It Happens
I have gone through about a 60 day period of time that I have not felt the nearness of God. I knew with my mind that this often happens in life because God is trying to help us grow up. My emotions did not know what my mind thought it understood.
I have had so many years of the nearness of God that feeling His absence (in feeling not in reality) was alarming. I found that I could not find comfort in the sense of His presence. I was being led by the Great Shepherd into areas of life that I would not travel if He did not take me there.
At times when I share in this regard, I have people respond to me that all you need is the Bible. They seek to encourage me that if I “just did what the Bible told me to do”, I would be fine, and I need to learn to dismiss those emotions, promptings and feelings anyway.
The trouble for me is that I have had so many years of a personal relationship with God that going back to having the Bible only, and not having the encounters of the indwelling Holy Spirit are quite dis-satisfying. For me it seems like have the wedding license without the bride.
Faith
The reason that God removes the sense of His presence is to draw us closer to Himself, not to push us away into books, sermons and the counsel of others. When we go through times of not knowing that He is there, live in loving defiance. Speak to God more, set in His presence (though unfelt) more, depend on Him more. I am talking to myself here.
In the end your faith will increase. Not the faith that comes from standing upon a passage of scripture. That kind of standing is very good and essential. The word of God, the scripture lead us into all kinds of truth. One of these truths is that you can have a relationship with God who dwells within us through His Holy Spirit. So “abiding”, “having fellowship”, “hearing the word of the Lord”, all become more than interactions with scripture. Even when we read scripture, we seek to hear what the Spirit is saying to us, how God is convicting, what promptings to obey.
Grow up Rod
So my lack has been for my good. God has been working with me to help me grow up. I show how immature I am by how discouraged I get when God does something I don’t like. If I would grow up more I could not be discourage by how God is dealing with other issues around me. My fears would be confronted with faith.
Don’t Pretend
The last thing that I want to share is “don’t pretend”. Maybe this is a personal dislike, but I hate it when people pretend. Some people pretend that everything is great and others pretend that the whole world is falling apart. Where are those who live in reality. Most every day has good and bad and I feel sorry for those who attend churches where the standard “Christian” greeting is “I’m blessed, the head and not the tail, never been better”. I often think but seldom say, “You should serve somebody and change your perspective”.
I find it much easier to love real people. Those however who project un-reality, have little I can relate to as the vale of projected deception is not something others can hold or relate to. We need real people to have real relationships. We have a real God who relates to us both in His greatness and in His absence. He leads us into abundance and into poverty. He heals and allows us to die. Let’s not pretend that God is one thing when He is more than ten thousand. Let’s not pretend His is always near if He is not.
