When God Seems Far Away – Solutions 2 (Part 5 of 5)

Today’s blog post will finish up the series, When God Seems Distant.  This is Part 5 of 5, and the second half of Part 4, which talked about Solutions.  Have I confused you yet??

6.  Look upwards and outwards, instead of inwards

The best way to feel better about yourself and become more in tune with God is to serve other people.  Get out of your own navel-gazing and look OUTWARDS, towards those in your sphere of influence, those you can help. You’ll feel better about yourself, I promise.

It doesn’t take much, and anyone can do it.  Start where you are, with what  you can do.  A phone call, a “thinking of you” card – even if you’re house-bound you can do something for others.

You also have to stay focused UPWARDS.

Why did Peter start to sink when he was walking on water towards Jesus?  He took his eyes off of Jesus and started to doubt himself.  Only then did He start sinking.  Jesus reached out and caught him (they must have been pretty close to each other at that point), and he’ll do the same for you.

The more you can focus on Jesus – his Words from scripture, his direction in your life, communicating with him through prayer – the better you’ll be able to weather the storms you come across.

The phrase “What Would Jesus Do” has been used and abused to death, but it’s still a great question to ask yourself.  If Jesus suddenly felt that God seemed distant, what do you think He would do (would Jesus say “What would I do?”  Hmmm)?  I think he’d go off by  himself and pray.  Cause He showed us that He did that.  All night if necessary.   And if he still felt distance there, He’d continue doing what He knew God wanted him to do (like, be crucified).

Don’t take your eyes off Jesus and his example – that’s where your answers lie.

7.  Check your hearing

Maybe God isn’t being silent; you just don’t like what you’re hearing.

Yesterday we talked about Saul, from the Old Testament.  Going back to that story, the people didn’t want to have a Judge anymore.  They wanted a king like everyone else had.  God told them that it wouldn’t be easy for them if they had an earthly king, that that wasn’t a good idea.  But they insisted they wanted a king.  God wasn’t silent; they just didn’t like His message.  He warned them.   Then He gave them what they insisted they wanted.

Ever do anything like that?  Pray for God to guide you, knowing full well what it is you want to do anyway?

I think we all do that.  We ignore any hint of a message that doesn’t support what we’ve already decided we want.  Then we pretend that moving ahead with the plan we had along is really direction being given by God.

But it’s not Him.

When we do that, it usually doesn’t end up very well.

You say: “But I want THIS relationship” or “I don’t like this job anymore” or” I’m not in love with my wife anymore.  Surely you want me to be happy, God!”

I don’t think our subjective happiness is what God is most concerned with.

God says, “That’s not what I want for you.”

And we rebel against that.  Against God wanting something for us that’s HARD and doesn’t make us “happy”.  It’s not convenient.  It’s not what we’ve waited OUR ENTIRE LIVES for.

So we pretend like God isn’t speaking.  We justify doing what we want to do in the first place, but deep down, if we’re honest, we have this little nagging feeling that we know exactly what we’re doing.

God isn’t silent; we just don’t like what we’re hearing sometimes.

8.  Think Outside the Box

As you go through life, maturing, learning, changing – God may speak to you in ways He’s not communicated with you before.

As humans, we don’t like change – any change, really – so we have trouble with God’s change in communication tactics.

Sometimes God seems silent because we are expecting Him to speak to us in the same old circumstances, using the same old people in the same old way He always has before.

That was Saul’s problem: Saul was living in the past.

In the past, God had always spoken through the prophet Samuel. So Saul just assumed that God would continue to speak through the prophet Samuel.

There was just one problem with that – Samuel was dead.

Saul was living in the past, and it made him shortsighted.  He wouldn’t get out of his box.

Sometimes when God is silent it is because we are returning to a dead thing, and expecting God to speak to us there again.

We often experience spiritual “highs” at a retreat or a conference, maybe a Christmas service, or some special occasion where the singing was intensely good and we sung our lungs out, and the messages seemed like they were written JUST FOR ME.  We feel invigorated and hopeful and motivated and solid.

It’s an intense and amazing feeling that you wish could last forever.

But then you go back home.

And things return to normal.  And normal is so — heavy.  And hard.  And monotonous.

When things return to normal, as they must do, we may say we don’t “feel” God anymore, because the intensity of the emotion has receded.

Where did God go??  He didn’t go anywhere.  Remember that thing about emotions a few posts back?  Emotions are unpredictable and highly changeable and not especially objective.

God didn’t go anywhere.  You just came down from your high.

He’s just using a quieter voice now, and that’s actually much more “normal” for God.

9.  Be proactive

When you realize there’s a problem in your relationship with God, you need to take action to fix it rather than sit back and wait for God to do all the work.

I use the Nike slogan a lot with myself, and it’s very appropriate in this situation too.

Just Do It

Stop waiting for God to come find you.  Do what you need to do to move yourself back into a closer position with God.  Be honest with yourself and you will figure out what “it” is that you need to be doing.

It’s usually pretty obvious, if we are really honest, but we don’t WANT to do the thing that would actually help solve the problem.

When you feel that inward longing to reach out to God you need to do something about it.

God created you with an inward desire to find Him, to know Him.  And when you feel that pull, it’s important to take action.  Today, not tomorrow.

As David put it neatly,

“My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me.” And my heart responds, “LORD, I am coming.” (Ps. 27:7-10).

