Three Things to Do When God Feels Far Away
By Adam Mabry, author of When God Seems Gone
"The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth." - Psalm 145:18
God is never not there. Let’s state that upfront.
Yet, there have been moments in my own life where he seemed so, so far away that good, biblical theology (God is always there, he is always loving, etc.) collided with a bad emotional experience (“God, this hurts so much, where are you?”) Sometimes, this paradox is so intransigent that it threatens to denude passion for Jesus at best, or destroy our faith at worst. So, what are we to do when faced with this situation?
What do we do when God seems gone?
First, when God seems gone, ask yourself why.
The Bible gives us two reasons God can seem far away. The first and most simple reason is our own sin. Amongst other things, sin is a relational breaking. Isaiah 59:1-2 makes it explicitly clear that our sin creates a relational rift with God. We all understand this because this is how all relationships work. I cannot sin against my best friend by gossiping against him, lying to him, and failing to do what he asks, and then be shocked to find out he doesn’t want to hang out with me. So, the first reason is simple: sin distances us from God.
But the second reason isn’t so simple. The second reason involves God’s will, his plans, our sanctification, and our own messy healing. The second reason always involves God strategically employing things we don’t enjoy in order to help us become the people who can increasingly enjoy him. So, when God seems gone, first ask yourself why this might be. It may be that you need to repent. Or, it may be that you need to wait on God to give you the answer.
Second, when God seems gone, open your Bible.
At present in the West, we are driven by our feelings. Emotions have come to be the main way most people discover their beliefs about God, the world, and everything else. So, if God feels far away, we conclude that perhaps he is not there at all. Yet if we would but open our Bibles and read the stories of Habakkuk, Elijah, David, or even Jesus, we would swiftly find that the emotional experience of God’s absence is not evidence of his non-existence, but rather a fairly common phenomenon. We would find much comfort and truth in the stories of these men. And if we would dig a little bit, we might just find what God wanted us to learn in the seasons of his sovereign silence.
Finally, when God seems gone, remember he is not.
Your feelings are really only good at telling you one thing: how you feel. So, when your emotions are crying out to turn from God, or that he is not good, remind yourself that your emotions are to come under the lordship of Christ. Your emotionality is fallen, just like every other part of you, and is in desperate need of healing, not heeding. Listen to your emotions, but for God’s sake don’t obey them. Obey God, even when he feels far away.
Those moments in my life when God seemed gone have been the worst moments of my life. Yet, when I began to embrace the possibility of God’s providence in perceived silence, I grew in ways I would never have imagined. I don’t ever want to relive the moments when God seemed gone, but I would never want to relinquish what I learned about God from them. When God seems gone to you, I hope you will determine to ask yourself why, to open your Bible, and to remind yourself constantly that he is not gone. This is what you should do when God seems gone.
Photo credit: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/Marisa9
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