When God Feels Distant
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Why does God sometimes feel distant? Why are there times and seasons when it seems like God is either aloof or further away from us than at others? As a pastor, I have received various versions of this question over the years.
Questions like:
"Why does God feel distant from me? I know I am saved. I have assurance of that from Scripture. But, why do I go through periods of deadness and dryness? How is this true and why does it happen? I am really not changing anything about my routine. I have the same Bible plan. I dedicate the same time every morning to prayer. I am repenting and doing everything I know to do, pastor… And yet, sometimes God feels nearer to me while other time I feel like He has left me and I am all alone… Why is that?”
There are undoubtedly many reasons why this phenomenon may occur, such as our own sinfulness and rebellion, the quenching of His Spirit, or God's chastening His children. When that happens, God will often withdraw the experience of His presence from us, which is meant to lead us to repentance. He does not, however, remove His presence entirely since there is "now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Ro 8:1). Yet. At the same time, God is fully present with us through the Spirit's indwelling and fully present in all places through His own omnipresence; there are times when He veils our capacity to comprehend His presence, allowing us to experience distance, darkness, and shadows.
As said above, this often occurs because of habitual, indwelling, and unrepented sin. But what happens when this is not the case? How do we explain other occasions when we are in the Word, repenting of our sin, praying, fasting, singing, mortifying, and doing everything we know to do, or when we feel like the absence of God is more palpable than His presence? How do we explain that?
These are questions that I have asked myself countless times before. Unfortunately, I was not given a Biblical reason from Scripture to account for these occasions. Instead, I was taught that my relationship with God was based on quid pro quo rules, which means If I repented of my sins and did the right things, then He would give me the joy of His presence.
This not only encouraged a performance-oriented faith where I believed my experience of God was wholly dependent upon me, but it also was not in accord with the men I saw in Scripture. Take Job as an example. The Bible tells us that he was a righteous man, exemplary among the men at that time. Yet, God allowed him to experience awful suffering and the diminishing of His presence. Take David, whose Psalms are riddled with pleadings that God would draw nigh to him, allowing Him to experience the joy of God's nearness again. Finally, consider Jesus, who never sinned, but in the garden felt the agony of future distance from God.
How do we account for these things? To answer that question, I would like to share thirteen things I wish someone had shared with me that I have now learned. I will not be diving too deeply into "why God is distant" but discussing more about how to think about it and what to do about it. Sometimes, the why belongs to God and remains a mystery to us.
In the rest of this article, I offer 6 reflections to consider when you feel distant from God. I would also like to provide 7 Biblical remedies for you to employ should you ever experience this.
PART 1: REFLECT ON THIS
REFLECT ON HIS RIGHTS:
The principle: God has every right and ability to give and take away the experience of His presence as He deems appropriate.
One of the grandest doctrines we often recoil from is the sovereignty of God. Sovereignty entails God has every right, ability, and power to accomplish whatever He wills. And since everything that occurs is what He has willed (Dan 4:35), then every pain, displeasure, and discomfort came about first by divine knowledge and permittance. Therefore, nothing happens outside of God's will.
Job says this poignantly:
"It is God who has made my heart faint, And the Almighty who has dismayed me, - Job 23:16
Jeremiah, a man also acquainted with grief, heartily concurs. He said:
"He has driven me and made me walk In darkness and not in light… Even when I cry out and call for help, He shuts out my prayer." - Lam 3:2, 8
While these verses may rub the inner drama queen inside us the wrong way, do we really have cause to be angry? All of us, at some point, have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That includes Job and Jeremiah, and it also includes us. As such, God said that the punishment for our sins would be death. And yet look at how long we live. The very fact we are alive today means that God has been exceedingly generous to us. It means He has not given us what we are owed but has offered us unmerited mercies far beyond what we deserve.
Beyond this, if you are a Christian, you have received unfathomable grace! Grace is not only being spared from the punishment you earned but also receiving blessings, comforts, and joys that did not belong to you! In your sin, you and I should have suffered eternal torments and terrors forever. And yet, God sacrificed His Son to rescue you. Instead of us suffering, He watched His only Son undergo emotional, spiritual, and physical anguish to offer us grace. Our salvation, even if it were the only good thing that ever happened to us, would be infinitely more than we could ever ask for or expect.
