The Evangelical Universalist Forum

How do you get through times when God feels distant?

Practices Christian Living
#1

I’ll say what I’m personally struggling with at the moment and my general thoughts on this topic…

I’m a feelings-based person. I am HUGELY reliant on what I feel. For example, I’m not at all a person who accepts things because someone else tells me to or because it’s the done thing - I rely on my own instincts a lot. If I’m in some sort of debate and someone says something that I realise I disagree with, I might not be able to quite put across immediately why I disagree with whatever it is but I just know that I do disagree with it and from there I only need to try and work out precisely why. If I’m making decisions, my feelings come first, then my thoughts shortly after, then eventually I act on them. It always comes in that order.

The other thing is I am very analytical; I am constantly thinking things through, working things out, countering arguments in my head about something. Both of these things (being feelings-based and analytical) can be really helpful. But they can also be really difficult to consistently cope with.

Both of these things can be prone to overwhelm me. For quite a while (over a year) I’ve been forced to look at God a different way. I’ve found difficult new topics that I didn’t realise I had a problem with, I’ve found things within Christianity that I hate, I’ve seen people I respect hold beliefs about God that I find absolutely detestable. My view of the Bible, of a possible ‘hell’, of atonement, has completely been transformed through gradually looking at God in new ways and I’m very glad for that.

But I have also found connection with God on a personal level really difficult during the same time. When I pray, I often feel like God is hovering in my room saying “you’re not trying hard enough” or sometimes it feels like he’s turning his back on me. When I read the Bible I find things that instantly bother me about God. Some people read the Bible and only see an unconditionally-loving God who cares for humanity. Because I’m prone to over-thinking, I often see everything I don’t want to see. As we all know, it’s hugely frustrating when God feels distant but it’s worse when, on top of that, God seems morally repugnant, like the greatest tyrant you’ll ever imagine

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t need people to affirm that God’s love for me is beyond what I can imagination - I know this 100% and it keeps me going through these sort of periods. But as I mentioned, feelings often lead me so much that I cannot help but fall into their grasp a lot of the time, even if they’re not true. So when God feels distant, it’s like everything grounds to a halt.

Switching away from me for now, I want to say something that I believe is important for all of us when we feel like God is distant. I recently saw an interview Bear Grylls did with Nicky Gumbel where Gumbel asked Grylls what he would say to those who said his faith was like a crutch or safety-harness. Grylls’ initial response was “It’s probably true.” That really stood out to me. When God feels distant, the only reason I keep holding on is because he is often like my safety-harness. I’ve never brought this idea that it takes a ‘leap of faith’ to believe in God. To me, belief in God is natural. When I’m feeling spiritually and emotionally down, I have to hold on to Jesus. Sometimes it feels like he isn’t there holding me up, or sometimes it’s like I can’t see him. But I HAVE to hold on. It feels like it costs me far more to let go than to hold on.

If you’re falling down a cliff and, in the process of scraping against the side for dear life, you think that you can feel a bit of rope hanging down, you don’t question whether the rope is steady or whether it really is there, or whether it really is rope. You grab hold of it and you hold on to it. I’m not sure how good an analogy that is but when God feels distant to me, I feel compelled just to hang in there. Sometimes it doesn’t feel steady. Sometimes I’m not sure whether it’s really there. But I have to hold onto it.

George MacDonald has a couple of great thoughts in his Unspoken Sermon ‘Life’:

When God feels distant, sometimes it would be easier to kiss that life goodbye and ‘call upon death’ to that belief. I’ve felt like that quite a lot in the last year, where my hope is fading away and despair feels like it’s devouring me. But I cling on because I know that I desire the life that he brings. It doesn’t make it much easier - quite honestly right now, I want to fall into the deepest sleep and never leave it, only being conscious of the fact that I’m safe in my unconsciousness. But deep down, that’s not really what I desire at all.

Psalm 44:23-24
Awake, Lord! Why do you sleep?
Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever.
Why do you hide your face
and forget our misery and oppression?

So how does everyone try and get through these moments of doubt or feeling distant from God?

#2

I very seldom feel close to God, and it’s rare that I don’t have what are to me, profound doubts.
This has worked - for me at least - to my good, though it certainly took many years for me to learn the lesson. Spending my formative years in a Pentecostal church did nothing but keep me depending on my feelings, or as some would call it, the ‘inner witness’, for my compass, rather than a striving for stronger character, courage, steadfastness, determination.

