Unanswered prayer leads believers to abandon faith and hope

Evidence

There seems to be such an atmosphere of hopelessness among Christians today. Many have become discouraged and depressed and despondent because their situations just don’t change or improve. They pray, they believe, and they trust God, but nothing happens; then they pray, believe, and trust God again, but the situation still remains the same. Finally, they just stop praying, stop believing, and give up. As a consequence, they not only lose sight of God’s personal Love, they also lose the “hope of their salvation”—the reason they were called. “Hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Proverbs 13:12). — Chuck Missler, The Kingdom, Power and Glory, 1152

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the psychology of spiritual abandonment and theodicy literature on suffering and belief. — connects to: Faith that tries to transcend knowledge is destroyed by that very attempt; Faith can become a pain rather than a source of comfort. — Leo Tolstoy, A Confession, 194; Failed predictions often intensify believers’ proselytizing rather than ending their faith — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1810

Broader Connections

• Faith can become a pain rather than a source of comfort. #corroborates (0.85) — Leo Tolstoy, A Confession, 194
• Faith that tries to transcend knowledge is destroyed by that very attempt #corroborates (0.75)