Crazy Days and Feeling Distant from God

Yesterday was one of those crazy busy days. One of those days where I was busy from the time I got up in the morning to the time I went to bed. Our normal time to get up during the week is 4:45 for my wife and about 5:15 for me. Yesterday had me out of bed by 5 (although I had been awake since 3 which is another story for another day) and we were out the door by 6 which is a half hour early. 

We stopped at Panera for breakfast and after dropping my wife off at work I headed downtown to help my sister-in-law set up for her upcoming art show. It is a very big show at the Merchandise Mart called One Of A Kind and features incredible hand made art. My sister-in-law takes old windows, doors and furniture and turns them into pieces of art. Some of my favorite things of hers are old maps that she takes and mounts behind old windows. Right now she has an old 1944 Army Corps of Engineers map of France and a 1959 map of New York City that are both really nice.

After setting up the show I had to head back home to pick up my wife and head to the dentist. After we finished with the dentist we decided to stop to get dinner. By this time it was getting pretty late and we had nothing in the house except Thanksgiving leftovers that are getting a bit long in the tooth. When we finally got home it was almost time for bed.

I share this because it is days like yesterday that cause me to think of the following video:

It can be so easy to feel distant from God. While Dr. Powlison's advice is initially aimed at how to counsel a person asking about feeling distant from God, the video is worth watching for everyone. He asks some very simple questions that can help get at the nature of why we might be feeling distant from God.

The first question he looks at is what God are we feeling distant from? It is a great question in that we can often have an image of God in our head that is quite inaccurate. He then goes on to talk about how things happening to us or things that we do can cause us to feel distant from God. We live in a fallen world that is quite broken. Part of that brokenness can be seen in the sin that we commit and part of that brokenness can be seen in the suffering that we endure. Both of these things can feed into our feeling distant from God.

In a day like the one that I had yesterday it can be very easy for me to not take the time that I need to take in order to feel close to God. It is not that God has moved away from me but rather that I have moved away from him.

Fortunately we have a God that is seeking us out when we are lost and is eagerly awaiting our return to him. We have a God that desires to have a relationship with us and to be close to us. 

Source CCEF via Justin Taylor