When God Seems Absent

When God Seems Absent

Have you ever felt like God was absent from your life? Like He is out there, but He’s such a long way away? Maybe you have felt like He is ignoring your prayers. Maybe it seems that He’s turned His back on you? If so, you’re not alone. In fact, we find this same sentiment in God’s Word.

David, the shepherd boy turned king, wrote about it. He says in the thirteenth Psalm,

O LORD, how long will you forget me? Forever? How long will you look the other way? How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul, with sorrow in my heart every day? How long will my enemy have the upper hand? Turn and answer me, O LORD my God! Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will die. Don’t let my enemies gloat, saying, “We have defeated him!” Don’t let them rejoice at my downfall. (Psalms 13:1-4 NLT)

In the eighty-eighth Psalm he asks,

O LORD, I cry out to you. I will keep on pleading day by day. O LORD, why do you reject me? Why do you turn your face from me? (Psalms 88:13-14 NLT)

Most shocking to us, however, is that Jesus Christ also felt God’s absence. Yes, Jesus felt that God was a long way away. While hanging on the Cross, He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Mark 15:34 NLT). Jesus felt the horror of being forsaken. And if Jesus, the Messiah, could feel the painful absence of God, then we too should take some hope in that knowledge.

Remember, Jesus being forsaken wasn’t arbitrary, it was for a purpose. Jesus feeling deserted by God was a necessary part of the plan of redemption. Likewise, your feelings of abandonment are not meaningless, they also serve a purpose. God is using this season of distance to complete His work in your life. In this we should find hope.

But why? Why does God allow us to go through times where it seems that He is absent from our lives? What could be His reasoning? Following are five possible reasons …

#1, MAYBE YOU WANDERED OFF

Maybe it’s not God who left, maybe it is us who have wandered off. The prophet Isaiah wrote, “All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own” (53:6 (NLT).

Recently I was at a crowded theme park and saw a little girl wander away from her parents. The parents knew she was wandering off, and they kept their eye on her to make sure she was safe, but they also allowed themselves to be hidden from her. When she turned around to look for her parents, she couldn’t see them, and she began to panic and cry out for them. At this, the parents stepped out and revealed themselves.

The parents never left the child, it was the child who left. The parents allowed her to leave so they could teach her a lesson.

If you are feeling the absence of God, maybe He hasn’t moved. Maybe you have become distracted by all the sights and sounds of life. Maybe you wandered off and He allowed you to go so you would experience the pain of His absence. If that’s your story, take time to intentionally find your way back to Him, for He is near (Acts 17:27).

#2, MAYBE YOU ARE SEEKING HIS HAND INSTEAD OF HIS FACE

How do you come to God? Is it with a prayer wish-list; one request after another? The wiseman wrote, “Many seek favors from a ruler; everyone is the friend of a person who gives gifts!” (Proverbs 19:6 NLT). Is this how you approach God? Do you follow him more for the favors than you do for relationship? For example, when you go to Him in prayer it is with list of wants and needs instead of a heart of worship?

When you do worship Jesus, what is your motive? Is it only because you’re hoping to be blessed by Him? Perhaps you feel if you say enough “hallelujahs” and enough “thank you Jesus” He’ll throw blessings your way?

Are you treating God like a wealthy friend, hoping He’ll include you in some of the cool vacations and let you benefit from their cool toys? Are you like the crowd who came to Jesus and said, “Show us a miraculous sign if you want us to believe in you. What can you do?” (John 6:30 NLT). If so, God may be putting distance between you and Him because He wants to call you to a deeper relationship. Forget about the gifts that come from His hand and begin to seek His face.

#3, MAYBE YOUR HEART IS HARDENED

Callouses form on our hands and feet when there is a continued friction. Before the callous is there our skin is sensitive, but once it is formed it almost loses all ability to feel. This same thing happens to people’s hearts; there is so much friction in their lives their heart becomes calloused and loses the ability to feel.

Jesus talked about these hardened hearts. He said they make it impossible for us to connect with Him. He taught,

“When you hear what I say, you will not understand. When you see what I do, you will not comprehend. For the hearts of these people are hardened, and their ears cannot hear, and they have closed their eyes—so their eyes cannot see, and their ears cannot hear, and their hearts cannot understand, and they cannot turn to me and let me heal them.” Matthew 13:14-15 (NLT)

What is the cause of the friction that causes our hearts to be hardened? One answer, simply knowing what is right and still refusing to let go of sin. Paul wrote about people who know what is right but refuse to acknowledge it and so their hearts become darkened (Romans 1:21). He added that this refusal is a sign of pride (Romans 1:22).

