What to Do When it Feels Like God Is Far Away?

7/28/2018 Christianity 45 Comments

Question:

Why does it seem like sometimes when you really need God, when you're in so much pain and you're going through so much suffering, when you really pray, it seems like He's so far far away?

God is never far away from anybody.


God is never so far from anyone of us. He's just beside us, He is always watching us. He watches us, He knows everyone of us. That is God's capacity, to know everyone of us. Just like a computer has the capacity to know the fingerprints of every employee in a very big company. You will remember that there are machines that are used by companies now wherein the employee will come and place his finger on that machine, and he will be permitted to enter only after the computer has acknowledged his fingerprints. If we believe that a computer is capable of doing those complicated things, how much more is the One who put those prints on our fingers! And that is God.


See, He had sealed the hands of every man. Each one of us was given by God a seal in our hands proving that He knows every one of us. Not any single person that lives on earth is not known to God.


The Lord Jesus Christ knew all men. God knows all men. He knows all men. He knows every one of us. So He can be reached, He is a reachable God. He is a God who feels our passions, our emotions; He understands our being, our weaknesses.


He knows our frame, our being, our infirmities, our weaknesses. He knows our frame; He remembereth that we are dust. God knows us. He understands our passions and feelings. Now, why can He be so far? Maybe it's just like that song that I remember.


Sometimes, you experience somebody is just beside you but he seems or she seems to be very far from you like that shy girl. God is always near us; He is never far from us. But we have gone so far from Him in our thoughts, in our ways, in our attitude, in our characters, in our likes, in our inklings in life we have run too far from God.


It is the question of people who do not understand God's will. “Wherein shall we return?”, they say. How far have we gone? The Lord said, “Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances.” While traversing a road, you will find signs that tell you to detour. People have detoured from the way that was prepared by the Lord, “mine ordinances”, He said. “Ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me,...” How do we return to the Lord? Return to the ordinances; return to the reproofs of God; return to the ways of God. Returning to the ordinances of God is returning to God. So, why does He seem so far away from our prayers? From our requests, from our petitions, from our likes? Because we have gone so far from Him. He's not so far away from anyone of us, instead we are so far away from Him because we have gone astray. We have taken a detour and la..la..la..la detoured. There's a song like that. There are so many detours that we have made in our lives. Just like what Frank Sinatra said. I remember this song because it is related to what I read in the Bible. Frank Sinatra said, “along the byway”.

That's the question, that's the problem. People are doing it their way not God's way. They have traveled their own way just like what Frank Sinatra said.


See, just biting more than what you could chew is improper in the sight of God.

And the last part is that,


So he traveled the highway of his own. He left the highway of God. What happened?


Had you traveled God's highway you will have no regrets.

But as Frank Sinatra said and observed,


The reason why we feel that our prayers are not answered is, not that God is far from us but, we have taken a road that made us very very far away from God. To be near Him and to find Him in our daily lives, let us go back to His ordinances because God laments in that verse, “Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts.”

Let us return to His ordinances and we will find an ever compassionate and loving God who is always ready to hear our prayers.