What to Do When You Feel Far From God

A few weeks after Jesus Festival, a message came in that said, more or less: I felt so close to God in the park. Now I feel nothing. Did I do something wrong?

If that's you, you're in very good company. Nearly every believer in the Bible hit a season like it. David wrote a whole song that opens, How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me? (Psalm 13:1). That's Scripture. God put the feeling of distance in His own book, which tells you He isn't surprised by it.

Feelings aren't the thermometer

Here's the first thing to settle: how close God feels and how close God is are two different things. Jesus' last words to His friends were lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world (Matthew 28:20). Not "while you feel it." Always.

A park full of worship, lights and thousands of voices is an intense experience, and intense experiences fade. That's not God leaving; that's adrenaline leaving. The mountain-top is real, but nobody lives there. Even Jesus came down from the mountain of transfiguration and walked straight into an argument and a sick child (Mark 9).

Why the distance comes

• Ordinary life. Work, kids, bills and tiredness crowd out what you felt. Nothing is wrong; you just haven't built the rhythm yet.
• Unconfessed sin. Sometimes the distance is real and we know why. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me (Psalm 66:18). The fix is simple, if not easy: say it to Him.
• Isolation. You met God in a crowd and then went home alone. Faith was never meant to be solo.
• Grief, depression or exhaustion. Elijah, after the greatest victory of his life, lay under a tree and asked to die. God's response was sleep and food, twice, before a single word (1 Kings 19). Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is rest, and see a doctor.
• A test of trust. Occasionally God lets the feelings go quiet so that faith, not feeling, does the walking. For we walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).

What the Bible promises

“Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.”

James 4:8 (KJV)

That's a promise with your part in it. You move, He moves. Not because He was far, but because the drawing near is how you notice again that He never left. The prodigal son's father didn't wait on the porch; when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran (Luke 15:20). One step toward home, and He's running.

Five steps back, starting today

• Tell Him the truth. "God, I feel far from You and I don't know why." That sentence is a prayer. If words are hard, this is how to pray when you don't know what to say.
• Confess what you know. If there's something specific, name it. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins (1 John 1:9). Then stop carrying it.
• Open the Bible, small. One Psalm. Psalm 42 is for exactly this: Why art thou cast down, O my soul? … hope thou in God. If you don't know where to start, here's how.
• Get around people. Text someone from the festival, walk into a church this Sunday, join an outreach through LoveonHamilton.com. Coals stay hot in a pile and go out alone.
• Do the next kind thing. Serve someone. Give something away. Distance often shrinks when we stop staring at it and start loving the person in front of us.

If it was never real

Some people wonder whether the yes in the park even counted. Here is the test: it counted if you meant it, and it still counts now. Salvation doesn't rest on the strength of your feeling but on the strength of His promise: him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out (John 6:37). If you're not sure you ever truly came, come now. Same door, still open. The first steps guide walks you through it.

“The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.”

Psalm 34:18 (KJV)

You haven't lost Him. You've lost the feeling, for a while. Walk toward home anyway. He's already running.