When God Seems Far Away – Solutions (Part 4)

So you’re feeling disconnected from God and you are ready do something about it.  What to do, what to do??  Here are some things to keep in mind.

1.  Decide you WANT to become closer to God again

If you don’t really care, or don’t want to, it won’t happen.

2.  Don’t give up

What you’re going through won’t last forever – Job only suffered about a year, although from the description, it sounds (and feels) like a much longer time.  It’s easy to think that your situation will last FOREVER – it seems like it anyway.

But it won’t last forever.

Job suffered maybe 9 months to a year.  His crises came when he was an older man with grown children.  By then, Job was the richest man alive, and God called him the best man in the whole earth.  Think about that.

Bad things happened to good people – even some of God’s best.

Look at Job 1.  God lets us hear his narrative with the Devil concerning Job being the best man in the whole world, and the richest man in the East.  In one day, Job lost everything that he had and it looked really bad, and it felt like it was gonna last forever.  But in reality, it was just a season that he was passing through.

Most of don’t want to do the things we need to do to fix our misery until we FEEL like doing those things.  But the truth is, if you wait for the right feelings to come along, you’ll never do anything.  You have to DO the things that you know are necessary to get back on the right track, even if your feelings are still dead.

IF you choose the right action, you will often find that the feelings will catch up down the road.  Sometimes it takes a long while; don’t get discouraged.  Keep doing the right thing.

Right feelings will FOLLOW right actions, not the other way around.

Think of a relationship you’ve struggled with.  One where a lot of anger and resentment have built up.  You may not have felt like being nice to that other person.  You may have wanted them to feel the same hurt you felt.  But you knew being cordial was what you NEEDED to do.  It was the right thing to do.  Even though you didn’t feel like it.

The hard thing – but the only successful thing – is to choose to act kindly even if you don’t feel like it and even if the other person is still being a snot.

Right action comes first; right feelings follow. 

As my brother likes to say, “It’s never the wrong time to do the right thing.”

What it boils down to, is you just have to ride it out.  God knows exactly what you’re going through and he’ll see you through it.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”      (James 1:2-4)

3.  Focus on the Basics – Prayer, Bible Study, and Church Attendance

Jesus showed us the power of God’s Word during His time of temptation with Satan.

While Jesus was being tempted, He relied on the written word of God. Three times Satan came to Him tempting him to rely on himself as opposed to relying on God. Three times Jesus turned Satan away with the words, “It is written…”

He came out victorious because He relied on the Word.

If you are a parent, think about your kids for a minute.  If you don’t have kids of your own, think about somebody else’s kids.  We say we “watch our children grow”.  Yet, it seems like all of a sudden they’ve grown several inches and it feels like it happened overnight.

That’s also the case with our spiritual growth. We want to grow spiritually and walk in God’s presence, but become discouraged when we don’t feel like we’re making any progress. We want immediate leaps in growth.  But it doesn’t work that way.

You have to keep at it, continuing in prayer and the study of the Word, and all of a sudden you’ll realize that you’ve grown in your knowledge and your relationship with God and have stepped onto a higher plane.

Just like with realizing your kid grew 5 inches when you weren’t looking.

This realization often comes when you pop out on the other side of a really tough period of testing.

• Take comfort from familiar scriptures

Go to familiar verses and passages of scripture that you know and love. The ones that really speak to you.  Read them, and let the words sink deep into your marrow.  Feel the comfort and encouragement they provide. These are verses you don’t have to work at – just let them be there beside you, like a trusted friend.

• Stay connected at church

Another crucial thing that will help you make it through a desert time is to not cut yourself off from worship and fellowship with other Christians  God often uses other people to minister to us when we are struggling. Resist the common tendency to isolate yourself – that’s the worst thing you can do. Being with other Christians and continuing to attend and participate in worship will allow God to connect with you through the other parts of His Body.

Concentrate on praise and thanksgiving.  However little we may feel like doing this, it will build faith, reminding us of God’s goodness and his gifts to us. LOOK for things to be thankful for.

There have been times when I was really feeling discouraged and didn’t want to go to church, didn’t want to see anybody.  But I went because that’s what you do.  And sure enough, each time, I was uplifted and encouraged by the singing, the message, the people, the focus on God.  I was glad I had decided to go.

• Use the faith you already have

When you get to where you really believe and understand this point, your world will change.

Rather than fixating on how much faith you DON’T have, or how much you don’t know, or how much you’ve messed up – focus instead on what you DO believe, on the faith you DO have.

Go with what you KNOW.

When the disciples asked Jesus to increase their faith, he replied,

‘If you have faith as small as a mustard seed . . .’

