Feeling More Distant From God As We Mature Spiritually

There’s some kind of myth out there that the older we get, the more mature we will be spiritually, and the more mature we are, the closer to God we will feel.  I think the lives of a lot of saints will prove that wrong.  Everyone from Elijah to Jesus to Mother Teresa has gone through terrible nights of the soul, times of feeling totally cut off from God, bereft, abandoned, and as far from their precious Father as they could be.  If even Jesus felt that, what makes us think we won’t?

The difficult truth is that some people, maybe all of us, will experience feelings of increasing distance from God as we mature spiritually.  Life is hard.  As we grow older, we live in the sorrow of separation and the grief of loss, the self-denial of service and the sacrifice of work.  Sometimes this takes a toll on our faith.  My Celtic prayer book says that faith, trust, and hope are not natural to humanity.  Evil, wretchedness, and failure are, in effect, the first grounds of unbelief, and this is understandable.

So our decision to have faith, to see the work of God in a wretched world, to believe in redemption in the midst of wreckage and pain, is not natural.  It will be challenged.  It IS a decision and we do have to look for God in the world.  He is working and we CAN see it, but we have to look.  We have to watch.  “Keep your eyes open for God, watch for His works; be alert for signs of His presence.”  Psalm 105:4