Day15: When God Seems Distant

 When God Seems Distant

The Lord has hidden himself from his people,

but I trust him and place my hope in him.

Isaiah 8:17 (TEV)

God is real, no matter how you feel.

It is easy to worship God when things are going great in your

life—when he has provided food, friends, family, health, and

happy situations. But circumstances are not always pleasant. How

do you worship God then? What do you do when God seems a

million miles away?

The deepest level of worship is praising God in spite of pain,

thanking God during a trial, trusting him when tempted,

surrendering while suffering, and loving him when he seems distant.

Friendships are often tested by separation and silence; you are

divided by physical distance or you are unable to talk. In your

friendship with God, you won’t always feel close to him. Philip

Yancey has wisely noted, “Any relationship involves times of

closeness and times of distance, and in a relationship with God,

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no matter how intimate, the pendulum will swing from one side

to the other.”1 That’s when worship gets difficult.

To mature your friendship, God will test it with periods of

seeming separation—times when it feels as if he has abandoned or

forgotten you. God feels a million miles away. St. John of the

Cross referred to these days of spiritual dryness, doubt, and

estrangement from God as “the dark night of the soul.” Henri

Nouwen called them “the ministry of absence.” A. W. Tozer

called them “the ministry of the night.” Others refer to “the

winter of the heart.”

Besides Jesus, David probably had the closest friendship with

God of anyone. God took pleasure in calling him “a man after my

own heart.”2 Yet David frequently complained of God’s apparent

absence: “Lord, why are you standing aloof and far away? Why do

you hide when I need you the most?” 3 “Why have you forsaken me?

Why do you remain so distant? Why do you ignore my cries for

help?” 4 “Why have you abandoned me?” 5

Of course, God hadn’t really left David, and he doesn’t leave

you. He has promised repeatedly, “I will never leave you nor

forsake you.”6 But God has not promised “you will always feel my

presence.” In fact, God admits that sometimes he hides his face

from us.7 There are times when he appears to be

MIA, missing-in-action, in your life.

Floyd McClung describes it: “You wake up one

morning and all your spiritual feelings are gone.

You pray, but nothing happens. You rebuke the

devil, but it doesn’t change anything. You go

through spiritual exercises . . . you have your friends

pray for you . . . you confess every sin you can imagine, then go

around asking forgiveness of everyone you know. You fast . . . still

nothing. You begin to wonder how long this spiritual gloom

might last. Days? Weeks? Months? Will it ever end? . . . it feels as if

your prayers simply bounce off the ceiling. In utter desperation,

you cry out, ‘What’s the matter with me?’”8

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DAY FOURTEEN:

WHEN

GOD

SEEMS

DISTANT

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The truth is, there’s nothing wrong with you! This is a normal

part of the testing and maturing of your friendship with God.

Every Christian goes through it at least once, and usually several

times. It is painful and disconcerting, but it is absolutely vital for

the development of your faith.

Knowing this gave Job hope when

he could not feel God’s presence in

his life. He said, “I go east, but he is

not there. I go west, but I cannot

find him. I do not see him in the

north, for he is hidden. I turn to the

south, but I cannot find him. But he knows where I am going. And

when he has tested me like gold in a fire, he will pronounce me

innocent.” 9

When God seems distant, you may feel that he is angry with

you or is disciplining you for some sin. In fact, sin does disconnect

us from intimate fellowship with God. We grieve God’s Spirit and

quench our fellowship with him by disobedience, conflict with

others, busyness, friendship with the world, and other sins.10

But often this feeling of abandonment or estrangement from

God has nothing to do with sin. It is a test of faith—one we all

must face: Will you continue to love, trust, obey, and worship

God, even when you have no sense of his presence or visible

evidence of his work in your life?

The most common mistake Christians make in worship today is

seeking an experience rather than seeking God. They look for a

feeling, and if it happens, they conclude that they have worshiped.

Wrong! In fact, God often removes our feelings so we won’t

depend on them. Seeking a feeling, even the feeling of closeness

to Christ, is not worship.

When you are a baby Christian, God gives you a lot of

confirming emotions and often answers the most immature, self-

centered prayers—so you’ll know he exists. But as you grow in

faith, he will wean you of these dependencies.

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God admits that sometimes 

he hides his face from us. 

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God’s omnipresence and the

manifestation of his presence are

two different things. One is a fact;

the other is often a feeling. God is

always present, even when you are

unaware of him, and his presence is

too profound to be measured by

mere emotion.

Yes, he wants you to sense his

presence, but he’s more concerned that you trust him than that

you feel him. Faith, not feelings, pleases God.

The situations that will stretch your faith most will be those

times when life falls apart and God is nowhere to be found. This

happened to Job. On a single day he lost everything—his family,

his business, his health, and everything he owned. Most

discouraging—for thirty-seven chapters, God said nothing!

