Why Does God Feel So Distant?

Why does God feel so distant? For some of us, God feels distant at least some days. For many of us, God’s distance often feels more real than His presence.

Why? Why can God make it so hard to feel Him and see Him?

David asks essentially the same question in Psalm 10:1 — “Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?”

Maybe you’ve asked the same question. God, why are you invisible? Why can’t I see You? Why can’t I hear You? Why can’t I feel You?

In the Catholic mystical tradition, this reality is called God’s “darkness.” One saint even names this phenomenon and the journey of growing in prayer as the “cloud of unknowing.”

While I can’t offer a full theology of this in a short email, what I can do is say that seasons of “darkness” and “unknowing” are normal, and even essential, for anyone trying to build a life of prayer.

I’m sure there are many who could offer fuller suggestions than I can, but I want to suggest briefly this morning simply that God’s distance is meant to draw us closer.

In other words, the absence, darkness, and distance of God are meant to cultivate a reach in our hearts for God.

In St John of the Cross’s famous poem “One Dark Night,” which is all about the famed “dark night of the soul,” he writes:

The “dark night of the soul” is not, as it is commonly talked about, just a season where hard things are happening. Rather, according to the theology of St John and the other mystics, the dark night is an invitation from God to receive the gift of purer love for God.

It’s a season of purification where we fall out of love with everything other than God (even the feelings of His presence and nearness) and fall more deeply in love with God Himself.

Do you have more of a relationship with God or with His gifts? If it’s the latter, and if you’re really serious about building a prayer life, I can pretty much guarantee that in God’s infinite love and wisdom, He will help you fall more in love with Himself. But the way He will do that is always through the way of the cross — the way of darkness and purification.

St John writes in his poem that this darkness is a grace and that his love for God actually propels him into the darkness — because in his journey of growing in prayer, he has grown in confidence that it’s in the darkness that he will meet with God and receive the gift and goal of prayer — unity with the Godhead.

Man, I want to be so confident in God’s leadership that I can rejoice even in seasons of darkness! If the great prize of my life is that my heart would be fully in love with God, even seasons of darkness would be the greatest gift.

Consider this stanza:

The great gift of darkness is that we get God, and we are freed from anything that we might be in love with other than Him.

This is how David encourages the reader of Psalm 10 — even when God feels invisible, the truth is that God does see (v. 14) and God does hear (v. 17) and He is arguably more at work in the darkness than in the light.

So, does God feel distant today? If so, I don’t want to minimize the pain of God’s distance, but I do want to bless the reach, ache, and hunger that distance cultivates.

Receive His apparent distance as a gift that’s meant to draw you closer to Him.

P.S. Thank you so much for reading these devotionals! I am always so blessed when you hit “reply” and let me know how you are receiving these email encouragements (or where you disagree with them) as it helps this to feel more like a conversation where we are growing in prayer together. 😀🙏🏼