“No man is an island, sufficient unto himself” - I’ve had to learn that the closest I will come to experiencing Christ is - my family, my neighbor, not my feelings. I still fail at remembering that, though, all too often.

I read many things that point at ME as responsible for building the type of character that could be a friend of God. The Stoics, especially Seneca - their emphasis on bearing tribulation, enduring hardship, overcoming obstacles - in other words, 'manning up" :slight_smile: - inspire me to get on with things, most especially when I am not feeling anything.

Those are some ways I get through the ‘dry spells’ which are, for the most part, the bulk of my experience.

These essays in particular shows Seneca at his best as a Doctor of the Soul:
en.wikisource.org/wiki/Of_Providence
en.wikisource.org/wiki/Of_Peace_of_Mind

#3

Hi Steve – my two pence worth is that I get though these times in a couple of ways

It helps to know that I’m not the only person who has these periods of dryness – so do all of the other Christians I have known well and many of the most famous Christians in history too.

It also helps greatly to know that there is a whole tradition within the Christian faith for coping with this and even with seeing it as in some sense a blessing. The desert Fathers speak about the spiritual desert that blooms in the end. Others with insights into the inner life have talked of the ‘dark night of the soul’ and commended the discipline of ‘faithfulness in dry prayer’ during these times. The evangelical tradition which often has a big emphasis on emotional assurance has sometimes been a poor guide here.

Those who write of the dark night speak of it in terms of relationship and love. In any close human relationship of course joy and delight in the other is what initially draws us into some sort of intimacy. However, even in the closest of relationships feelings fluctuate – and remaining in good faith with another when feelings are temporarily at a low ebb is a very important part of ‘love’s work’ when we can begin to love another for what they are rather than purely for the delight they bring.

Therefore the wiser doctors of the soul have not seen dark nights as necessarily an impediment to faith but rather as an opportunity. Sometimes we all have to still the busy mind and the carnival of feelings and simply be faithful in prayer and in silence.
In thoughts and in prayers

Dick

#4

From the blog: lifebetweenthetrees.com/about/

"I often hear Christians tell me what God has been saying to them in their times of meditation and study and prayer and I’m often amazed. He tells them the most profound, eloquent things.

All I seem to ever hear is: “Rob, get out of my way.”"

I have to laugh, because that’s the way it has been with me as well, as I wrote upthread. Obviously, our Father nurtures and nourishes each of us in different ways; which is fitting, as we are all parts of one Body of Christ.

#5

Always, every day, horrible, crushing, unmanning doubt. A tidal wave of oblivion kept at bay, Canute-like, by that pathetic little talisman the Bible, and desperate dreams of hope in a long-dead Palestinian peasant.

But oh my, what if that really was true? What if he rose again? What then? What mountains I could climb, effortlessly, fearlessly.

That’s it. Take it or leave it.

#6

Hmm, I don’t think I remember a time after the first year when I became a Christian when I had a strong feeling of God, and looking back now, though there are a number of things I can definitely see God’s Hand in, and an overall complexity of many interactions, I do wonder how much of my response was confused with my own emotions and general emotionalism, I certainly was wrong and misguided over many things. I haven’t really had the kind of doubts on the whole some of the above speak of, part of my obsessive nature has had me pretty convinced of the Resurrection and in a Ist century Jewish context all that flowed from that, for me doubts were and are personal to myself, and in fact for so long the knowledge of the Resurrection was a torment to me, and I wished I did not believe it, as my belief in it seemed to condemn every thought I had, and all I did, and left me sure I was headed for eternal destruction with everything I did bring more shame on the risen Lord. And I ended up wishing and hoping that death was just nothingness and the extinction of all that I was, I no longer knew or recognized myself and wished this thing that I thought I was gone, and sometimes feel it was only thinking that this wasn’t so that stayed my hand in the worst times from suicide. For me to let go was at the time what I wished I could do, as in those days belief in God was a torment and torture, trapped in my mind where no thought was under my control and lost within my mind where I couldn’t think straight and everything in my mind became twisted or developed into another incessant howl that never leave me to think or feel clearly about anything. It’s a hell I wouldn’t wish only anyone, and it was the very thought that things would only get worse for me and the pain it would cause my family that stopped me from going through with some of the suicide plans I had formulated. No of course I see and realize this all part of the nature of death, the corruption of all things from their true being and fulfillment, where things fall apart in decay and corruption , the self-delusions and lies, falling into non-being if God allowed it (thankfully we are here, and He has defeated death, ransomed humanity from it’s power, cancelled the debt it had on us and will destroy it at the last), and suicide would have been to allow the process to complete itself.

