What if God Doesn’t Want You to FEEL Close to Him?

“It feels like whenever I pray about it, the worse case scenario still happens. I’m fighting really hard not to lose faith,” she shared as we sat cross-legged on the floor during Bible study.

My heart broke as it beat to an eerily familiar drum.

I know that feeling. I know how frustrating it can be…I know what it’s like to feel so stuck and far away from God that you begin to wonder if your faith is fake–not as real, personal, or strong as everyone else’s.

We almost begin to wonder if something is wrong with us, don’t we?

What do you do when you feel far from God? When you’re feeling like a whirling tornado of doubt, pain, fear, and shame has taken over your life and robbed you of your faith? I mean, how does one handle that?

That’s what I hope to help you with today because I’ve been there, too.

I’m a person, not a machine that’s “on” 24/7 or that never wrestles with Him. Growing closer to God is a process and a journey and the reality is that there will be pot holes along the way. We all go through deserts and we all drift a little…but that doesn’t mean we have to stay there.

I’m going to tell you right now that I don’t have a magic solution or three-step plan for you to fix it.

While I do encourage you to take action and keep pursuing the God who always pursues you, I know that all our stories are different and all of our hearts are in different places along the way.

That being said, I simply want to dare you to change something. It may be the simplest yet the hardest thing you have to change, but I’m going to dare you to change it, anyway.

I’m going to dare you to change your mindset–your whole perspective and entire understanding of what being close to God is in the first place.

If you look at His Word, the tool He uses to clearly communicate with us all that we need to know, you’ll find something interesting.

He never once says, “feel close to me.”

What does He say, then?

He DOES tell us to, “Know Him,” over and over.

Here are just a few examples:

“Thus you are to know in your heart that the LORD your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son.” Deuteronomy 8:5

“That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death…” John 10:4

“Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” John 17:3