Chapter 17 Day Fourteen When God Seems Far Away

Day Fourteen When God Seems Far Away The Lord hides himself from his people, But I still trust him and place my hopes in him. (Isaiah 8:17, modern Chinese translation) No matter how you feel, God is real! When everything goes well in life—God has given you plenty of food and clothing, good friends, happy family, good health, and pleasant encounters, it is easy for you to worship God; but life circumstances are not always like this.How are you going to worship God?What do you do when God seems out of reach? The deepest worship is to be able to praise in pain, give thanks in trial, trust in temptation, surrender in suffering, and love God even when he seems far away.

Friendships are often tested by separation and silence.The two parties may not be able to communicate due to geographical barriers, and your friendship with God will not always feel so close.Philip Yancey wisely said, "There are times in any relationship that are closer and times that are less: and in a relationship with God, no matter how intimate, it is like a pendulum that sometimes swings from one side to the other. .At this time, worship becomes difficult. To mature your friendship, God will test you with a period of seeming separation—a time when it feels as if He has forsaken you or forgotten you; you feel as though God is thousands of miles away.St. John of the Cross described those days of spiritual darkness, doubt, and alienation from God as "the dark night of the soul."Henri Nouwen called them "absent shepherds," Tosh called them "the shepherds of the night," and others called them "winters of the soul."

Apart from Jesus, David can be regarded as God's closest friend, and God pleased to call him "a man after His heart".However, David often complained that God was not around: "Lord, why do you stand far away? Why do you hide when I need you most?" "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I cry out Help, why don't you come help me?" "Why did you abandon me?" Of course, God didn't really leave David, and he hasn't left you either.He promises again and again, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." But he doesn't promise "you'll feel my presence all the time."In fact, God admits that there are times when He hides His face from us; that there are times when He appears to be missing in the battle of our lives.

Floyd McClung described it this way: "You wake up one morning and you don't feel anything spiritual. You pray, but nothing happens. You rebuke Satan, but nothing happens. You try all kinds of spiritual things. Drill...your friends pray for you too...you confess every sin you've ever committed, go around asking everyone you know for forgiveness, you fast..... .still doesn’t work. You start to wonder how long this spiritual slump will last. Days? Weeks? Months? .In desperation, you cry out, "What the hell is wrong with me?" The truth is, you have no problem!This is the normal step in which God tests your friendship with Him and brings you to maturity: every Christian has at least one, or even many, experiences like this.As painful and confusing as it is, it is absolutely vital to the growth of your faith.Knowing this made Job hopeful even when he could not feel the presence of God.He said, "But I searched eastward, and God was not there; I searched westward, and found him not; I did not see him in the north, for he was hiding; I turned southward, and found him not. Yet he knew My ways, after he has tried me, will praise me as pure gold."

When God seems far away, you may feel that He is angry with you or punishing you for some sin.In fact, sin can sever our intimacy with God.Disobedience, conflict with others, busy living, friendship with the world, and even other sins grieve the Spirit of God and alienate us from Him.However, although this feeling of abandonment and alienation from God is often associated with sin, it is actually a test of faith that we must all face: even when you cannot feel His presence and see His work in your life. , will you continue to love God, trust him, obey him, and worship him? In today's age, the most common mistake Christians make in worship is to seek an experience instead of God.They crave a certain feeling, and when they feel it, they call it worship.This is wrong!God often removes our feelings and tells us not to rely on them.Finding a feeling, even a feeling of intimacy with Christ is not worship.

When you are a new believer, God will give you a lot of certainty and often answer your immature, self-centered prayers to make you aware of His presence.But as you grow in faith, He wants you to wean yourself from these dependencies. God's omnipresence is a very different thing from the manifestation of his presence.One is a fact and the other is usually just a feeling.God is always there, even when you don't know it.And His presence is so profound that it cannot be measured by feeling alone.God does want you to feel its presence, but he cares more about whether you trust him than whether you feel it.It is faith, not feeling, that pleases God.

