If You Don't Feel As Close To God...Who Moved?

By Paula Pinto

An anonymous author posted a quote on the Internet that said, " If you don't feel as close to God as you use to, who moved?" The words of the quote penetrated within me and perhaps you can understand why. There have been moments when I did not feel the presence of God. There were times when the struggles of life, the setbacks, the disappointments or even my own decision to give more priority to the busyness of "life," took precedence over my relationship with the Lord. Instead of my attention being focused on the things that are vital to our relationship with the Him such as praying and reading my word, I chose to do my own thing.

Other times I found it difficult to understand why, as God's people, we are not "always" consumed by His presence, and was challenged to accept that in life sometimes bad things happen to good people. Perhaps, to an extent, my anger about that distanced my relationship with the Lord. And then in the midst of that I stood there saying, "But God where are you?" Instead of the situations pushing me closer to God, I pulled away. I stopped praying as much, reading as often, and my worship started to seize.
There have also been times when maybe I was in prayer and didn't feel this overwhelming feeling, so I questioned as to why, if I am doing this, don't I feel anything. Why if I am making this effort to spend time with him, don't I feel like He's there to spend time with me, and so I refrained from doing it as often....bad move.

You see, in our Christian walk we can hold many positions. Some are called to be ministers, others to be teachers, there are some called to be evangelists, others to lead ministries, but the most IMPORTANT position that one must find himself in on a day to day basis is knelt down before the Lord in prayer and worship. That is what will always be the direct line of contact between God and ourselves. It is when we put that secondary and all of the other things before it that we fell the "drought" from his ever flowing goodness, mercy, peace, joy and ability to continue on in our Christian walk.

Does that mean that when we make a choice to do this on a daily basis that we will not feel "numb" at times or hard to feel the closeness of God? No. Having done all that, there are still times when our nature will battle against our spiritual being. But when we apply these principles to our life, we are not so easily defeated.
We know, as the word instructs us, that we ought not go by feelings. Let's face it, we can feel great one minute and moments later something could happen that changes our mood. Sometimes something doesn't even have to take place for our mood to change. As Christians, we cannot go by feelings, because feelings change, but when we are continually feeding oneself with the things of God, we know that our feelings at the present moment do not determine whether or not God is there or has left us abandoned. When we can adapt to the realization that it is not Him that moves away from us, but we that move away from Him, we can better get ourselves back on track by seeking him more frequently and rejecting those things which so easily try to beset us.
If, at this moment, you are feeling that you are alone, that God has turned His face on you, be encouraged my brother or sister that He is still there, and feelings of abandonment from Christ are lies. Truthfully, it may be either one of two things and that is that we have strayed away from investing in those precious moments with Him or going by our feelings. Nevertheless, both reasons should remind us to take the opportunity to kneel down before him, where He is certain to meet us and let everything else be secondary.

Paula Pinto is the Managing Editor and a writer for a New York newspaper. She is a member of the Christian based writing community Faith Writers, and writes a column called Christian Food For Thought, published monthly on Christian News Today.
Ms. Pinto can be contacted at pintopaula7@yahoo.com