When God Feels Distant
Have you ever felt like you are praying into a void? Or going to church seems pointless because God just feels distant from you. How can we believe when we don’t feel like we have a relationship with Him. We have all been there at some point in our lives. In this blog we will dive into the Bible to get some guidance to see why this might be happening. We will also use the Bible to show us actual ways to get back on track to our growing, vibrate, and consistent relationship with God.
#1. The First Step Back:
Bible Verse: 2 Corinthians 13:5 - “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!”
Have you ever felt like God was distant from you? You don’t even know how it happened or how to fix it. You just realize that God is distant, and the space is even more evident since noticing that it was there. You long to get back to a place of peace and comfort that is found next to God, but how do you even figure out how to do that? Why would God separate Himself from you to begin with?
Isn’t this the situation that we all find ourselves in from time to time? We have a few bad days, and those bad days turn into a few bad weeks, and that leads to us suddenly realizing that God doesn’t even feel close anymore. After we notice that distance, the first step back to Him, is taking a step outside of ourselves to see the reasons why its happening. To fix the issue, we must first ask ourselves a couple questions.
Have I slipped up in having consistent time in Bible Study?
Have I slipped up in my prayer life?
Have I missed several weeks of worship (could be due to sickness, busyness, or excuses)?
Have I been focused on anything in the world a lot (stresses, finances, hobbies, or entertainment)?
Have I been feeling more and more depressed or down on myself?
All of these are the questions that we must honestly ask of ourselves before we can start to take our first step back to having a closeness with God. The good news, is that HE hasn’t take a step from us, WE have taken the step from Him. He is right there waiting for us, if we only turn to Him. His arms are opened wide, patiently waiting. So when we start making an effort back to Him, He is already there waiting! That should give us the peace and confidence that we need to work our way back to Him.
Often times when we realize that there is distance in our relationship with God, we quickly turn the blame onto Him. Like He left us, and then that caused us to feel the void of distance from Him. Most cases, we are the ones that have taken the first step away from Him. It happens slowly. A few missed church services, tuning into a few missed prayer, turning into a few missed personal Bible studies, and then turning into fully relying on self to fill the voids that we feel when distant from God. Haven’t you noticed how the more distant we are from God, the more self-care and personal rest we tend to need and demand? The whole problem to begin with is that we are having too much SELF and not enough GOD! The problem will NEVER be solved by doing more things for ourselves, because the world is only filled with empty voids that try to fill the place of God. NOTHING can fill that void except God. Once we have found ourselves in that void, we must realize what has happened, and turn back to the only true fulfillment that we can ever have, God! Our way back to God is THROUGH God. We must rely on Him to help us on that road back to Him. If we rely on ourselves, then we will only dive deeper into ourselves and thus causing a further distance.
Ideas for The First Step Back:
Start small! Several simple prayers per day! Be consistent, pick certain times per day that you will remember and actually say the prayer.
Wear a bracelet to help remind you to pray and do some Bible study.
Start small on your Bible study, listen to one chapter from an audio version of the Bible. Or even pick some podcasts that are Bible focused to listen to.
Prayer Journal through your emotions, God wants to hear what is on our minds and hearts.
Leave sticky notes of any favorite Bible verses, encouragement, or reminders around your house, work place, or car.
Start challenging yourself to attend more church services, even if you don’t “feel” like it.
Replace your music with Christ centered hymns. Even the music we listen to is affecting our relationships with God and others. Self centered music will increase the thoughts of self!
Set aside time each day to spend in prayer and study for God. Put it before any entertainment or activities.
Give any hobbies that you have a spiritual focus. Make the cookies or crafts for others, and give them as gifts. Pray during your time spent in the hobby, use it for focused time spent with God. You can still do the things you like to do in your free time, but be intention about keeping your mind on God.
#2. Building A Strong Foundation:
Bible Verse: Acts 2:42 - “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.”
Now after we have answered the questions from the first point honestly, we can really get to the part of keeping God close. How do we keep Him close? We do that by making Him our ENTIRE foundation. We build our lives completely on Him, and not on the world. After we have found ourselves distant from God you might find it hard to get back your groove of prayer, or you might not even know where to start with Bible study. And you might also feel like you don’t connect with anyone at church anymore. These are our tools as a Christian, and if we start to have distance from God, then these tools will get dusty. We must remember what tools we have, and dust them off, and remind ourselves how to use them again. It doesn’t matter if we have only felt distant from God for a couple of day, or a couple of years, the tools still need to be dusted off and picked up to be used again. So what are the tools? Think of these three tools when you are ready to take the next step back to God:
Re-engaging in consistent Prayer
Re-engaging in consistent Bible Study
Re-engaging with your Church family
If we aren’t using these three tools as our foundation in our relationship with GOD, then we will end up like the photo above. This is a photo of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and soon after it was built it began to tilt. Why did it do that? Its foundation was shallow and weak. Is our foundation in God shallow and weak? We must make our foundation in Him deep and strong! That way when the wind blows, we won’t start to tilt also!