Do you know how small a mustard seed is?  It’s really small.

The implication is that what we need is not so much great faith, as a great God.  And that’s exactly what we have! When we’re down on ourselves, we generally feel like our faith is so small, even nonexistent, that it isn’t worth even trying anymore.

Don’t beat yourself up about how much faith you think you DON’T have; simply use the faith you already have. Take your eyes off the supposed inadequacy in your faith, and focus on the adequacy of your God.

If you were handed a million dollar check you could have lots of doubts and still end up rich. It doesn’t matter how much you suspect the check might bounce. It’s only if you doubt so much that you refuse to try to cash it that you could miss out.

We cannot create faith by ourselves.  Jesus said even about himself, ‘I can of myself do nothing.’  We need to ask God to help us increase our faith.

Even if all you have at the moment is a Mustard Seed.

4.  Focus on FACT instead of Feeling

FACT:  God loves you and wants a relationship with you

Is your problem with God really about your own low self-esteem?

Have you ever thought about that?

Some people feel bad about themselves because of something they did in the past. Others feel bad because of something that was done to them. Either way, don’t let yourself feel so bad about yourself that you are unwilling to accept God’s love.

Remember grace?

Work at receiving forgiveness for your failings and giving forgiveness to those who have hurt you.

Instead of thinking God is keeping his distance because you’re such a loser, dare to believe that you are lovable and worthwhile and that your emotional needs are important. Then look for the ways God is showing you just that.

“The Lord longs to be gracious to you.”    (Isaiah 30:18 ) 

Many of us think that God is up in heaven just waiting for us to make a mistake so He can zap us.  This verse says that is not true at all.

God longs to be gracious to you.

FACT:  God’s love is unconditional.

 “He saved us, not because of the good things we did, but because of His mercy.”   (Titus 3:5)

God saves us, not because we did everything right, came to church every time the doors were open, and gave 10% of our earnings.  He saves us because of His love,

It’s an unconditional kind of love.

We have a hard time understanding unconditional love.  We base our “love” on feelings, and those feelings are subjective and conditional.

Anytime someone says “I love you because you do/did such-and-such” – it’s conditional.  Or “I’ll love you again if you stop doing THAT.”

Or “maybe I’ll love you – as long as you don’t cross certain LINES I’ve set up for you”.

If you earn my love, I’ll give it.   That’s how humans often “love”.

God’s love for us is not based on performance or on subjective feelings.

God IS love.  It’s not what He does; it’s who He IS.

God’s love for us will never run out.

“God’s compassion never ends.”    (Lamentations 3)

There’s nothing that we could do to ever cause God to love you more than He already does.  And nothing you could ever do that would cause God to love you less than He does right now.  He loves you with all the love He has, and it will never run out.

FACT:  God doesn’t hold a grudge.

People have told me that when bad things happen to them, it seems like God is somehow getting even with them for mistakes they’ve made, or sins they’ve committed.  Punishing them.  Like God is some kind of cop in the sky.

But that’s not what the Bible says.

Psalm 103 says

“God will not constantly accuse us, nor remain angry forever.  He has not punished us for all our sins, nor does He deal with us as we deserve.  He is like a Father to His children, tender and compassionate to those who fear Him.”

Don’t misunderstand:  God will discipline us.  He will correct us.  He’ll try to get us back on the right track.  But that’s way different than punishing us.

“There is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.”     (Romans 8:1)

No condemnation.  In the original language, this was written in the strongest possible terms.  It means there is absolutely no chance that we will ever be condemned by God once we belong to Christ Jesus.

Never.  Ever.  Ever.

Notice it doesn’t say that there are no consequences.  It says there’s no condemnation.  Whenever we choose to ignore God’s plans or violate His commandments, there’s a lot that we lose.    We lose a sense of authentic joy in the here and now.  We lose effectiveness in our ability to minister to other people and to witness for the cause of Christ.  We lose a lot when we sin as Christians.

But what we don’t lose is God’s love.  Our fellowship with God can be damaged.  But our relationship with God doesn’t change once He adopts us into His family when we’re saved.

Maybe you need to clear up your image of who God is and what He’s really like.

Most people I talk to who are having trouble feeling God’s love have a distorted view of who God is. They see Him for who they think He should be.   They’re projecting pain or disappointment from some other relationship onto God. They may know in their heads that God is different, but emotionally they experience him like their critical father, distant mother, abusive step-father, or someone else who hurt them.

Or they are basing their view of God on what someone told them God is like, instead of getting to know God themselves, through His Word.