But it is not the only good thing that has happened to you. Tell me, can you count all of the blessings and graces the Lord God has given you? All of the joys He has imparted through families, friends, children, or through a lineage and heritage. Has He given you wealth, food, wine, safety, or security? Has He answered any of your prayers? Has He given you oxygen to breathe or organs that work without your direct involvement or management? Has He given you a physical copy of the Bible? What about all the other blessings stacked on top of blessings that we forget to acknowledge?
When we add up the mountain of blessings we have received and compare it to the eternal torments and sufferings we deserve, it is shocking that we complain as much as we do. Think about this clearly, if we received nothing but our salvation from God, and if our temporal lives were filled with nothing but heartache, miseries, and unimaginable sufferings, and if we never once felt the comfort and nearness of His presence, we would still be inconceivably and unreservedly blessed.
Remembering this, we should not be surprised whenever God feels distant from us. We should actually be surprised that so frequently, He doesn't. Instead, we should be shocked that such an immense and pure being would persist for so long with such petulant peasants. And if we should ever walk through a period like this, where God feels to us distant, our first reaction should not be that we have been slighted. Instead, we should remember that this same God, who is working out our salvation, is also working out this situation for good. Since He is sovereign over all things and perfectly good in all things, we can trust Him in all things. We can rest knowing we are more blessed than our minds can conceive, which will help us patiently wait for our experience to improve.
REFLECT ON OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS:
The principle: Our righteousness, obedience, and sanctification do not obligate God to give us experiences of His nearness.
The book of Job is predicated upon the fact that Job is a righteous man (Job 1:1). Throughout its pages, Job himself announces that he is blameless, guiltless, and righteous (see Job 27:6 as an example). Furthermore, God Himself agrees with this assessment, even saying it Himself at the beginning of the book (Job 1:8). The book is a fascinating thought experiment and a case study on how and why the righteous suffer and experience distance from God. And according to the book of Job, sometimes they experience this phenomenon, not because they lack righteousness, but because of it, which was a concept entirely foreign to that time and place.
At that time, the prevailing wisdom, especially among Job's shoddy friends, was that good people obtain favor and blessings because of their goodness. At the same time, the wicked will suffer because of their wickedness. To that culture, the world operated along strict rules of reciprocity. Good people were rewarded; bad people were punished. The obvious conclusion from such a philosophy was: "If you are suffering, then you must be wicked," which contradicts God's own words about His servant, Job.
With that, the book invites us to explore why someone blameless, righteous, and even commended by God could undergo such a loss of intimacy with His creator. Notice how Job recounts his suffering. He does not describe it entirely as the loss of material wealth or physical health decline. Instead, he says:
"Oh that I knew where I might find Him, that I might come to His seat!... "Behold, I go forward but He is not there, And backward, but I cannot perceive Him; when He acts on the left, I cannot behold Him; He turns on the right, I cannot see Him." - Job 23:3, 8-9
In addition to Job's constant declarations of rightness and fairness, he also describes what he considers the brunt of his affliction. His righteousness did not secure for him the intimacy and fellowship with God he thought it would. Job is far less vexed over the loss of physical and material blessings. Instead, he is far more broken that God seemed like a million miles away from him. Job cannot conceive of a world where a man actively pursues righteous living, and God, who knows everything, would still withhold His presence from him. That was inconceivable to him, and that same complaint comprises the lion's share of the book.
Just as Job had to learn at the end of the book, we, too, must expand our view of God. Like Job, we must understand that works of personal righteousness, individual obedience, and dedicated work in holiness cannot guarantee the experience of feeling near unto God. God does not operate in a quid pro quo, vending machine spirituality. He grants the awareness of nearness as He deems fit. This is not based on our schemes. There will be times when God will graciously allow us to experience an abundance of His presence. But there will also be times when He doesn't, and we need to become acquainted with that.
Remember, God is sovereign over all these things. Recall that our sanctification and growth in righteous living do not render God indebted to us. Rest in the fact that God is using everything, even periods of perceived distance, for our good and for His glory!
"Though He slay me, yet I will hope in Him. - Job 13:15
REFLECT ON PAST RECORDS:
The principle: Just because God gave tremendous experiences of His presence in the past does not mean He is obligated to repeat them in the present.
