Ever since I supposedly gave my life to Christ, I’ve had this nagging suspicion that I’m just going through the motions.
When I pray, the words come out, but they feel… hollow, like I’m reciting lines from a play. Gratitude, worship, and confession all leave my mouth without any weight behind them, and I can’t force myself to feel sorry for the things I did before in any deep way. Even writing this out feels calculated, like I’m only doing it because I want to secure my salvation rather than because I love God.
If my motive is just self-preservation, am I any different from someone who doesn’t believe at all?
Repentance is a direction. It’s a decision to turn away from sin and toward God, and the emotions usually catch up later (see this one).
Someone who’s going through the motions doesn’t lie awake wondering if they’re going through the motions.
I had a stretch of years where every prayer felt like reading a script. A friend pointed me to the verse about the angels in heaven rejoicing over one sinner who repents. One who turns around, that’s the whole requirement. I started praying something simple: ‘God, I don’t feel this, but I choose it anyway.’ That dry, stubborn obedience did more for me than any emotional high ever had.
On the fear of judgment, Scripture calls the fear of the Lord the beginning of wisdom.
Mixed motives don’t disqualify you. The prodigal son headed home because he was hungry, and the father still received him. Come: “God, I want mercy, and even my wanting is self-centered. Teach me to love you.”
For past sins, name them plainly to God. No excuses. Stop whatever part of it is still going on. Make amends where you can without causing more harm, like returning what was taken or correcting a lie you told. After that, trust what Christ has done instead of putting your remorse back on trial.
Repentance does bear fruit over time, a changed direction. But forgiveness rests on God’s mercy.
Grading your own sincerity while you speak drains the weight out of gratitude, worship, confession.
My words used to feel that fake too. Reading Psalm 51 out loud helped. Repenting of past sins can work the same way, one memory at a time. Thank God for something specific, then tell Him the old wrong in plain kitchen-table words and ask Him to loosen its grip. I’d set down the question of whether you’re any different from someone who doesn’t believe, though. That comparison feeds the calculation.
I like your point about not putting remorse back on trial. It can turn into endless self-sentencing, like Christ’s mercy only counts once we’ve felt bad enough.
Your caution about making amends without causing more harm matters. Sometimes the right repair is indirect, especially when reopening contact would burden or endanger the person who was hurt.
I spent a long season doing exactly that, holding my faith up next to some imagined unbeliever and measuring the difference. It never once produced love for God, just more measuring.
I’m glad you said “set down” instead of “answer”. For a long time I thought I had to resolve the question before I could move forward. But God never asked me to settle it. He asked me to come to Him. He receives us mid-calculation and doesn’t wait for us to finish the math.
Someone going through the motions doesn’t lie awake wondering about it. If the worry is there, something underneath is still alive.
I’ve prayed my own versions of your “I don’t feel this, but I choose it anyway” prayer during dry seasons. The stubborn obedience carries you further than chasing a feeling does. You said the emotions usually catch up later, and that’s the part I’m stuck on. Was it a gradual thaw across those years, or was there a moment where you noticed the script had weight again?
You may find the thaw is something you only recognize looking back. Jesus described the kingdom as seed a man scatters on the ground. He sleeps and rises, night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows, “he knows not how” (Mark 4:27). One day there is simply grain.
If you’re waiting for the moment the script gets heavy again, you can end up doing what Moses_Grows warned about, grading every prayer to see if this is the one. The weight often comes back sideways. You notice you missed praying on a busy day. A line from a psalm stays with you on the drive home.
Psalm 42 gives you words for the in-between. The psalmist speaks to his own downcast soul and tells it, “Hope in God; for I shall yet praise him.” Yet. You can pray that way too, and leave it to God to decide when the feeling arrives.
Has anyone tried the renouncing approach? Naming things out loud like confusion, fear, hopelessness, and the mental fog, then verbally rejecting each one in Jesus’ name. I’ve heard it paired with fasting and prayer, plus forgiving everyone who’s hurt you and forgiving yourself too.
Maybe there’s something to speaking directly against whatever is blocking real connection, like the mind-blinding stuff and the oppression that makes everything feel hollow.
The forgiveness part stands out. Forgiving others, and forgiving yourself, which might be the hardest when you’re stuck in the ‘am I even sincere’ loop.
Scripture does reveal our sin to us and shows us Jesus as the cure.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 says God’s word is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. Reading it consistently (even when repentance feels hollow) has been the best thing for me.
Give up one tiny thing for God. Something embarrassingly small, not for the feeling.
When prayer starts feeling like reading off a teleprompter, doing something concrete can shake it loose. Singing does it too, even if you sound terrible.
God already knows your heart. But sometimes we need our own behavior to prove it to ourselves. Falling back into the same sin and repenting again and again is you working out how badly you want to stop. So each time, ask yourself what’s keeping you from being wholeheartedly sorry.
A prayer that helped me: “Please forgive me Father for [specific thing]. I know you said it was wrong. I’ll try to stop, and I ask that you help me.”
Obeying because God said so comes first. Obeying because you want to comes after.
Repentance is ongoing. The closer you get to Him through prayer and Scripture, the more your heart changes toward sin. Jesus is the one who forgives and renews your mind along the way. So keep pressing forward with Him, even when it feels hollow.
Self-preservation can’t disqualify you. Jesus himself asked what good it is to gain the whole world and lose your soul, and he made that appeal on purpose.
Repentance is a gift. 2 Timothy 2:25 talks about God granting repentance, like it’s not something we build out of our own feelings. So maybe the prayer is “give me repentance, I can’t make it myself” rather than trying to feel sorry enough.
Fear of losing your soul is a reasonable place to start. Even “I believe, help my unbelief” was enough for Jesus to answer that father.
Repentance is turning around in the actual places where sin trained your feet to walk.
I had a season where every prayer felt like a performance for God. Then an older pastor asked me one question: “If your repentance were real, what would change by Friday?”
I stopped staring at my emotional dashboard and started looking for the next truthful step, blocking a website, returning money I had taken, deleting a bitter draft before hitting send, and apologizing without tacking on excuses.
The prodigal son came home partly because he was hungry. But the father still ran to meet him.
I went through something similar a few years back. Everything felt flat.
What shifted things for me was picking one specific sin from my past and asking God to show me how it still affects my life right now, in my relationships, my habits. No pushing for big emotions. I kept bringing that one thing up in simple talks with him.
Over time it led to small changes I hadn’t planned, like being more honest in conversations I used to avoid.