5.  Be honest with yourself

• Determine if sin or a poor attitude is getting in your way

The easiest thing to do in life is to drift.

All you have to do to drift is — nothing.

Get on a raft in the lake, fall asleep, and you will naturally drift.  You don’t have to do anything, and you don’t even notice you’re drifting.

But all of a sudden, you’re somewhere you never thought you’d be.

Drifting takes you in one direction – AWAY.

One of Jesus’ own disciples drifted away from Him.  Peter.  In his drifting away, we can see four of the most common causes that we drift away from God.

1.  Overconfidence.  The night before Jesus’ death, He was alone with His disciples and He told them, “One of you will betray Me.”  Simon Peter says, “Jesus, everyone else may stumble but I will not.”  He got that answer wrong.  Because it was him.

Overconfidence is often the first step in drifting away because we start to think, “I can handle this on my own.  I’m stronger than this. ”

“If you think you are strong, be careful not to fall.”                                 (1 Corinthians 10:12)

“A proud attitude leads to ruin.”     (Proverbs 16:18)

2.  Laziness.  Humans tend to be lazy.  We get lethargic.  We start to slack off on our good habits.

That can happen in a marriage.  That can happen with your kids as a parent.  It can also happen in your relationship with God.

In the next scene, in Mark 14, Jesus is with His disciples in the garden of Gethsemane.  He asked a few of the disciples, including Peter, to stay and keep watch for an hour and pray with Him.  Jesus goes off and prays, knowing that He was going to die on the cross the next day.  It was one of the most agonizing moments in Jesus’ life as He struggled through what that would mean.

He comes back to see His disciples, whom He’d asked to watch and be with Him, and they’re all asleep.

In verse 37 He says to them, “Couldn’t you stay awake with Me for just one hour?”

Maybe they were sleepy – they’d just had a huge Passover meal.  It was dark.  It was late at night.  And they were tired.  So what’s the easiest thing to do?  The easiest thing to do is exactly what they did, and that was to fall asleep.

Doing the right thing is often hard. It requires more energy.   It requires more effort, and all you want to do is nothing.

What’s easier?  Eating out again, or going by the market to get some healthy food to cook?  Is it easier for you to go work out at the end of a long day, or just go home and watch TV, telling yourself that it’s been a hard day?

The thing you would rather do, the easier thing, isn’t always the best choice to make.  It’s often difficult to do the right thing.

3.  Fear of ridicule.

We are terrified of what other people might think of us.

After Jesus was arrested, He was taken into the city for trial.  Peter followed Him.  But look at HOW he followed Him.

Continuing in verse 54, we see that Peter followed Jesus “at a distance”.  He stayed back.  Why do you think he kept his distance?

It doesn’t say, but I think he might have been feeling what you or I might have felt.

Jesus had become unpopular.  He was going to be tried.  The crowd had turned against Him. Maybe Peter didn’t want to be identified with Jesus, so he hung back.   It was probably a bit scary.  So maybe Peter was worried about being ridiculed or harassed, and so he decided to stay back.

Sometimes we try to follow Jesus at a safe distance.  And guess what?

It feels DISTANT.

Just far enough back that maybe no one will notice.  Why?  Are you ashamed of what people might think if they realize you’re a Christian?

Maybe you pray before meals at home but when you’re at a restaurant suddenly you’re too self-conscious to pray.  You don’t want other people to think you’re weird.

“Fearing people is a dangerous trap.”  (Proverbs 29:25)

Jesus said in Mark 38:

“If anyone is ashamed of Me, I’ll be ashamed of him.”

There is no such thing as a secret agent Christian in God’s army.

This temptation to follow Him at a distance can cause us to drift away.

There’s a fourth cause of distance that we see in Peter’s life.

4.  The need for instant gratification. 

What does Peter do next?  He goes down to the trial where Jesus is going to be condemned to be crucified the next day.  Peter could have gone right up to the door, gotten close to the action.

But he didn’t.

He stayed back at a distance.  He saw some Roman guards who had arrested Jesus.  They had a fire going.  He walked over and he warmed himself.  While he’s warming up, Jesus is being tried.  He’s going to be condemned to death.  And Peter, one of his followers, is with the enemy warming himself at their fire.

There’s something wrong with that picture.

But can you sort of identify with Peter in that picture?  We get caught up in our need for instant gratification, the feeling of “I want to be liked.  I want to have what I want – right now.”  But watch out, because if your top priority is to enjoy the world’s campfire, you’re going to get burned.  It may be great for a minute, because they like you and you fit in.  But there’s no lasting joy and no peace with that choice.