Feeling God

If God is here in this world, and here in my life, then why can’t I feel Him?

This is something I struggle with at times. Sure everyone goes through ‘dry times’, but why do these times occur, and why can’t some people who are exploring religion feel God when they search for Him?

The first part of this addresses Christians who can’t feel God. Sometimes an answer is easy for me. I can’t feel God because I’m doing something in my life that I shouldn’t be. When I’m caught up in sin of some sort, whatever it might be, that’s at least part of why I can’t feel God, because I’m turning away from Him. But sometimes I seem to be doing things mostly right, but am feeling very distant from God.

Feeling God when we’re doing well is something I think we’ve come to expect from religion. That as long as we’re doing what we’re meant to do as Christians, then God should be here with us all the time. I think a major part of the problem here is that we often expect that God should be here with us as long as we’re not doing anything wrong. But just because we’re not doing something wrong doesn’t mean we’re doing everything the way we should be. And if we’re living a really ‘easy’ Christian life and just expecting the good bits of Christianity, God has every right to let us know that it’s not just about the ‘good life’, but that it’s about so much more. Not being able to feel God could be a good suggestion that we need to pay more attention to what He wants of us. We all need to do that regardless!

And I think God sometimes tests us even if we are doing things God’s way. It seems harsh and cruel, but I don’t really think it is. Although not feeling God at times is one of the hardest parts of being a Christian, at the same time it builds us up and makes us stronger. Sometimes God leads us into the ‘desert place’ for a purpose, even if we don’t always know what it is. That’s certainly true for me, in reflection. Hanging on to the ‘memory’ of God in the ‘alone’ times has helped me to trust and engage with God so much more in the long term. It doesn’t make the ‘dry times’ easier, but it means that I can understand that just because I don’t feel God doesn’t mean He’s not there. And often God’s presence comes subtly, not in the big signs or booming voice we might expect or want.

Lots of the Psalms show people crying out to God, searching for His presence. It’s encouraging to see how this isn’t something unusual, but a part of every Christian’s journey. And even in crying out in desperation, they still continue to praise God, recognising that even when they can’t feel Him, He’s still worthy of their praise.

The other major part of this question is about people who are just exploring faith, who try praying or searching for God but just can’t feel Him. This is probably even harder to comprehend.

Here I think it comes down to the willingness of the person involved to actually search for God. If anybody could just pray “Hey God, if you’re there, answer me now” and it happened, then it wouldn’t really be faith. It comes back to the idea of actively and vigorously searching for God. A brief prayer ‘just in case’ isn’t really searching for God or wanting to follow Him, and understandably it’s not going to result in much!

And yet there are some who search for years, and still haven’t felt God. Here I have to say that I honestly believe that if people truly search, then they will find God and God will show Himself to them in time. If you lose something in the house that’s really important, you won’t just look for it for a little while and give up, not even after a long while. If God could be real then that’s pretty important, and so warrants more than a short search. If God’s real, He’s worth searching all your life for, and not giving up on. So just because someone hasn’t felt God after searching for a while doesn’t mean that He’s not there, or that they should give up.

I don’t like not feeling God any more than anyone else, and it’s a hard thing to come to terms with and can be a major cause for doubt, but in the end I do believe God remains with us always, and I have to trust that even when I can’t feel Him, He’s still there. That’s the very nature of faith.

Some Bible verses to check out on this topic: Psalm 77; Job (all); Matthew 7:7-8; James 4:8.