not sensing God

Rise up; come to our help!

Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love!

Psalm 44:26

Life with God is wonderful, but this psalm reminds us that it is not easy, and sometimes our experience of God doesn’t quite jive with our expectations from God. The psalm is a cry from a perplexed people, who though to the best of their reckoning believe they are committed to obeying their covenant with God, aren’t really experiencing much from God in return. Read the psalm. They feel defeated and rejected. They admit their bewilderment while still stubbornly clinging to their faith.

There has been a contemporary saying I’ve heard most of my Christian life: “Trust God when you cannot trace Him.” Yes, I know Jesus has sent His Spirit and is “with us always”. Yet there are indeed real seasons I have experienced the power of that truth because God felt distant. There can be times where I am puzzled at God’s lack of activity, praying hard in that season, but finding very little in terms of answers. I may feel God’s seeming absence. 

And just as this psalm reminds us, when I can’t sense God I must still surrender to Him. Faith presses into these seasons… crying out for help… asking God to rise to the occasion… appealing to His purposes and trusting His amazing grace. And eventually those times will turn. They always do. I’ve experienced them, and God never fails. Never. 

My feelings fail me. My faith may feel inadequate and totally stretched. I may falter. But God is always faithful. So in seasons of God’s seeming disregard, trust Him all the more! Appeal to Him! Ask God to be God… and you can know for sure that He will.