I am very thankful that God brought me through those darkest of times and I came to realize what was wrong with me, however my mind often still a storm of a multitude of thoughts and various looping cycle of the same insistent irrational thoughts, feelings and fears that are the opposite of what I really believe that feel like they threaten to trap me once again within the prison of my own mind each day. It has taken some time to begin to try and stop walking around my mind on like each thought is a potential mine, afraid of the one that will send me right back into that abyss, and trying not to be afraid during the quiet moments, as I now they are just a temporary respite, but know it all for what they are and not engage them, it’s much better then before but it’s still a work in progress.

So I don’t put a great deal of trust in my feelings or my current disposition as it is very rarely a reliable indicator of what I really feel and none to what God’s disposition towards me or anyone else is, nor do I quest and try and rely on a particularly sense or understanding of God anymore, that just made things worse for me. Rather living through this has lead me to appreciate God’s absolute and total love and faithfulness in the Messiah Jesus to us all and the whole creation for more then ever when I did have that freedom of my first year, and though there are things I’m working through still from the years I tried to flee from Christianity, but in many ways I am a better and more mature now then I ever was then, though I have so far yet to go. And while most don’t have the issues I do but have all different ones (and I’m not going to say mine are worse then anyone else, and I know some people face far tougher issues) I would still advice not letting feeling or the lack of feelings dominate or rule your life, God is not reducible down to a feeling, He is the Ground of all being and everything that is, there is nowhere you could go or state you could be in that He isn’t, and His inherent nature is revealed in Christ, in His self-emptying, self-giving love and His total faithfulness, His commitment to humanity and the whole of the universe, to each and every one of us individually. There is no edge or end to His love, and there is nowhere and nothing you can go or do that His love will leave you, or fail or His commitment to you will end, and there is never a point where He ever turns His back on you or would say you are not trying hard enough. Those thoughts are not to be trusted or given any heed that say otherwise, or believing that because God feels absent He is, you can’t stop such feelings sometimes and for some it is a season you go through, and for some of us it’s just the way it is with us, but God doesn’t wish you you to let such emotions to dominate you, or keep effecting your relationship with Him. And as some have pointed out, as as I’m beginning to see myself, it’s the very time when everything seems dry that you have the incomparable opportunity to grow spiritually and in your understanding of God, so in relation to that, and to put things on a positive footing, don’t let such an opportunity slip you by :wink: , the Lord is confident that you can not only handle it, but that you are capable of great things and trusts you :slight_smile: , so don’t fear but as hard as it might be at first (and I know it’s hard and difficult) I hope you can see the great blessing that can come from it.

As for seeing things in the Bible that bother you don’t necessarily either accept or ignore them, but face and look into them might be my advice, the main thing to remember is that there is only one Word, one Logos of God, and that is Incarnate Son of God Himself, He is the One Scripture points to , and He is the purpose of it and it’s whole narrative (Paul’s reference to Christ death and resurrection being according to the Scriptures was not just to some prophesies but rather the whole of Scripture, He was the surprising climax and purpose of it all, and all the out-flowed from it - the NT and Church Tradition - is centred on Him and His rescue and restoration of all things that comes through Him - just as He revealed to Cleopas in the Emmaus road), and in Scripture we seek to encounter Him, so see beyond it to the Word of God Himself. His Incarnation was a completion of a process of God coming among and taking on humanity that started when He began working with the people that would become Israel and made His covenant with them, and it’s not just that He is the final step, the whole thing is a process of this Incarnation, of God coming to be tabernacled among humanity, to take humanity on so we might share in His Life, and that means the reality of God is only be understood through Jesus Himself and both the OT that climaxed in Him and the NT and Tradition that flows from Him is to be seen through Him and understood in Him. And that means that not necessarily accepting the picture or perspective of one book of Scripture alone, but so see it both in dialogue with and critique from the other pictures, and to understand the whole piece through Christ, and how He re-frames and shapes the understanding of things beyond the intention of the original sources and transforms them. One good example is Psalm 2, in it the Psalmist sees God placing Israel’s King in His calling as Lord of the World by military conquest and dominating power and was certainly associated by Jesus’ day by many Jews with the Messiah rising to defeat and conquer the pagan nations (and sadly quite a few Christians today) but when Paul encountered the risen Jesus and realized it vindicated Him as Messiah, and that through Him and His life, death, resurrection and ascension had brought in the climax and awaited Kingdom of God Paul had been waiting for, that the resurrection demonstrated in power that Jesus was now already Lord of the world, Psalm 2 is completely re-thought through Christ. Christ has defeated all the enemies facing humanity, everything that oppresses and defaces humanity and the good creation God made, until in the end even death will be place beneath His feet at the culmination of all things and destroyed and all creation set free, but He doesn’t do it through violence and death, among the very things He came to defeat and release the captives from, so the Psalmist was correct that God would defeat all that oppressed His people, and ransom and free them through His King, but how it would happen he (or they) were wrong about. It is only through Christ and in encountering Him we begin to understand things more clearly I would advice.

