I am not sure why I go through seasons where I don’t feel close to God. I’m not sure if it’s caused by something that I do or if it’s a spiritual attack. What I do know is that sometimes God feels as far away as Heaven is from earth. And unless you are an incredibly catchy song from the 80’s…
I interrupt this post for a mandatory lyric post from Belinda Carlisle – “Ooh, baby, do you know what that’s worth ? Ooh heaven is a place on earth. They say in heaven love comes first. We’ll make heaven a place on earth. Ooh heaven is a place on earth.” I now return you to your regularly scheduled blog post…
then Heaven is a really far way from earth. I don’t know why at times God feels so distant. What I do know is that when He does I do what Jesus did. Reading through the New Testament the authors made it clear that Jesus spent lots of time alone with God. He was constantly pulling away from things to be alone with His Father.
I’m just throwing this out there but if Jesus needed to get alone with God then how foolish are we to act like we don’t?
How true Rob! It has always amazed me as well that before Jesus had big decisions to make (Like choosing the disciples), He spent the whole night alone with His Father. I can’t even hardly stay up past 9:30.
No doubt. I pray for five minutes and I am spent.
I feel FAR AWAY from God more then I want to comfortably admit, but I also realize more times than not that its MY own fault because I can always FIND the time to be online (Facebook, email, etc) but don’t HAVE the time to read my bible and or study the word. Kind of disappointing! This definitely calls for a WWJD ?
Good stuff here. I get this feeling more often than I would like. I don’t know if it’s a test or an attack, but it sure is frustrating.
It is. At the same time I wonder if He ever gets frustrated with me and my ADD prayers. Jesus spent all night praying. I can’t spend more than five minutes.
It’s crazy foolish. We need to be in His presence. Caution: Shameless Plug coming…
We more or less wrote about the same thing today.
Your post was most excellent. One of the best I read today. With stuff that good you should feel no shame plugging it.
Great post. I was feeling distant a few months ago and then I finally stopped being an idiot and realized that maybe it would help if I devoted more time to Him. It’s just like in any relationship you are going to feel distant if you are distant.
Great point!
One of my favorite quotes (reminders) “When you feel far from God, remember God hasn’t moved.” That reminds me to get in the Word, carve out some time and re-connect to a Father whose arms are always open wide and ready to embrace and shelter me from the clutter that so often gets between us.
Mim, amazing quote! Love it! Wish I had it for this post.
I really like this quote too! I need to remember it for sure.
I would just like to say ‘AMEN’ to shepherdmim’s comment! 🙂 Great thoughts Rob!
Thanks Kelly!
Great point! We absolutely need to make time with Him a priority every day. Thanks for the reminder RS!!!
Tor, thanks for the comment.
Do your prayers get interrupted by 80s songs, too? That could maybe have something to do with it…?
😉
You make a great point. It really depends on what I’m praying about. My mind is kind of all over the place. I have been known to break out into a song in my mind at all times of the day.
The question always on my mind is: how DO we actually get closer to Jesus?
We read the Word, we minister to others, we praise Him, we pray to Him…..
But how exactly do we get close to Him?
Ed, thank you for this question. I don’t think there is a pat answer for this. Some people feel really close to Jesus when they get out into nature alone with God. I hate being out in nature so that’s not it for me. Other people feel really close to Jesus when they worship or sing. Some people feel close when they read the Bible. Some people feel really close to God when they serve Him. For me it’s a mixture. It helps me to feel close to God when I read the Bible, pray, and then talk to other people about God. For some reason when I talk about God with others who are seeking Him I feel close to Him. Does that help at all?
Yep, it sure does.