided to put it all in His hands. I wouldn't tell Him what to do; I knew He already knew what I wanted. I would let Him show me what to do. He didn't let me down. But it was not an easy time and will not be for you, I don't think.

That is a great prayer.  Some people (like you) get an answer to that one.  I waited more than 25 years listening to the dial tone of heaven.  This only makes sense to me if people are actually finding their own solution and passing up the credit.  For me, finding my own solution was not possible until I left the faith, but YMMV.

I think you're right about this. I didn't really think about it much at first but I think overall I'm not satisfied with where my life is going. I like Engineering but it's definitely not what I'm passionate about. I've grown to like it a lot more as time moves on but I'm mostly afraid that I'm just not suited for it really. I'm also not super great at communicating with other workers for whatever reason.

Come to think of it, I don't really have a teacher like that and I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do with an engineering degree.