Psalm 44 begins this way:
O God, we have heard with our ears, our fathers have told us the work that You did in their days, In the days of old… For by their own sword they did not possess the land, and their own arm did not save them, but Your right hand, and Your arm, and the light of Your presence, for You favored them. - Ps 44:1
The Psalmist is seeking to remind God of the days of old. Those were days when His presence went powerfully ahead of the people and delivered them safely into the land He had promised. The reason for this reminder is telling since the current generation did not have the same experience with God as their ancestors.
Even though they had not violated the terms of God's covenant (44:17) nor turned aside unto idolatry (44:18, 20), God's heavy hand was against them. Their enemies were defeating them and making them a mockery among the nations, which led to incredible confusion. They wondered, if God's people of old experienced Him in such and such a way, then why are we not having this same experience?
The Psalmist cries:
Yet, You have rejected us and brought us to dishonor, And do not go out with our armies…Yet You have crushed us in a place of jackals And covered us with the shadow of death. - Ps 44:9,19
Do you feel the weight of their confusion? They essentially say: God, we do the same thing our forefathers did! We are not dishonoring you! This warrants their question: "God, why are we not getting the same result they did?" Surprisingly, God does not give them an answer to this.
Yet, while this Psalm offers no insight into why this generation was suffering at the hands of their enemies (44:9-16), and no reason as to why God was pulling back His presence (44:21-25), it does clarify and confirm that God's past record of grace to one people, does not guarantee God will act in that same way in a different time and with another people. Graces are non-repeatable. His presence and how He allows us to experience are deeply personal to particular people and times, and seasons. If God dispensed an experience of His presence whenever any group followed steps A, B, C, and D, apprehending His reality would become nothing more than solving a formula or completing a checklist.
You may have had moments of blissful intimacy with God. There may have been a season when He was especially near to you, pressing His love down into the depths of you, enlivening your eyes, and giving life to your bones. Or perhaps, you know about times when others have experienced God in ways you could only dream of. Maybe they have stories of how God moved in the past or in how God is moving in their lives today. Perhaps these things cause you to ask, "God, what am I doing wrong?"
Remember, past records of graces do not guarantee them in the present. God is personal. He is not a robot, which means He gets to decide how near and how far you perceive Him to be. That is what makes our relationship with God so dynamic and allows us an occasion to praise Him since we would never ultimately adore a God who acts like a vending machine. We would find that God is useful, but not beautiful.
REFLECT ON YOUR REASONING:
The principle: Our perspective on experiencing God is lacking. We fail to account for the myriad ways God can use distance to sanctify and bless us.
In Job's opinion, God had slighted him. You can hear this tone in his bombastic appeal.
"Nevertheless, I will argue my ways before Him… "Listen carefully to my speech, And let my declaration fill your ears. "Behold now, I have prepared my case; I know that I will be vindicated. "Who will contend with me?... "How many are my iniquities and sins? Make known to me my rebellion and my sin. "Why then do You hide Your face and consider me Your enemy? - Job 13:15, 17-19, 23-24
Job is appealing to God and basically saying, "Lord, if I am a righteous man, and if there is no sin that I can remember, then why are you treating me like I am your enemy?" He is asking God, "What gives?"
Job assumes that the only thing that can separate him from an experience of God's nearness is unrepented sin. Since He has no memory of unconfessed sin, His entire paradigm for being near God has been blown. Job obviously failed to account for the panoply of reasons that God may have, other than unconfessed sin, in allowing distance in his relationship with God to occur.
In the same way, there are countless reasons why God may allow you to experience distance in your relationship with God. Like Job, you don't need to have all the answers or know all of the reasons why. If God has not revealed these things to you, then they are not for you to know.
Remember, you are not required to have the knowledge of God's secret will. Like Job, our reasoning is flawed and incapable of understanding mysteries God has not revealed (Dt. 29:29). All you can know is what Scripture tells you. So start with a few fundamental truths: 1) God is sovereign, 2) He is good, and 3) whatever happens comes from His loving and kind hand so that I can trust Him.
Rest in that, receive that, lay down your human reasoning, remembering what the Psalmist says:
Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him For the help of His presence. - Ps 42:5
REFLECT ON THE RUINS:
The principle: Our problems, pain, and experience of troubles do not obligate God to relieve us in any way.
