Do you feel distant from God’s love? Sometimes we block our own ability to feel God’s love, because we have not confessed our hurts, worries, doubts, and sins to God. Like God’s love, the sun can shine on us, but we can independently put up an umbrella and block that love, due to the condition of our hearts. Like the sun, God keeps on loving us, but like the person under the umbrella, we cannot feel the love, just like that person does not feel the sun. Please join me as I look at how we can close our umbrellas of independence and resistance and learn to let all of God’s love reach us.
We have felt God’s intense love and joy, as we praised him in worship, but later in the same week (even the same day at times) we felt distant from God and wondered where he had gone. This does not always mean we are sinning. We may have become busy and filled our minds with legitimate concerns. But at other times, we may be pulling away from God due to our fear, anger, and any other unrighteous, independent spirit. This is an ungodly independence from God, despite our need for God. We may not even realize we are doing this.
If we do not recognize our tendency to pull away from God, we can feel very distant from him, despite his desire for us. God is a gentleman, and he does not force us to open the door of our hearts to him but instead stays outside and knocks for us to open (Rev. 3:20 “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”)
If we feel distant from God, we need to examine our hearts to determine why we feel distant, because God pursues us continually (Psalm 23:6 “Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life.”) Sometimes we are simply exhausted and overly busy with other matters, and we are not sinning. At those times, we just need a break and sufficient rest.
At other times while our hearts will not condemn us (1John3:21) yet the Holy Spirit will convict us (John16:8 “And when He comes, He will convict the world in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment.”) God will show us that we pulled away from him (Isaiah59:2, “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.”) We may have mistaken a healthy sense of independence (where we care for ourselves) for an ungodly independence away from God.
Healthy independence causes us to take good care of our bodies, get enough rest, show kindness to others without demanding they do the things we can for ourselves (Gals.6:5, “For each should carry his own load.”) But the unhealthy independence from God might cower in fear alone (afraid to express our sorrow and confusion). Look at the unjust servant who hid his master’s talent out of fear and refused to invest it. “But the master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy servant! If you knew I harvested crops I didn’t plant and gathered crops I didn’t cultivate, why didn’t you deposit my money in the bank? At least I could have gotten some interest on it,” Matt.25:26. God was not pleased with the servant who hid in fear and never told God he was afraid nor trusted God to help him. At other times we may smirk (even if quietly or internally) and believe we can handle our problems by ourselves without God’s help. Look at Genesis chapter 16 where Sarai and Abram decided they should take over God’s plan which had promised them both (and not just Abram alone) a son. Rather than waiting for him, they used Sarai’s servant, Hagar, as a wife to bear the child when God wanted Sarai to bear that son instead. This unhealthy independence was sinful and unfair to Hagar, and against God’s plan to include Sarai in the bearing of the promised child.
Only God can fully comfort us and direst us. He gives the best answers. God never praises us for independence from him. Instead he urges us to acknowledge our need for him (Proverbs 3:6 “In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths.”) In fact, God wants us to pray way more often than just one time in the morning and then forget him. He wants us to pray to him throughout the day (1Thes.5:17, “Pray without ceasing.”) God wants us to talk to him and about him all day long (Deut.6:7 “And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up.”)
God doesn’t do this because he is needy, since God does not need us (Acts 17:24-25 speaks about God and says he “does not live in temples made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything,” and in Psalm 50:10-12 God says, “For every beast of the forest is mine—the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains, and the creatures of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the World is mine and the fullness thereof.”)
God doesn’t need our attention for arrogant reasons either, because Jesus humbled himself for us (Phils. 2:8.) God wants us to think about him often, because he adores us and knows we are weak and need him (Psalm103:14 “For he knows how weak we are; he remembers we are only dust.”) The umbrella of unhealthy independence (whether from fear, unshared sorrow, sin, etc.) always keeps us from God’s healing, nurturing, and saving love. Satan likes to confuse us so we don’t recognize the difference between a healthy independence that nurtures our bodies and souls and an ungodly independence that thinks we can do anything (including nurturing those bodies and souls) without God’s help. That unhealthy independence will always block God’s tender care for us.
So if we want to get back under the sunshine of God’s love, we need to admit we are hurting. We need to confess our hidden sins. We need to reveal all of our hearts to the Lord, so he can convict sins and heal wounds of sorrow. He is faithful, and he will do it! Then we will bask in his love again.
So dear friends, please let God know everything in your heart. He wants to teach you and comfort you. He already loves you and never stopped loving you, even when you accidentally (or intentionally) pulled away from him. Like the father of the prodigal son, our heavenly father will always come running to us when we reach out to him (Luke 15:20.)
May the Lord bless you this week with his sunny love! Thanks for joining me in this week’s post.