9.  Look at the glass as half full

Find the blessing that God is trying desperately to give you.

There are lessons to be learned in every trial, in every desert period

Let’s look at Saul again.  God does not tell Saul exactly what he wants to hear, so Saul assumes that God is mean, or that God is some kind of a bully. Saul didn’t consider that God might have actually been trying to bless him, might have been trying to give Saul something GOOD.

Have you ever tried to give a cat a bath?  I have – once.  There’s a reason we don’t usually bathe cats – they hate it and fight to get free.  Traumatic for everyone.

Saul reminds me of a cat being given a bath.  Whenever the kitty is bathed, she meow-screams and tries to get away like it is the end of the world. She looks at her people with wide, crazy eyes and outstretched claws, and seems to be thinking, “Why are you DOING this to me??  Whyyyyyy??!”  .

 

And her people just keep bathing her.

From the cat’s perspective, her people probably seem stupid or cruel or indifferent to her agony – they seem MEAN and HATEFUL.  The cat feels like it WILL NEVER END (so do the humans, by the way).  And even though they aren’t mean and hateful, the cat experiences her humans that way and creates her own existential crisis.  If you play your cards right, thankfully, your cat may forgive you some day.

The cat seems to be thinking:

Don’t they hear me crying hysterically for help?

Why don’t they DO something to help me?

Why do loving humans let bad things happen to good kitties?

Since they aren’t answering me, maybe they aren’t real!

If caring owners existed this wouldn’t be happening to me!

Or something like that – who knows what a cat really thinks.

From the cat’s perspective, she’s being tortured by uncaring sadistic humans, and it will never end.

From the owners’ perspective, they just want the cat to be clean.

Saul’s problem is that he was never comfortable inside the blessings that God was trying to give him.

God wanted Saul to be the first King of Israel.

        That is a blessing.

God wanted him to prepare the way for David.

        That is a blessing.

God wanted Saul to know him better and become more like him.

        That is a blessing.

God wanted all those blessings for Saul, but the only thing Saul wanted was to be a king.  In a very self-centered way.

And how did that work out for him?  Not so great.

I wonder what would have happened to Saul if he had just accepted God’s will and looked for the blessing.

He most likely wouldn’t have been King, since God didn’t want that for him or the people.

But he wouldn’t have been killed the next day in battle, either.

When God seems silent we need to ask, “What’s the blessing in this, God? What is it I’m supposed to learn?” and to try to accept it as a blessing even if at the moment it hurts.

There are high-pitched frequencies of sounds that dogs can hear but humans can’t. Sometimes it seems like God speaks to us in a frequency that is just too high for us to pick up on, and this is because he is doing something bigger than we can perceive.

God was at His most silent at the cross. When Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” – in that moment God is so silent that not even the Son of God could hear his voice or feel his presence.

But the reality was that God wasn’t silent then at all. The reality was that God was actually thundering out his promises.  God was actually shouting out his redemption for the world. But at a frequency that no human ear could hear and no human eye could see. At His most silent moment God was roaring out his love for you and for me.

Jesus is the resounding answer to the question, “is God still speaking to me?”

Wrapping it up…

I love this quote by St. Francis de Sales:

“The same everlasting Father who cares for you today will take care of you tomorrow and every day. Either he will shield you from suffering, or he will give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace then and put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations.”

God’s there for you, even when you can’t feel Him, even when He feels so far away.

God’s ways are mysterious.  We won’t always understand the WHAT or the WHY of the things we go through.

You must rest in the fact that there IS a purpose.  Learn to be ok with that.

When we are taken into these dark periods, we begin to see light that we never even knew existed. Unless we are taken into these times, our souls never develop any depth of character. We do not gain wisdom, only knowledge. Knowledge is gained through understanding; wisdom is gained through the experience of darkness.

Being able to see the light is totally dependent on our WANTING to see it, and on our LOOKING for it.

After we go through these periods, we discover that God was, in fact, with us the entire time.  He has told us countless times that He will never leave us nor forsake us. However, when we are in those dark periods, it doesn’t feel like He is there because He doesn’t (usually) rescue us from the circumstances.   And we want rescuing.

He will provide you a way to “stand up under it”; not to escape it, but a way be strong enough to deal with it. 

As long as you look to feelings and circumstances to prove that God is there, you will miss God.

He said he’d be with you – you either believe that or you don’t.

We long for some sort of sign or confirmation that God keeps his word. And maybe someday, because He decides to, God will give us that confirmation in addition to his promise.

But to refuse to believe without that confirmation means we don’t believe God is who He says He is.

If you seek, you will find. That’s a divine promise.  And keep in mind that your hunger for God was seeded within you by God himself. Your spiritual longings are proof that God is actively working in your life.

“For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.”  ~   Philippians 2:13 NLT

God has promised to love you, be with you, forgive you, hear your prayers.  On and on the promises go, but not once has he promised you will ‘feel’ anything. So place your faith in what God has promised (spelled out in black and white) not what he has not promised (elusive feelings).

The silence of God is really not silent at all. It’s just a grand pause.  It’s a moment of anticipation, just like the pause in Handel’s Messiah just before the final, glorious “Hallelujah”.  That pause – that silence – can sometimes last a torturously long time.  But the pause?  It always signals that something bigger and better is about to happen.

Hang on, it’s coming!

‘Draw near to God and he will draw near to you’  ~ James 4:8.