One of the most consistent cries of the Psalmist is for God to arise and aid His people when they are suffering. As we have mentioned before, when we are living righteously, when we see other people getting a different experience, and when all the powers of our reasoning would say that God owes us His presence, sometimes God will surprise us and allow us to feel the distance. This is not because God is capricious. On the contrary, whatever God does, He does because, at that moment, it was the very best thing. Sometimes, even though we cannot explain it, feeling like God is distant is the best thing for us. If it were not true, then God would not have chosen it.
Nowhere is the tension of feeling God distant more perplexing than in times of suffering. We expect God to come to our aid when we are in pain; unexpectedly, these can be moments when God feels most distant. Here are a few verses from the Psalms that drive this point home.
Why do You stand afar off, O Lord? Why do You hide Yourself in times of trouble? - Ps 10:1
How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? - Ps 13:1
Especially poignant is what the sons of Korah declare in Ps 42. They say:
As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all day long, "Where is your God?" - Ps 42:1-3
Do you see the picture the writer is painting? He is casting himself as a deer on the verge of death, panting frantically for water before she falls under the weight of dehydration. This is a deer that has gone a long time without the refreshment of a sip. In the same way, the Psalmist is saying to God: "God, it has been a long time since I have seen, heard, or experienced you. I am dying here! The salty tears I lick off my glistened cheek are my only drink and food. Where are you, God?"
Like the Psalmist, there will be times when you walk through tragedy and disaster. There will be times when it feels like Count Rugan has you locked away in the pit of despair. And in those times, every fiber of your being will be looking for an experience of relief. You will want your heart to calm down, but it keeps over-beating. You want your mind to rest, but it goes on reeling. You ask God to bring you the peace that surpasses understanding, yet you will not feel peace. These occasions do not disprove the existence of God or call into question His loving kindness; they reinforce it.
Like a wise parent, God does not always give us what we want. If a mother did that, she would soon have a monster instead of a child on her hands. In much the same way, sometimes God brings relief when we ask, and sometimes He allows us to knock, and the door flings wide open. And then, other times, He leaves us outside knocking. Not forever, mind you, and also not eternally, but temporally, much longer than we can endure without in our flesh without despair or complaining.
Remember that God is in control. The situation you are walking through is challenging, and it is stretching you beyond your ability to handle it gracefully. That is ok. God allows it for a much better purpose and will accomplish much more in your life than if He had met your desires. Remember that, thank God for that, and trust Him in that.
REFLECT ON YOUR RESILIENCE:
The principle: Just because we have reached the end of our rope does not mean God has reached the end of His.
The Psalmist says:
O Lord, the God of my salvation, I have cried out by day and in the night before You. Let my prayer come before You; Incline Your ear to my cry! For my soul has had enough troubles, And my life has drawn near to Sheol.- Ps 88:1-3
Everyone has a breaking point. All of us will go so far; some may even go further than others, but there is a point when everyone breaks and gives up. We see this in sports when the body breaks down. We see this in mental health when one too many tragedies produce a full-blown panic attack. But what we do not see in Scripture is an obligation from God to relieve us when we have reached our point of breaking.
Scripture says that:
God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able - 1 Cor. 10:13
The passage doesn't say: "God will never give you more than you can handle." Instead, it simply promises that God will aid us in defeating temptations when they come. These are not the same things!
For instance, there are times when God has given us more than we think we can handle. I do not know about you, but every day I serve as a pastor, I have more on me than I can ever handle in my flesh or ability. My life is one event after another where I have to depend upon God again because the task is too big for me. And this is consistent with Scripture.
As far as I can tell from Scripture, God never allows us to define what we can handle. If that were the case, we would never grow because we are pain-averse and avoidant people. If we got to decide whether we could handle something or not, we would never face anything. We would become lazy, weak, and miserable creatures with no strength, grit, or backbone.
Praise God, however, that He forces us into situations of pain. Thank the Lord that He does not accept our excuses. Glory be to God that He allows us to walk through the deepest aches and pant through the most expansive deserts because we would not go there without Him making us. And as a result, we would not grow in the good ways He has for us.
Again, our opinion on how near or far God feels to us is not God's primary concern. He is primarily concerned with making you holy, not relieving your discomfort.
Remember what Paul says in the second letter to the Corinthians, and find comfort in your future.
