“For God has said, ‘I will never leave you; I will never abandon you.’” – Hebrews 13:5 (TEV)
It seems that God does not act in our best interests to leave us alone or remove himself from our presence. How can an all loving God leave us alone and not help us out.
Thanks goodness that God is a faithful God. If God always acts in our best interests then even if it appears he is not there, he MUST be because he has promised it.
My mother is a social worker, she specialises in counselling people on overcoming depression using cognitive therapy, which is looking at your thinking patterns. Sorting out your thinking patterns helps break the cycle that pulls you back into depression.
Now, one of the amazing things is that so many of the things which she told me about that have to do with people in depression come up in scripture. Today’s example of “When you can’t feel God, he’s still there and he still loves you,” is a common stonghold for people in depression. They feel as though when the feeling dies then all is lost, which is not true.
These same things have been known by God forever. He is teaching us something. He is always faithful, even though we may not always be.
The question of “How can I stay focused on God’s presence, especially when he feels distant?” makes me think a little.
How can we do that? Another of the things I learnt from my mom is that your feelings can be misleading and following principles and taking action, even when things seem bad, helps immensely. So when God feels distant, this is a time when you need to seek Him, worship Him and be in prayer even more fervently. Like Job in his time of trouble, did he just moan. No! Of course he didn’t like it, but he put it before God, and knew that God was not against Him.
So keep it up, knowing that God has great things planned for those who are faithful.