How do you praise God when you don’t understand what’s

happening in your life and God is silent? How do you stay

connected in a crisis without communication? How do you keep

your eyes on Jesus when they’re full of tears? You do what Job

did: “Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: ‘Naked I came

from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave

and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be

praised.’” 11

Tell God exactly how you feel. Pour out your heart to God.

Unload every emotion that you’re feeling. Job did this when he

said, “I can’t be quiet! I am angry and bitter. I have to speak!” 12

He cried out when God seemed distant: “Oh, for the days when I

was in my prime, when God’s intimate friendship blessed my

house.” 13 God can handle your doubt, anger, fear, grief,

confusion, and questions.

Did you know that admitting your hopelessness to God can be

a statement of faith? Trusting God but feeling despair at the same

time, David wrote, “I believed, so I said, ‘I am completely

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The most common mistake

Christians make in worship

today is seeking an experience

rather than seeking God.

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ruined!’” 14 This sounds like a contradiction: I trust God, but I’m

wiped out! David’s frankness actually reveals deep faith: First, he

believed in God. Second, he believed God would listen to his

prayer. Third, he believed God would let him say what he felt and

still love him.

Focus on who God is—his unchanging nature. Regardless

of circumstances and how you feel, hang on to God’s unchanging

character. Remind yourself what you know to be eternally true

about God: He is good, he loves me, he is with me, he knows

what I’m going through, he cares, and he has a good plan for my

life. V. Raymond Edman said, “Never doubt in the dark what

God told you in the light.”

When Job’s life fell apart, and God was silent, Job still found

things he could praise God for:

• That he is good and loving.15

• That he is all-powerful.16

• That he notices every detail of my life.17

• That he is in control.18

• That he has a plan for my life.19

• That he will save me.20

Trust God to keep his promises. During times of spiritual

dryness you must patiently rely on the promises of God, not your

emotions, and realize that he is taking you to a deeper level of

maturity. A friendship based on emotion is shallow

indeed.

So don’t be troubled by trouble. Circumstances

cannot change the character of God. God’s grace

is still in full force; he is still for you, even when

you don’t feel it. In the absence of confirming

circumstances, Job held on to God’s Word. He

said, “I have not departed from the commands of his

lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily

bread.” 21

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111

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This trust in God’s Word caused Job to remain faithful even

though nothing made sense. His faith was strong in the midst of

pain: “God may kill me, but still I will trust him.” 22

When you feel abandoned by God yet continue to trust him in

spite of your feelings, you worship him in the deepest way. 

Remember what God has already done for you. If God

never did anything else for you, he would still deserve your

continual praise for the rest of your life because of what Jesus did

for you on the cross. God’s Son died for you! This is the greatest

reason for worship.

Unfortunately, we forget the cruel details of the agonizing

sacrifice God made on our behalf. Familiarity breeds complacency.

Even before his crucifixion, the Son of God was stripped naked,

beaten until almost unrecognizable, whipped, scorned and

mocked, crowned with thorns, and spit on contemptuously.

Abused and ridiculed by heartless

men, he was treated worse than an

animal.

Then, nearly unconscious from

blood loss, he was forced to drag a

cumbersome cross up a hill, was

nailed to it, and was left to die the

slow, excruciating torture of death

by crucifixion. While his lifeblood

drained out, hecklers stood by and shouted insults, making fun of

his pain and challenging his claim to be God. 

Next, as Jesus took all of mankind’s sin and guilt on himself,

God looked away from that ugly sight, and Jesus cried out in

total desperation, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken

me?” Jesus could have saved himself—but then he could not

have saved you.

Words cannot describe the darkness of that moment. Why did

God allow and endure such ghastly, evil mistreatment? Why? So

you could be spared from eternity in hell, and so you could share

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When you feel abandoned 

by God yet continue to trust

him, you worship him 

in the deepest way. 

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in his glory forever! The Bible says, “Christ was without sin, but

for our sake God made him share our sin in order that in union with

him we might share the righteousness of God.” 23

Jesus gave up everything so you could have everything. He

died so you could live forever. That alone is worthy of your

continual thanks and praise. Never again should you wonder what

you have to be thankful for.

Day Fourteen

Thinking about My Purpose

Point to Ponder: God is real, no matter how I feel.

Verse to Remember: “For God has said, ‘I will never

leave you; I will never abandon you.’ ” 

Hebrews 13:5 (TEV)

Question to Consider: How can I stay focused on

God’s presence, especially when he feels distant?

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YOU WERE FORMED 

FOR GOD’S FAMILY

I am the vine, and you are the branches.

John 15:5 (CEV)

Christ makes us one body ... 

connected to each other.

Romans 12:5 (GWT)

P U R P O S E  # 2

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