For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison - 2 Cor 4:17
PART 2: EMPLOY THESE REMEDIES
1) REPENT OF YOUR REPENTANCE
God may feel distant to you now, and you may not know where to begin. Perhaps you have confessed every sin you are aware of, and you are reading this article looking for answers. Begin by repenting of your repentance.
Like everyone, our repentance is too shallow and superficial, and we overlook millions of egregious sins that offend the Spirit of God. Those hidden sins lie dormant in our hearts and minds, and we rarely see the light of day because we have suppressed or overlooked them. Instead of skipping over repentance, acknowledge to the Lord that your repentance is insufficient and you need His help.
Say along with King David:
Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way. - Ps 139:23-24
Invite God to examine your heart, reveal your offense, and then confess and repent to your Lord.
2) REMAIN STEADFAST
Jeremiah speaks a profound word to everyone living in the microwave and 5G generation. We like things done quickly. Jeremiah tells us how to approach things rightly.
The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him. It is good that he waits silently For the salvation of the Lord.For the Lord will not cast you off forever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love - Lam 3:25-26, 31-32
Remain steadfast as you wait on the nearness of God. You may feel like God is far from you, but these are just feelings. God is in you through His Spirit and with you in His covenant love, and your experience will soon improve.
Wait for the Lord's timing, as Psalm 27:14 challenges us:
Wait for the Lord; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord. - Ps 27:14
3) REMIND GOD OF WHO HE IS
After you have repented and are waiting patiently on the joy of God's presence to return, remind God of who He is. Did you know that God loves when we remind Him, according to Scripture, who He has revealed Himself to be?
Here are a couple examples you might use in prayer:
Rise up, be our help, And redeem us for the sake of Your loving kindness.- Ps 44:26
"But I will not break off My loving-kindness from him, Nor deal falsely in My faithfulness. "My covenant I will not violate, Nor will I alter the utterance of My lips. - Ps 89:33-34
4) REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE
After reminding God of who He is, in all of His covenant loyalty and love, do not forget to reflect upon who you are. You are finite. You do not understand the things of God, at least not clearly. You get the wrong idea when God seems distant to you, and you could not possibly understand the depths of all God is doing while He seems absent.
For a refresher course on humility, look at how God deals with Job in chapters 38-41 and how Job rightly responds in Job 42. Also, it is crucial to recognize that every time we feel bitterness over our circumstances, or frustration over unmet expectations with God, we are in the wrong.
Look at what the Psalmist says:
When my heart was embittered, And I was pierced within, then I was senseless and ignorant; I was like a beast before You.Nevertheless I am continually with You; you have taken hold of my right hand. With Your counsel You will guide me, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. - Ps 73:21-26
5) REIGN OVER YOURSELF
Your greatest enemy, undoubtedly, are you. That internal chatterbox that is always running its trap, speaking lies about you, discouraging you, and clouding your judgment, must not be allowed the freedom to go on talking. Instead, you must repent of your sin, remain steadfast until your experience improves, remind God of who He is and who you are, and then reign over yourself!
Instead of listening to yourself, begin speaking to yourself! Command yourself to hope in God and believe that your experience of His presence will improve. Do what the Psalmist says in Ps 42:5
Why are you in despair, O my soul? and why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him for the help of His presence. - Ps 42:5
(If you are unfamiliar with Martin Lloyd Jones, His book on Spiritual Depression is an excellent resource and goes much more in-depth on Psalm 42:5 than we can here).
6) REST IN HIS PLANS
As stated before, remember that this light and momentary affliction produces an eternal weight of glory in you. Although pain can be searing and the silence of God at times can be deafening, you are being prepared for something you cannot even imagine.
Remember that this is your future:
And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away." - Rev 21:3-4
7) REJOICE ALWAYS
Finally, do not forget to keep rejoicing in seasons of spiritual dryness and feelings of God's absence. You have more than you could ever remember to be thankful for. God has been exceedingly good to you in your salvation and blessings. He has a plan for every pain you feel, whether you can see or understand it. You are more loved than you could imagine; you are more cared for than you ever dare know. So do not allow bitterness and frustration to rob you of rejoicing.
God may feel distant to you, but again, these are only feelings. Repent of your sins, repent of your ineffective repentances, remember who God is, remember who you are, reign over yourself, rest in His plans, and rejoice all your days!
Say along with the apostle Paul, even in your discouragement and pain:
4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say, rejoice! - Phil 4:4
