July 2018

ecause we have an immediate
need does not mean God is far
from us. Quite the opposite, He
is as near to us as He always is
and just because we cannot feel
His presence does not mean He
is not there.
When we also feel far from God,
there may be a tendency to stop
praying. We pray and pray only
to still hear silence. This does
not mean God does not hear us.
When we are in need of something
and feel God is not with
us, we would do well to continue
to pray. Prayer is not just giving
God a to-do list but includes
praising Him and thanking Him.
We need to praise Him for His
greatness in our lives and thank
Him for what He has done for
and within us.
Psalm 37:7a (ESV) says, “Be
still before the Lord and wait patiently
for Him.”
Again, when we feel apart from
God, we must be patient. If we
have financial problems and ask
God for help, will he drop a bag of
money on your lap? No, but He
will give you the heart and mind
to be a better steward to what He
has entrusted to you. Patience
takes time and practice. Being
patient can be short or long. We
cannot expect God to jump to
our every whim. Along with patience,
we must have trust in the
Lord, trust to wait on Him, even
when we cannot feel Him in our
lives.
Proverbs 3:5-6 (ESV) tells us to
“Trust in the Lord with all your
heart, and do not lean on your
own understanding. In all your
ways acknowledge Him, and He
will make straight your paths.”
What does this mean for feeling
God is far from us? It means to
trust in God. We may not understand
why God seems far from
us or why there seems to be a
void in the relationship, but by
just having a child-like trust that
He is still there with us, even in
silence, we can have an assurance
that God is still there as He
always is.
In Psalm 130:5, King David
wrote, “I wait for the Lord, my
soul waits, and in his word I
hope.” When feeling far from
God, we sometimes want to give
up on Him because we feel as if
He gave up on us. If we do this,
we lose our hope in God and we
don’t want this in our lives. We
need to fall back on our faith and
wait on Him in hopeful expectation.
If we give up on hope, we
won’t have any expectation of
God in our lives and what do we
have to live for then?
What we do in the in between
moments of feeling far away
from our Lord and when we do
hear Him is vital to our wellbeing
and faith. It is in the space between
the silence and the voice
that matter to help us grow in
God and strengthen our faith.
When we wait, and I mean wait
more than a day or two, we learn
to grow our hope and faith in
God to lead us to the right way
and right answers. If we don’t do
this, we can stumble and fall in
our walk with Him.
Whatever the need is, we would
be wise to wait on God’s response.
Sometimes we don’t
though. We turn to the world
for our answers. We search for
answers that are worldly in response.
We seek out advice
from ungodly people or motivational
books. We look high and
low, left and right, everywhere
else but in patience with our
Lord. Basically, when we turn to
the world for answers we pretty
much have turned from God and
turned to the world.
Satan loves this when it happens.
He wants us to not rely
on God. He wants us to lose patience
with God and he wants us
to seek any other avenue of help
aside from God. If Satan can
snag us into his net of lies that
the world is the best answer to
our problems, he is winning and
taking us further away from God.
We need to make the decision to
choose God or the world.
When we feel far from God, just
remember that in the Old Testament,
the people of God didn’t
hear from Him for a long time. In
the Book of Exodus, we learned
that the Israelis were in Egyptian
captivity for 400 years before
being delivered. I’m sure they
felt far from God during this time
and during the time of their exile
to the Babylonian Empire. So,
when we get frustrated with God
for not attending to our needs in
short-order, we need to remember
those in the Old Testament
who waited a long time to hear
God.
Look, we don’t control God. We
cannot force Him to change our
lives the way we want. He is our
God and the God of the universe.
We need to realize that we are
not removed from God but only
by our decision to be so. God
54 www.faithfilledfamily.com July 2018