For some more on this idea, I think a fairly recent blog post on Peter Enns blog concerning Micheal Hardin’s lastest book give some idea of how this might begin to play out in some ways:

patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/ … in-part-1/

patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/ … in-part-2/

patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/ … in-part-3/

patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/ … in-part-4/

Anyway, I hope some of this helps at all, and I hope and pray that through the responses here God is able to reveal His total love and faithfulness to you in all things :slight_smile:

#7

I have to say I understand what you are saying. I am going through one myself, which I think is actually a spiritual transformation, and an Ego death. However, I have had many experiences. I have called them Dark night, dryness, presence, and ecstasy. In fact, it was through a Dark night that I came to learn about Universal Salvation. I remember for a time, I could not conceive of a reality greater than the Fundamentalist Catholic system. In art history one moment, I had a mystical experience of a God greater than the Fundamentalist dogma, and I did not need to feel the need to believe a certain way. This wore off after a month, and I needed some guidance again, and that is when I learned about Universal Salvation. I think I always believed in UR before fundamentalism, but never had a definition.

However, I know its not a fun experience, and can feel very terrifying. For myself, I know right now, it seems like the true God is not real, and that there is no reality beyond thought and sensual experience. It feels like being part of a fatalistic and confining world stuck in time and thinking ever going nearer to death in some massive void of self dissolution. So death can seem like a very scary prospect.

However, for over a year now, I have been experiencing spiritual dryness, in the sense that I believe in God and know he is beyond anything we can think of, but still feels distance, and stuck in a materialistic reality. I know in these situations, I feel easily angry at the world, and have temptations towards pride to compensate for a lack of a sense of dignity. Its in these times I just want to be right, more intelligent and holier, and cannot stand seeing others being self righteous, know it alls, or critical. I hate being criticized myself, having people forcing their will on me, or worldly systems with power.

I can understand the fear, anger and depression. It seems like your stuck in a confining reality that just doesnt give a care about you. I know first hand of constant disturbing dreams of confinement, fruitless searches, or being stuck in a videogame. I can best equate this to how the more you know, the smaller reality can seems. There is that naggish feeling that only what you can know through science and philosophy are real, and nothing greater. It is a frustrating and agonizing torment.

I had just begun to see that God is the main source of the dark night and dryness. I really cannot understand why he would distance himself, yet I know it is a transformative experience. In the past, I have tried to find the roots, and fruitlessly searched and got nowhere. I blamed society(particularly the religious institutions) for their teachings, or biology(For a chemical imbalance), or myself(constantly trying to figure out why I made the decisions I did and ways to be more righteous). In all these cases, holding any such as culprit gives me some sense of control over the situation. However, in reality it just creates a sense of confusion and a view of God as being punishing. I will admit, surrender is very hard.

I cannot help but think that the more painful a desolation, the more quick it will be over. I remember the worst of the desolation lead to the path of progress. It gets to the point where I do not need to have a doctrine or explanation, with some knowing beyond words and mind knowledge.

#8

Maybe I’m naïve, but I seem to experience God most intensely when I am either singing or listening to particular songs of praise or of God’s love.

#9

Probably a good answer, is to read Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross. It helps us to realize that there’s a period of darkness, before we see the light. Or read The Seventh Story Mountain, by Trappist monk Thomas Merton. :smiley: