Have you ever felt like you were making great strives in the Christian life? Like you were growing and learning not just about God, but developing a deeper, more intimate walk with God? I think you can agree with me when I say it is one of the greatest and most invigorating feelings a human being can experience!
But how about when that closeness suddenly stops? How about when, instead of being excited to spend time studying God’s Word and reading Christian books it begins to feel like a chore? That can be one of the most frustrating experiences, especially when you haven’t even changed anything. You continued to read God’s Word, read Christian books, and pray, and yet that passion has somehow faded away. What once got you excited has become difficult.
This is a normal part of the Christian life. I wanted to say that it is unfortunately part of the Christian life, but, in truth, it is part of God’s perfect plan, so it is not unfortunate (Psalm 139:16). However, it is difficult, and it can be extremely frustrating. It can also often feel like you must be doing something wrong.
The truth is, though, just because we may be feeling distant from God all of a sudden, does not mean He is distant from us. If we truly are reading our Bible’s (with the intention of knowing Him more) and spending time in prayer with Him, He is not distant. We all know the popular, not to mention beautiful, promise in Hebrews 13:5. He promises to never leave or forsake us. Once we are saved, He is with us the whole way through.
Why, then, do we feel like He is distant? The truth is, I don’t know, but I do know He has a perfect reason for it. We see believers throughout Scripture who have felt distant from God. Job, someone who God Himself described as “a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil” (Job 1:8), and yet he lost everything, including his children. That is a whole lot worse then us feeling distant from God. Or look at David, deemed a man after God’s Own heart, and yet he struggled mightily at times with feeling forsaken by God (Psalm 13; 22). Jeremiah, obedient to what God called him to do (Jeremiah 1) is commonly referred to as the weeping prophet and wrote an entire book on lament (Lamentations).
God allows us to go through hardship, and He allows us to feel distant from Him. He does not do it because He enjoys it (Lamentations 3:33) or without a purpose (again, see Psalm 139). He allows it for our own good, though we may not always know what that is.
Have you noticed that I have used the word “feel” a lot? That is important. Because what we feel is not always what is reality. Humans tend to dictate what is happening based off of what their feeling, and I think this is often times very true when it comes to our walk with God. We base how our walk with God is going based off how we feel. We “feel” like God is distant from us. But that is not reality, as we have seen in Hebrews 13:5.
So what do we do when we feel as though He is distant from us? We claim God’s promises. We put our trust in Him. We remember Who He is and how much He loves us. Instead of allowing our emotions to dictate how we feel, we put our trust in God and make the logical decision to trust our Father.
I am not saying that it is easy. It is a battle each day, and often times each moment of the day. As we have seen, some of the most faithful men that have ever walked on the earth have struggles with feeling distant from God at times. But though David felt distant from God in Psalm 13, evidenced by verses 1-4, he ultimately puts his trust in Him at the end of the chapter (verses 5-6). He does so, not because he feels close to God, but because he recalls how good God has been to him. He ignores his emotions and thinks logically.
I want to end with a verse that has been an encouragement to me over the years, and I hope will be an encouragement to you. And if you already know the verse I hope it will be an encouraging reminder. It is found in Psalm 56:8 which says, “You (God) number my wanderings; put my tears into Your bottle; are they not in Your book?” Even when we are hurting, and during those times when we feel distant, He is close enough to us to catch every tear.
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