Hebrews 13:5
“I will never fail you.
I will never abandon you.”
Sometimes we find ourselves complaining about feeling like God is absent. Most of us are familiar with the poem “Footprints”, but we know from scriptures like Hebrews 13:5 that God promises to never leave or give up on us. One thing God never promised was that we will always feel His presence.
Psalm 22:1-2
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?
2 My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, but I find no rest.
Over and over David shares his heart with God that he feels distant and discouraged. Sharing honestly how we feel is part of worship. God doesn’t want to hear us talk about what we think He wants us to say, He wants intimacy. He wants us to be real.
There are times when God appears to be missing-in-action but don’t give up. This is all part of maturing of your walk with God. It is painful, but it’s very important for the development of our faith. We grieve God’s Spirit and stifle our fellowship with God through disobedience, but often this feeling of abandonment from God has nothing to do with sin. It is a test of faith. Will you continue to love, trust, obey, and worship God, even when you have no sense of his presence or visible evidence of his work in your life? Don’t seek an experience instead of seeking God. Feeling something isn’t what worship is about.
Why does God test our faith?
What does he want to accomplish in our lives through this?
What is the Holy Spirit saying to you through these scriptures?