Ideas for Building a Strong Foundation:
Start boosting your prayers by praying about all of the hardships. Learn that not every prayer needs to be about asking for things. God is there to be your strong foundation, so build that relationship up! Try having a conversation with Him, not just a list of asking for requests.
When you are at the church building, challenge yourself to talk to 5 people that you normally don’t talk to. We need to reconnect with the church members once we realize we have distance. That reconnection needs to be with everyone, not just a couple of people.
Start setting aside daily Bible study time. Challenge yourself. Growth won’t happen without setting some goals, but don’t set a big goal now. Choose something easier to achieve like reading through the book of James or Acts.
Take notes about what you are learning from your Bible study, or at church. When taking notes think about these questions: “What do I learn about God in this passage?,” “What do I learn about mankind in this passage?,” “What should I DO now after learning about God and mankind in this passage?”
Get a group of fellow believers in a texting group, and try to encourage each other once a day to spend time with God.
#3. Responding To God’s Call:
Bible Verse: Romans 12:1-2 - “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
We can’t truly begin the Christian lifestyle until we have first taken a step towards God, and have made Him our entire foundation. Because this third step is all about action. It’s all about LIVING the lifestyle of a Christian. As a Christ follower we often times have to learn how to make sacrifices and change our natural fleshly reactions to life. Can we honestly say that someone who is still wondering why God is distant from them will be ready to embrace change and sacrifice? No, they won’t be ready for that until that have made their foundation stronger. This is where we test our foundation. If someone were to skip to this step before making their foundation strong, then we would wind up like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We would tilt over, unable to hold our own weight up. Yes, that tower is now supported by other structures, but in life we can’t continually be help up by others faith. We must find a way to get that foundation and lifestyle for ourselves, if it is one that we truly want. This is the step that truly shows if we are committed to this lifestyle or not. This is the step that requires us to prove that we are committed to this. We must now respond to the call that God has laid out for us? How do we know what that call is? Jesus lays out what that call is all throughout the New Testament. Once we are saved through baptism, then we must respond to the call through change in our hearts and through our actions. This is not something that we can have someone else do for us, or something that we can hope to achieve “some day!” We must respond to that call TODAY! Only then will we truly start to have that desired closer relationship with God and with others.
Ideas for Responding to God’s Call:
Start by studying what the New Testament Christian looks like (a couple good places to start are Galatians 5:16-26, Matthew 5-7, Ephesians 4-6, and 1 Corinthians 13)
Start small, choose one action that you are going to devote yourself to working on. We have to actually put to place these actions in our own lives, just as much of stopping the actions that God says a Christian shouldn’t have (Examples: Put on love! Put away gossiping).
Wear a bracelet that reflects that action that you are working on, keep it on your right wrist when you are LIVING it, but move it to your left wrist when you slip up. This is a great reminder to LIVE the life of a Christian!
Make a list of the skills/hobbies that you have, and then come up with ways on how to use that skill/hobby for God. Maybe try to find a place in the church work that uses that skill. Talk to one of the church leaders once you know things you want to work in.
Start learning how to teach the Gospel message to others, you never know when you could be given the chance to share it with others! If we don’t do it, then who will?
Be diligent in your study, prayer, and relationships with the church. The closer that you draw to God, the closer you will start to draw to others close to God!
Be open to trying to learn NEW skills. We are all called to share God word, so be open to the idea of being the one that can teach the ladies classes, or even sharing God’s good news with others!