Are you struggling with the sin of pride? Is there something in your life you know God is asking you to walk away, but you are to prideful to listen? Are you fighting with God? He has made it clear that what you are doing is bad for you, and yet you stubbornly hold onto your own will? If that is you, hear what David wrote, “If I had not confessed the sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.” (Psalms 66:18 NLT). You say, “I thought God hears all our prayers.” Yes, He does. But God hearing our prayers and listening to respond to our prayers is two entirely different things. God hears all our prayers, but when we refuse to repent, He doesn’t listen to our prayers.

In case you’re wondering about whether or not God hears the prayers of the unrepentant read Psalm 66:18-19, Proverbs 28:9, Isaiah 59:2, and Micah 3:4.

If it feels like God is a long way off, check yourself for a spirit of pride. If it’s there, begin to make your way back to God by asking Him to convert your mind from a spirit of pride to one of humility.

#4, MAYBE YOU JUST DON’T LIKE HOW GOD IS SHOWING UP

Maybe God is there, and you just don’t like how He is there.

When the Christian church was still in its infancy, God allowed for her to come under persecution. God could have stopped it. He could have given these young Christians favor with the government. Instead, He allowed the persecution. No doubt these new believers wondered where God was in all that was happening, but He was there, and He used the persecution for His glory. Look at what happened, when the Christians began to be arrested, tortured, and killed for their faith, they began to run to other cities. But they didn’t just flee, they spread the gospel as they fled.

During this persecution, Paul was arrested and imprisoned. It would seem best to us if God had delivered Paul from jail as he delivered Peter. Consider of all the preaching that Paul could have be doing. But God didn’t deliver Paul, and so while chained down he did the only thing he could do – write a significant part of the New Testament. Think about that, if Paul hadn’t been arrested, we would be missing a significant portion of the New Testament.

John was probably wondering where God was when he was getting exiled on a prisoner’s island, but it was there that God gave him what we call Revelations.

David wrote of his confusing time, “My suffering was good for me because it taught me to pay attention to God’s word.” (Psalm 119:71).

I know you want plan A or B, but maybe God is saying let’s go with plan C, because that’s where my plans will be accomplished. It doesn’t look good or feel good and maybe it leaves you feeling helpless, but it is for His glory.

Take comfort in knowing that most all the major characters of Scripture had to go through seasons where the felt abandoned by God. Think about Joseph, when his own brothers threw him into a pit and, sold him into slavery. He was probably wondering – God where are you? Or Moses, when he was living in the desert for forty years he probably wondered – God where are you? Or Mary when she lost her son. She too was probably wondering – God where are you?

If you are in that season and it seems that nothing makes sense, remember He said, “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts. And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9 NLT).

#5, MAYBE GOD WANTS YOU TO PURSUE HIM

God pursues us. It was God who went after Adam and Eve in the garden. It was God who gave His only Son. There’s no question that God is pursuing us. However, He also wants to be pursued. It’s why he created us (Acts 17:27).

Maybe God pulled away from you because you are pursuing too many other things. Perhaps you are exerting too much of yourself pursuing pleasure, or your career, or money, or some other person. All this pursuing has distracted you to the point that you are no longer pursuing Him. You’ve lost that loving feeling (Revelation 2:4).

It is clear, however, that Jesus desires that we would pursue Him. He asks that we seek His Kingdom (Matthew 6:33), that we look for Him (Jeremiah 29:13-14), and that we would come close to Him (James 4:8). Then He promises that we will be given the Kingdom, that we will find Him, and that He will come close to us.

God wants us, but He does not owe us anything and He will not play the fool. He has already made His intentions clear – He loves us, and He wants us. Do you want Him?

Twice David is called a man after God’s own heart. Maybe it’s because of his prayer, “O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water.” (Psalm 63:1).

If God seems distant, maybe it is because He wants you quit pursuing someone or something else and to begin pursuing Him.

CONCLUSION

Just because you don’t feel Him doesn’t mean He isn’t near. After all, His name is Immanuel, meaning “God is with us.” (Matthew 1:22). And He is always with you. But He may be displaying Himself as distant because He is working out something in our lives. In the end, my prayer for you is that you would experience what David felt, “My heart has heard you say, ‘Come and talk with me.’ And my heart responds, ‘LORD, I am coming.’” (Psalms 27:8 NLT).