I can still remember this particular morning clearly. It’s dark outside, and I’m sitting on my living room couch in the same place where I always sit for my morning devotional time. I have my Bible open in my lap. Looking back, I honestly don’t remember now the book or chapter I was reading. I do remember, though, that the words that I was reading, the Holy Word of God, are just words on a page falling on my distracted, detached, and disconnected heart.
I finish reading a few verses, close my Bible, and utter a half-hearted short prayer. My soul feels disconnected from God, and I feel as if there is an invisible wall standing between him and me.
This particular morning, though, wasn’t an isolated instance. In fact, this distance between God and me had been growing for some time.
Sure I read my Bible a few mornings a week, sung my heart out to worship songs, and prayed most mornings and evenings, but this feeling of disconnectedness had been building slowly over the past few months.
Each day over those prior months I unintentionally had added another brick to this invisible wall that stood between my soul and God’s heart.
And I hated it. I resented it. I had gone from having a vibrant relationship with the Lord, full of zeal and joy, to this.
My guess is that most of you reading this have felt this kind of distance in your relationship with God before. Maybe you’re even feeling that now. I think we’ve all been in a place where we are just going through the motions of reading our Bible, of praying, singing some worship songs, and serving, but with little or no intimate connection with the Lord.
Maybe that distance is because our schedule is so packed from the time we wake up to the time we go to bed because of our children or our job.
Maybe we are grieving a devastating loss and we’ve pulled away from God as we try to put the pieces of our lives back together.
Or perhaps we have unconfessed sin, and we feel shame in the Lord’s presence so we’re avoiding him.
Or maybe we’re so distracted from anxiety and worry over bills that need to get paid that when we try to sit down and spend time with him, our mind is swirling faster than a tornado and we can’t focus.
This experience of feeling distant from God is nothing original to us. David, a man after God’s own heart, struggled with this, too.
Psalm 13 gives us just one example of a time when David was wrestling and struggling. We don’t know exactly when David wrote this psalm, but we do know that he must have been in great despair as he calls out to God. It’s important to remember that David loved the Lord and was specifically anointed by God to be the King of Israel, and yet, David, yes even he, had moments when he felt like God was far away from him.
Let’s look at Psalm 13, starting in verse 1.
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I take counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?3 Consider and answer me, O Lord my God;
light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,
4 lest my enemy say, ‘I have prevailed over him,’
lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.5 But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.”
Notice how David starts this song to the Lord. He starts with the question, “How long?” He then goes on to repeat that same phrase three more times. You can hear the desperation in his voice as he repeats the question again and again and again. God has felt distant for some time to David, and his desperation has been growing.
“How long, Lord? How long?” Have you said that to God recently?
“How long, Lord, will you allow my child to wander from his faith in you?”
“How long, Lord, will I be without a job?”
“How long, O Lord, will you allow my chronic illness to consume my body in pain and exhaustion?”
“How long, Lord?”
David feels so distant from God in this moment that he even feels like God is hiding his face from him.
Was God actually hiding his face from David? I don’t believe so. I believe that the situation that David was facing is what caused David to think that God was withdrawing from him.
You see, we read in verse 2 that David had a very real, present enemy who was trying to prevail over him. He was being fought and opposed from every side. That circumstance created a distance between him and God that felt just as real as the physical enemy trying to attack him.
My friends, in the same way, we have stresses and pressures that push in all around us that can cause an ever-widening gap between our Maker and us.
So what does David do about it? How does he handle the fact that God seems aloof and unresponsive in his dire situation?
Let’s look back at verses 5 and 6. David says,
But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the LORD because he has dealt bountifully with me.”
What’s David doing? He is reminding himself of God’s love for him through every situation, his salvation in God alone, and God’s goodness to him in the past. He’s basically preaching to himself!
The word “but” at the beginning of verse 5 tells us that his circumstances have remained unchanged. The same circumstance in verses 2 through 4 is the same thing he is dealing with now. Nothing outside of himself has changed. But inside, his soul is finding its rest in God.
David is remembering that his God has been good to him in the past, he loves him right now in the present, and his ultimate salvation is waiting for him in the future. He started this psalm questioning God in distress, but he is ending it with hope.
So what does this mean for us, friends?
It means that when we feel distant from God, we need to remember his great love for us.
It’s easy to check out when you feel disconnected from the Lord. It’s easy to give up and pull away. To stop reading your Bible. To stop praying. To stop going to your small group or Sunday morning worship.
But in those moments when you feel like your soul is wandering in isolation, take a moment to think about how God has demonstrated his love for you in the past.
When are those times that you know he could have abandoned you but he didn’t? When did you see his hand working in maybe an unexpected way to save you from a terrible situation? When did he provide for you when you literally weren’t sure how you were going to pay your bills? And then, write them down and remind yourself of God’s great love for you.
With all of the trials, burdens, and distractions that we face, we need to stop, pause, and remember who God is so that our affections can be stirred for him again.
If you feel so distant from God in that moment of reflection that you can’t think of anything to write down, look to the Cross. As Romans 5:8 says, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” and John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down his life for his friends.”
David rejoiced in the salvation received through God’s covenant with Israel. Oh, but how much more so we can rejoice that God showed his great love for us by sending his Son, Jesus, to the earth, to live a sinless life and some thirty years after living on this earth, he died a painful death. A death that would pay for the sins of all of us who come and surrender our lives to him.
That’s real, deep, undeniable love.
God gave us his Son. Is there any better demonstration of his love for us?
And after Christ died, he rose from the grave 3 days later, and is alive now at the right hand of God the Father. And even more so to those in Christ, he gives us the gift of His Holy Spirit.
The Spirit of the Living God is living inside of you! How much closer can he get?
He has not put a wall between us and him. We have! And He is just on the other side, waiting, with arms wide open for us to return to him.
If you’re feeling disconnected and distant from God right now, I invite you to pray with me:
“Dear Lord, you know I feel distant and disconnected from you right now. I don’t want to feel this way. I want to feel close to you, Lord. Please remind me of your great love for me, that you died for me and took the punishment of my sins upon yourself. That is real love. As Paul writes in Ephesians 3:18, help me ‘to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.’ Thank you that even when I feel distant from you, you are never far from me. Help me close this gap that has formed and be close with you again. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”
Pressing on in faith, Jennifer