#4. Cultivating A Grateful Heart:
Bible Verse: Colossians 3:17 - “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
So this is the last step for when you feel distant from God. So why does having a grateful heart fit in as a step towards fixing that distance from God? Having a grateful heart is the fuel and excitement that we need to keep us on this journey! When we have place we want to go (Step one - The First Step Back), and a plan of how to get there (Step Two - Building a Strong Foundation), and are making the trip there (Step three - Responding to God’s Call), then we only need the fuel and excitement to keep us going on that trip to arrive at our destination (Step Four - Grateful Heart). Having a heart that is grateful at all times is key to arriving at our destination. Our lives will make may twists and turns, and we have to be able to be grateful in every circumstance because God is still apart of our lives. When we loose site of that, we can find ourselves slipping back to feeling distant from God again. Being grateful and remembering why we started this journey in the first place will keep us diligently striving instead of becoming lazily complacent. If our heart is grateful for what Jesus has done for us, and we don’t get distracted from that, then we will be steadfast in our journey homeward to Heaven! We won’t need to find our way back, if we haven’t lost our way to begin with. The condition of our hearts truly show if we have lost our way or not. So will we have a truly grateful heart, so we can keep ourselves fueled for the journey to our destination?
Ideas for Cultivating A Grateful Heart:
Start a gratitude journal. It can start simply by listing things that you like or appreciate throughout your day.
Once you have start being appreciative for the world blessing that we have, now start noticing the Spiritual blessings that we have each day.
Start your day with God, choose to commit to Him before your feet even hit the ground!
Pray for your diligent commitment everyday!
Be intentional with your time, choose God first before doing anything else in your free time.
Serve in your church and community frequently. Don’t just let others sign up, be the one also signing up!
Conclusion:
Bible Verse: James 4:8 - “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.”
Feeling distant from God, is a normal part of the Christian walk. Even I find myself in this rut from time to time, so don’t ever think that you are the only one dealing with this. If you are human and a follower of God, then you will deal with this from time to time! True growth in Christ is not about “feeling” it. It’s about commitment!! Feelings come and go, but our commitment and response to God is what matters. If everyone could “feel” their relationship with God, then wouldn’t everyone be a believer in God. Even some of the strongest atheist in the world started out as Christians who have been hurt by others and have felt like they can’t feel or know God. We mustn't let our feelings trick us into thinking that God doesn’t love or care for us. At the end of the day, if we feel distant from God, then it is probably because WE haven’t been as diligent in our relationship with Him as we should be! If we want any kind of growth in our Spiritual relationship with Him then we MUST learn to be honest with ourselves.
Even when we aren’t feeling God’s love or presence, we need to refocus our minds to God’s unchanging characteristics. From Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21 (the whole Bible) His love for His creations are there. He made a plan for us to be saved, even when we choose to turn our backs from Him. He sent His son to sacrifice Himself for OUR sins, so we can have a bridge back to Him. He continues to knock at our doors, even when we don’t “feel” like He will accept us again. He IS there, and waiting. So even when we don’t feel like we can “feel” His presence, we must remember that He IS there as long as we are continually stepping towards Him. We must take that first step, we must make Him our foundation, we must respond to His call, and finally we must cultivate a grateful heart. Will we start today with that first step back?
Ideas for When God Feels Distant:
Make the Bible personal! It’s a beautiful story all about God’s love for YOU. You are in every single page of the book, because God knew that you would be here today and planned it all out to allow you the chance to take a step towards Him. He has been waiting for YOU!
Set aside time each week to reflect on your intentions. Is there anything you can eliminate from your life that’s causing you to slip away from Him?
Find a faithful Christian that you can have frequent honest conversations about your Spiritual condition with.
Set aside time each day for at least one focused prayer.
Make a space for you to be able to study or pray. (I have a small table and chair in a closet that I use for my reset place with God).
Don’t just physically show up at church, BE the Church! LIVE the life of Christ in your day to day lifestyle!
Share about the things you are grateful for with someone else! Help shift their mindset to one that is thankful for their blessings also!
Embrace your skills in the church, but be open to learning new ones.
Pray for your boldness to share your faith with others!
Never be ashamed of having to take the first step back to God over and over again. We are humans, we make mistakes and get busy! Take the step back as soon as you notice the distance! Don’t weigh yourself down with guilt over it! Get back on your path, and bring others with you!
About the Author: My name is Katie, and I’m a Church of Christ Preacher’s wife in Kentucky. I am also a proud homeschool mom to two brilliant boys. I love to craft, and make and bind my own notebooks. I also make a weekly podcast show called “Just Bible No Fluff",” where I skip all of fluffy extras and hop right into a short yet impactful exegetical study of the scripture. My mission and vision in life is this: “To empower women Spiritually by enhancing their skills in deep Bible study, equipping them to effectively teach the Gospel to others, and guiding them in cultivating Spiritual growth beyond the Church building.”