Pastor’s Corner: “More Than a Feeling”
Job 23:8-10 (NLT) – 8 I go east, but he is not there. I go west, but I cannot find him. 9 I do not see him in the north, for he is hidden. I look to the south, but he is concealed. 10 “But he knows where I am going. And when he tests me, I will come out as pure as gold.
Seeking a Feeling Is Not Worship. In the book of Psalms David sometimes complained of God’s apparent absence. But the truth is, God hadn’t really left David, just as God will never leave you. God has promised repeatedly, “I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.” Hebrews 13:5 ( NLT). Yet God has not promised that you will always feel his presence. In fact, God acknowledges that sometimes he hides his face from us: Isaiah 45:15 (NIV) – 15 Truly you are a God who has been hiding himself, the God and Savior of Israel.
When you are a new Christian, God will often give you confirming emotions so you’ll know he’s there and he cares. But as you grow in faith, God will wean you of any dependency to rely on your emotions to believe He is present and at work in your life. God’s omnipresence and the manifestation of his presence are two different things. One is a fact; the other is often a feeling. God is always present, even when you are unaware of him, and his presence is too profound to be measured by mere emotion. Yes, he wants you to sense his presence, but he’s more concerned that you trust him than that you feel him. Faith, not feelings, pleases God.
There are times when he appears to be missing-in-action in your life. This is a normal part of the testing and maturing of your friendship with God – And when he tests me, I will come out as pure as gold. Every Christian goes through it at least once and usually several times. It is painful and disconcerting, but it is absolutely vital for the development of your faith.
Knowing this gave Job hope when he could not feel God’s presence in his life. He said, “I go east, but he is not there. I go west, but I cannot find him. I do not see him in the north, for he is hidden. I look to the south, but he is concealed. But he knows where I am going. And when he tests me, I will come out as pure as gold” Job 23:8-10 NLT. How did Job respond to God when everything was taken from him and God was nowhere to be found? Job 1:20-22 (NLT) – 20 Job stood up and tore his robe in grief. Then he shaved his head and fell to the ground to worship. 21 He said, “I came naked from my mother’s womb, and I will be naked when I leave. The Lord gave me what I had, and the Lord has taken it away.
Praise the name of the Lord!” 22 In all of this, Job did not sin by blaming God. He worshipped and praised God!
When God seems distant, you may feel that he is angry with you or is disciplining you for some sin. In fact, sin does disconnect us from intimate fellowship with God. We grieve God’s Spirit and quench our fellowship with him by disobedience, conflict with others, busyness, friendship with the world, and other sins – James 4:4 (TLB) – 4 You are like an unfaithful wife who loves her husband’s enemies. Don’t you realize that making friends with God’s enemies—the evil pleasures of this world—makes you an enemy of God? I say it again, that if your aim is to enjoy the evil pleasure of the unsaved world, you cannot also be a friend of God. (see also Psalm 51; Ephesians 4:29-30; 1 Thessalonians 5:19; Jeremiah 2:32; 1 Corinthians 8:12). But all we have to do to reconcile to God is to humble ourselves, confess and repent to the Lord: 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9 (NIV)
But often this feeling of abandonment or estrangement from God has nothing to do with sin. It is a test of faith, one we all must face: Will you continue to love, trust, obey, and worship God, even when you have no sense of his presence or visible evidence of his work in your life? The Bible is quick to tell us that our feelings (or hearts, more accurately) can’t be trusted –Jeremiah 17:9 (NIV) 9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? .The most common mistake Christians make in worship today is seeking an experience rather than seeking God. They look for a feeling, and if it happens, they conclude that they have worshiped. But God often removes our feelings so we won’t depend on them. Instead, he wants to draw us into a deeper relationship with him which involves an increasing level of faith and trust of our Lord and Savior, despite circumstances and feelings.
In His Grace,
Pastor Hamilton