This is the scene: you’re at church, surrounded by your peers, there’s music playing, and you’re having an amazing time singing to God. Your hands are raised, there are tears in your eyes, and you feel like God is right there with you. It’s a very real, very spiritual experience. You want this feeling, this presence of God, to stay with you forever. In your heart of hearts, you tell Him that you want to be with Him always. Then the music stops, and you lower your hands, say goodbye to a few friends, get in the car and go home. That night, you might say your prayers before going to bed, but that sense of God’s immediate presence is fading. Then you get up and go to school or work the next day, and it’s gone. You still believe in and love God, but He feels distant. Though you want to believe that He is, it doesn’t seem as though God’s directly involved in anything going on in your life.
This has been my experience numerous times. I’ve had awesome moments of clarity where God feels so real and close, and when that feeling fades, sometimes my devotion does with it. Or sometimes, my devotion is directed toward recapturing that feeling, like a little kid trying to place a jar over a firefly just to bask in the glow a little longer. This is the problem with that: God doesn’t fit in any jar. God is not that feeling, and neither is my relationship with Him.
The fact of the matter is that God doesn’t leave. When I’m saying goodbye to my friends after the music stops, He’s with us. During the car ride home, He’s there. He keeps me safe when the roads are icy and there are distracted drivers. When I’m hanging around the house, He hasn’t left me. As I say my prayers, He’s listening to every word. While I sleep, He watches over me. He wakes me in the morning, granting me the experience of another day in this world. And when I’m there at school, so is Jesus. He personally promised His disciples before His death, resurrection, and ascension, I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. (John 14:18) In Deuteronomy, Joshua, and Hebrews, He says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Even when I can’t feel Him, He is with me. He promises to never leave me, ever. When God makes a promise, He keeps it. Even if everyone else is a liar, God is true. (Romans 3:3, NLT) Know this, my friend: God has not, and will not, abandon you. Nor does He ignore you. (If you ever feel that God is ignoring you, I strongly encourage you to read Luke 18:1-8). He loves you intensely, enough to lay down His life for you.
So if God is with us always, why can we feel His presence so strongly sometimes and sometimes not at all? It really would be wonderful to have that sense of divinity all the time. I believe that it has a lot to do with faith. If we felt Him all the time, it wouldn’t be very hard to believe in Him. I know that in the moments when He feels close, my doubts all fall away and seem pretty silly. But God strongly desires for us to have faith in Him, wanting us to love and follow Him regardless of what we get out of the deal. And He is worthy of that. A better question is why He allows us to have those experiences at all, especially since we can become so consumed with them. The answer is, again, linked with faith. God understands our weaknesses completely. He knows how hard it can be to believe in and hope for something, particularly when there doesn’t seem to be much evidence of it. Those experiences are part of the evidence He gives us. Faith on its own is evidence (Hebrews 11:1: Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.), but to help us in our weakness, God reminds us of His reality through those experiences. I think that they are also a preview of the intimacy we will experience with Him in eternity. No longer will there be any sort of obstacle between ourselves and our Creator, and we will be free to worship Him without hindrance forever. Jesus has already defeated sin and death, but while on earth, we still struggle with the flesh, and are persecuted for loving the Lord. One day, this will pass away, and we will know perfect unity with our God. These experiences now are merely a shadow of what is to come. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. (1 Corinthians 13:12a)
I want to warn any and all who read this not to doubt your relationship with God simply because you can’t feel His closeness constantly. It was a trap I fell into, and brought me to some dark places. I was looking for some hidden sin that was keeping me from experiencing God. I slipped in spending time in the Word and prayer, because that didn’t produce results that satisfied me. I was really only in the relationship for myself. It’s not supposed to work like that. God gives good gifts, but that’s not why we come to Him. We come to Him because we are broken, filthy, desperate people in need of forgiveness, and we come to Him because we were created to be with Him, and we come to Him because He is the Lord and His call must be heeded. Jesus said in Matthew 6:33, But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Seek first God’s will, His kingdom, His glory, and His righteousness, and the rest will fall into place.
In closing, I pray that God has spoken to you through this message. He is with you always. Thank you for reading, and may you be blessed. Amen.
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