James Hall—8 min read—Client resource
Why doesn’t God feel close? The weight of this relational question and the emotions that come with it can bring tears to the eyes. You are not alone in asking it; you’re actually in the best company. I believe it echoes what Jesus felt on the cross in Matthew 27:46: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (ESV). In his pain at taking on the sin of the world, Jesus quoted David in Psalm 22:1, which shows that we have been questioning our relationship with God for a while. Don’t be ashamed, but be comforted that even Jesus felt forsaken by the Father. And he felt this way despite being in a perfect union with him. When looking at Jesus’s relationship with the Father, we can have hope that this feeling can be more of a rare experience in our friendship with God. As a Christian, take heart that your Heavenly Father wants you to tangibly experience the steadfast, loving relationship he has with you.
This question and its response require exploration on multiple levels. To understand what’s unhealthy, there are a couple of fake relationships with God we can fall into that can lead to feeling distant from him. A theological perspective on the Trinity and the nature of sin will help us see how we can feel far from God while he is right next to us. A key aspect of genuine relationships is emotional vulnerability, and, as it turns out, there’s good biblical precedent for being emotionally honest with God. We’ll wrap up with some ways to practice being real with God and letting him be real with us.
Fake Friends
Our relationship with God can be put on a spectrum from fake to real. As we get closer to the fake end of the spectrum, we can feel far from God. I’ve experienced two kinds of fake friendships and sometimes fall back into them. The first one is seeking God through learning about him and behavior modification. I call this the Pharisee relationship, and it boils down to: “If I know and do the right things, then a relationship with God will result.” While growing up in church, I knew all the Sunday school answers and how to stay out of trouble, but the number of times I prayed the prayer of salvation and rededicated my life to Christ showed how insecure I felt in the relationship. This friendship isn’t real because it’s transactional in nature, thinking that God owes us because we’re good at Bible trivia and legalism. A bond based on head knowledge and rule following makes God feel like a cold taskmaster. It doesn’t want God; it wants to avoid punishment. The next fake relationship can be an attempt to get out of this one.
I call the next fake friendship the Seeker relationship, and it’s always seeking emotional experiences. It comes from a discontentment with merely an intellectual understanding of God and drives us to seek experiential signs or proof that God is there. We can search for emotional ecstasy in things like spiritual disciplines, revivals, or spiritual gifts. In ordinary life, we are starving for divine action, craving the high that will hopefully hold us over until we get the next fix. And great discouragement comes when these rituals and incantations let us down, because that means either God has failed or it’s our fault for not having enough faith. A relationship based on sporadic mountain top experiences makes God feel like a fair-weather drug dealer or a flaky genie. This friendship doesn’t want God; it wants to escape or overpower reality. Real relationships aren’t built on bursts of emotional highs. They do have highlights, but they’re mostly developed over time in the normal day-to-day of earning trust. When we grow tired of chasing emotional experiences, we can fall back into the Pharisee relationship to try to at least get a sense of consistency.
Theological Gaps
When considering Jesus’s experience on the cross, there’s some trinitarian and sin theology that can help us understand why we feel far from God, and how we are actually close and secure in him. It’s important to know that the Godhead, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is in a perfect relationship. God is eternal and unchanging (Hebrews 13:8, Malachi 3:6, James 1:17). Jesus bore our sin on the cross (1 Peter 2:24), and he willingly laid his life down (John 10:17-18), but sin didn’t overcome or divide God. However, the very nature of sin makes us feel like God is far away (Isaiah 59:1-2), which is what I believe Jesus felt on the cross as he took on the sin of the world. We have a Lord and Savior who has felt how we feel when we’re at our lowest (Hebrews 4:15). But not even death could separate God, which is why we can be confident that nothing can separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39) and that God is always close (Psalm 139).
Biblical Venting
The Bible has multiple passages in which the writers share how they honestly feel, even if what they feel isn’t factually accurate. A misplaced fear of the sin of lying by saying anything other than the facts can keep us from being emotionally truthful with God. Jesus wasn’t lying on the cross when he asked the Father why he’d forsaken him. I believe the Father had not, in fact, forsaken him, but that was how Jesus honestly felt. Lamentations 3:10-13 is a great biblical example of emotional truthfulness. God isn’t literally a bear or lion waiting to ambush Jeremiah, and God’s not an archer shooting Jeremiah in the kidneys with arrows, but that’s how Jeremiah feels about God. Jeremiah later recalls the truth of God’s steadfast love and new morning mercies in Lamentations 3:21-25, but he was emotionally honest with God first. We may need to be truthful with how we feel before we can believe God’s Truth.
Truth encompasses more than just the facts. Our emotions can reveal what our prideful, logical minds won’t let us think about: which is what we actually believe. We can inaccurately think that God’s just an all-powerful version of us; that he’ll get angry and strike us down if we say what we really feel. But God’s different from us (Isaiah 55:8-9), he already knows us better than we do (Hebrews 4:12-13), he isn’t insecure or easily offended like we are, and his love is steadfast (Psalm 86:15). We are only deceiving ourselves by not letting God address the false beliefs that fuel our emotional distance. Instead, let’s approach God with confident humility (Hebrews 4:16) and tell our Father how we feel.
Two Legit
So what does a genuine relationship with God look like? Simply, being real with God and letting him be real with you. Practically, this looks like sharing authentic feelings and thoughts with God, and imagining how God would respond, based on how he’s revealed himself in the Bible. Regular time in the Bible is needed because this is how we know who God is and how he responds to us.
One way of doing this is to imagine being in the same room as God, bringing your burdens, wants, and needs before him, and imagining what God would say and do in response. A biblically sound counselor can help facilitate this since we can have inaccurate pictures of God, barriers to being vulnerable, and trouble with recognizing, labeling, and communicating our emotions and beliefs. There are many ways to walk through this process because it’s a relationship, so there’s no simple formula to follow.
To give some ideas of what this time with God could look like, here are some biblical scenarios you could imagine. Picture God greeting you as a friend, wanting to catch up on your day (Genesis 3:9, Exodus 33:11, Matthew 11:28). Imagine coming home like the prodigal son, and God running out to meet and embrace you, like the father did in the parable (Luke 15:20). Cast each of your cares before him and see how he takes care of each one (1 Peter 5:6-7). Share what you want and what you think you need from God, ask God to reveal what you actually need, and ask him to provide for those needs, then see him provide for those needs (Philippians 4:19). Share how you feel, especially if you’ve felt forsaken or forgotten (Psalm 22:1, 13:1). Listen to God tell you to stop talking to yourself harshly and to be kind to yourself (Matthew 22:39). Listen as he preaches the Gospel to your specific situation (John 3:16-17). Feel his nearness as he is with you in your suffering; suffering that he knows well (Psalm 34:17-18, Isaiah 53:3-4). Fill your mind with what he reminds you is good (Philippians 4:8-9).
This can also be practiced throughout the day. Sit and do nothing while God sings over you (Zephaniah 3:17, Psalm 46:10). As you enjoy a meal or snack, imagine God’s delight as you enjoy the taste of his creation (Psalm 34:8). When the wind blows over you, imagine God lifting your head and tousling your hair (Psalm 3:3, Job 8:21). In the warmth of the sun, imagine God smiling while he looks at you (Numbers 6:25). Rest in his comforting presence as you relax in a blanket of peace (Psalm 4:8).
Don’t settle for a distant friendship with our Father. If he feels far away, that’s okay, talk to him about it. He is eager to hear from you, no matter how long it’s been (Isaiah 65:24). May we taste and see the real relationship that we have with our God, and that it is viscerally good.
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