Have you ever got caught up in the worship of God and felt so incredibly close to Him at that moment? It’s an exhilarating experience.
Why can’t we carry that feeling with us all the time? If we know God and have committed our lives to Him, why do we not always experience His presence? Why don’t we feel that comfort and peace from His Spirit 24/7? Why are there desperate times when I don’t feel Him near me at all, when I am hurting or struggling or doubting and I can’t seem to get any direction or answers?
Why does it feel that sometimes God is silent?
Anselm, a medieval Christian monk, asks this very same question in his Prologian. “Why, O Lord God, does my soul not experience you if it has found You? In You I move and in You I have my being and I cannot come near to You. You are within me and around me and I do not have any experience of You.”
The question caught me off guard. Anselm was a monk! He dedicated his life to the following and worship of God. Didn’t he feel God’s presence with him all day long? It feels encouraging to know that throughout history, even some of the most devout Christians wrestled with the same questions that I have.
Anselm wonders if the reason we feel distance is that our eyes are darkened to God’s constant power and presence because of our human weakness. Perhaps the senses of our souls are hardened and obstructed by our sinful nature. I think he is spot on. How often do we go through our day calloused to the beauty around us and unappreciative of the many blessings right before our very eyes? Thanks to our depraved nature, our outlook is tainted by sin and prone to negativism and skepticism, blind to God’s goodness.
Anselm suggests that another reason we don’t fully experience God could be because of His great splendor. The completeness of His truth, the boundlessness of His creativity – it is more than our feeble human minds can understand or relate to. It’s like trying to look into the blazing sun – its dazzling brilliance keeps our eyes from seeing it for what it truly is.
I think we could agree that it is a matter of both of these reasons! We live in a world where humans have been cast from the garden, away from God’s constant presence that Adam and Eve once enjoyed. But how amazing that God has provided ways for us to connect with Him. He has given His Son to offer us salvation, and His Spirit to guide us, and the words of the Bible to instruct us. In the midst of this fallen creation, we CAN experience Him when we seek after Him.
I Chronicles 16:11 encourages us, “Seek the Lord and His strength; seek His presence continually!”
James 4:8 tells us, “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.”
In Jeremiah 29:13 God promises, “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”
The closer we keep to God, the more we can experience the glimmers of His radiance. The more we can feel the warm rays of sunlight shining into our lives – just little glimpses of what heaven will someday be like. So we treasure those moments and seek them as much as we can, with excitement for what it will be like someday when God’s kingdom is restored and we experience His glory fully and completely.
I am reminded of a couple of things as I read this post.
The first thing is that a tree that experiences no wind develops a shallow, weak root system. I’ve been trying really hard to figure out how to say this in a way that doesn’t come across as trite or sound like typical “Christian-ese”. I have no doubt that you know the verses in Romans and James that talk about God growing us through our trials. I’m know that you are familiar with the numerous Psalms which proclaim that God never leaves us. In spite of the head knowledge we have of God and his ever-present companionship, our emotions can put the blinders on us (the opposite side of this coin is the emotional bliss you described at the beginning of your post) when we face the troubles of this life. It would be truly delightful if I could experience deep spiritual growth during the good times of life but, at least from my experience, it is usually in the good times of life that my growth stagnates and it is not until I face a crisis that I dig deeper into God to get through the difficulty.
Speaking of blinders, the second thing your post brought to mind is the use of a flashbang grenade used by police and military personnel to incapacitate someone. As you are well aware, life can hit us with something so unexpected, so powerful, so breathtaking, that we are left incapacitated. I think in moments like this we would react just like Lazarus’s sister, Mary, who essentially lost her sh!t when she faced Jesus after the death of her brother. There are some things we are never prepared for, even if we have the assurance beforehand that God will see us through all of our trials.
If I were to pushback on you in one aspect of this post it would be to ask the question of whether or not God ever leaves his children alone. In the midst of tragedy, or even in the midst of our struggle against sin, has God left us or are we temporarily experiencing the sunspots in our eyes and ringing in our ears that can occur as we experience life this side of the new heaven and new earth?
Keep writing! You’re awesome!
Well thought out. I like this input!