Situations that expand faith most are when life is falling apart and God is nowhere to be found.That's what Job was like: In one day, he lost everything—his family, his career, his health, everything he had!And the most frustrating thing is—for the entire thirty-seven chapters, God is silent! How can you praise God when you don't know what's going on in your life and God is silent?How do you maintain a relationship in a crisis without any communication?How can you fix your eyes on Jesus when your eyes are filled with tears?You can refer to the way Job did. He prostrated himself on the ground and worshiped, saying, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and I will return naked." Jehovah gave, and Jehovah took away.Blessed be the name of the LORD. "

tell god how you really feel Open your heart to God and let go of every feeling.Job did this and said, "I can no longer be silent! I am angry and bitter, and I will pour out!" When God seemed out of reach, he cried out, "I wish to be like the days of my prime: when I was In the tent, God treats me like a confidant." God can handle your doubts, anger, fear, sorrow, confusion and all kinds of problems. Did you know that confessing your despair to God is also an expression of faith?At the same time when David was trusting in God and yet feeling hopeless, he said, "I believe in you, so I said, 'I'm done!David's candor reflects his unwavering faith.First, he believed in God; second, he believed that God would hear his prayers; third, he believed that God allowed him to express his feelings and still loved him.

Focus on the unchanging attributes of God No matter what the circumstances or how you feel, hold fast to the unchanging attributes of God.Remind yourself of eternal truths about God: He is good, He loves me, He is with me, He knows what I'm going through, He cares about me, and He has a good plan for my life.V. Raymond Edman said, "When you are in darkness, never doubt the truth that God tells you in the light." When Job faced sudden changes in his life and God remained silent, he still found reasons to praise God: * He is good and loving. * He is the Almighty Lord. * He knows exactly what happened to me.

*He rules over all things. * He has a plan for my life. * He will save me. Trust God to keep His word In times of spiritual drought, you have to patiently rely on God's promises, not to focus on your emotions, but to understand that He is bringing you into a more mature state.Friendship is only superficial if it is based on emotional feelings. So, don't get upset about difficult situations, circumstances don't change God's character, He still has plenty of grace, and even if you don't feel it, He's still your God.In the ambiguous situation, Job clung to God's words: "I have never disobeyed the command of his lips: I value the words of his mouth more than the food I need." Because of trusting in God's words, Job was watching Be confident even when it seems unreasonable.His faith is still strong in the pain: "He may kill me, but I will still trust him." When you think God has abandoned you, continue to trust Him regardless of your feelings, that is worship He's in the deepest way yet.

Remember what God has done for you Even though God has never done anything for you, the Lord Jesus still deserves your constant praise throughout your life because of what He did for you on the cross; the Son of God died for you!This is the greatest reason for worship.Sadly, we tend to forget every cruel detail of God's sacrifice for us.We are too familiar with it, and we get tired: before he died, he was stripped of his clothes, beaten and kicked until he was bloody; he was whipped and insulted, and he was put on a crown of thorns, and people kept spitting on him.He was subjected to these unreasonable and inhuman abuses, which made him worse than an animal. When he was on the verge of bleeding and almost lost consciousness, he was forced to drag the cumbersome cross up the mountain, was nailed, endured the torment of death, and then was slowly tortured to death.While he was still alive, the crowd taunted, insulted and ridiculed him loudly, and even challenged his claim to be a god. When Jesus took the sins of all mankind on himself, God turned his face away from this ugly scene, and Jesus cried out in despair: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!" In fact, Jesus could save himself, but If so, he cannot save you. Words cannot describe that dark moment. Why did God allow and endure such a horrible and evil thing to happen?Why?For that is what will save you from Hell forever, and that will keep you forever a partaker of His glory.The Bible says, "Christ was without sin, but for us God made him bear our sins so that we could share with him the righteousness of God." The Lord Jesus gave up all so that you could have all: He died so that you might live forever.This alone is worthy of your constant gratitude and praise.We should never again ask why we should be thankful.