Holding On When God Feels Distant

On this episode of Guys Garage, Chris and Shawn have an honest conversation about seasons when God feels distant. Whether you are walking through unanswered prayers, unexpected hardship, or moments of helplessness, these seasons can test your faith and leave you wondering where God is at work.

The hosts remind listeners that while our circumstances may change, God's presence never does. They discuss how the enemy seeks to steal, kill, and destroy, often using discouragement and doubt to pull us away from the Lord. Through Christ, however, believers have authority over the enemy and can stand firm in God's truth.

Chris and Shawn also reflect on Jesus' promise in John 14:27: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you." The peace God offers is not dependent on our circumstances. It comes from His constant presence. Even when we do not understand what He is doing, we can trust that He is faithful and working in every season.

This episode encourages men to keep seeking the Lord, stand firmly on His promises, and rest in the peace only He can provide. No matter how difficult the season may feel, God is near, He is faithful, and His presence is enough.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Welcome back to Love for a Lifetime's Authentic March Marriage Podcast. I'm Chris, and you got Sean with me here today, just the two of us. Another one of the guys' episodes. So one of the one of the last episodes we did, Sean, we were talking about the weight that men carry, husbands often carry, and we try to carry it alone, right? And that that can be really difficult and challenging at times that we really need to let others in, first God and then our and then our wives to help us carry that weight. Want to carry on from that a little bit more and talk about what happens when maybe for a little while you feel like God is distant. Like you're you feel like you're carrying that weight uh and and nothing's happening. So seasons where life feels difficult or heavy, maybe periods where you know prayers aren't answered, maybe the marriage is feeling strange, you know, maybe you know you're you're you're both there, right? You're sleeping in the same bed, but you know, she feels a mile away. Uh things can be overwhelming, etc. So I think a lot of those moments you feel like, you know, has God abandoned me? You know, does he not care about me? You know, is is is he is he not uh gonna work for my good?

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Yeah, helplessness over.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Helplessness is things not gonna not gonna change. And and I can think about um time early in our marriage, actually, very early in our marriage. When we first got married, we we were in university, but after we graduated, um, I took a job with a company. We thought we were gonna move back home close to our parents uh in Pennsylvania. We actually got moved to Tennessee. So it was like this big shock like, oh, we thought we were moving to Pennsylvania. The company actually moved us to Tennessee. Well, actually, we we started making some friends and got comfortable after about six months in Tennessee. Well, then the company I worked for, they shut down half of that plant. Uh and and they were moving us to Texas. So it was like once we got comfortable in Tennessee, uh, they said, okay, we're gonna we're gonna move to you to Texas. Uh so we moved to Texas. Um and then we realized that we were in a really bad situation financially, uh, and that, oh geez, we're we're in a bad spot here. We need to really need to work on this. And uh at that point, we just both had jobs and we worked really different schedules. Uh so we were apart a lot. So we just went through this period early in our marriage where it was like, oh, we thought we were going here, we went somewhere different. Once we got comfortable there, we got moved somewhere else. Once we got moved somewhere else, we realized, ooh, we're in a bad spot. And it just felt like uh, you know, just like one shoe after another falling and dropping, and we were growing apart and separated because of all these challenges we had.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Yeah, that's uh that sounds tough, actually. You know, that sounds like chaos to me, and and I don't thrive in that. So I know that in my moments of chaos, I feel disconnected from God. Um and I think that you gave an example of you and your wife being in the same bed, but feeling a mile apart. So that feeling was disconnection. But the reality was she was still right there. She was still right there next to you.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

And I think when we feel disconnected from God, we have to we have to remember that God's not absent. Um, we might feel like he is because things aren't going how we want, or we're not connected, or perhaps we're living in sin that we're hiding, or there's there's a multitude of reasons. Um, you know, we talk about the enemy. We have an enemy. There's an enemy that wants to separate us from our wives, but there's also an enemy that wants to separate us from God, that wants us to believe that he's not good, that he doesn't care, that he is this God just sitting afar and and whatever happens, happens. Like we're pawns, you know, and this fun game he's playing, right? That's what he wants us to believe. He's gonna come to steal, kill, and destroy. Steal, kill, and destroy. Now, those are three really terrible things. And that's what he's after, right? He wants, he wants to steal our joy. He wants to steal our intimacy with God, he wants to kill our marriages, he wants to destroy everything around us. That is his objective. He hates us. And I think, you know, a lot of people play around with the enemy, like, oh, you know, this little sin, that's not a big deal. But realizing that he wants the complete destruction of you. He's not something to toy with. Now, we were given dominion and authority over this devil that everybody fears, right? A majority of people are scared of the devil. But if we really look at what Jesus did when he died on the cross, it was that he gave us the authority back over this world. He gave us dominion over principalities, powers, all those things. And how many men are living in that? We feel defeated, yeah, right? And we live in this defeated life. Um, I know for me, bitterness and unforgiveness has been something that I have struggled with in the past. And I'll I'll just tell you, like Lauren and I, even within the last couple of weeks, you know, we talk about respect and love and those things. I have felt very disrespected in a couple of instances in public where she has made comments that I felt were demeaning to me. And I realized, you know, and I make a one-off comment or a sarcastic comment about it, but I didn't really come with the kindness and say, listen, this is what I heard in the situation, right? This is what I did. Instead, I got bitter about it. And then the next time I'm even more bitter. So now I start to expect that she's gonna do it, and I'm ready to attack and unleash on her when I hear it again because I've made a flippant comment about it, so I expect that she knows that it bothered me. I didn't really communicate that very well. You didn't communicate it well, just another response. I made a sarcastic comment or a joke or something about it, right? I could picture it. I can picture it. I think I've been there. And so then yesterday she had done something and I lost it in front of people. And I was like, okay, I've had enough of this, right? And it wasn't fair to her, it wasn't fair to attack her like that. But the enemy put into my mind that she's against you. She thinks you're stupid, she thinks whatever. And and we start to wear and identify with those things rather than what the Lord says, right? And and I have felt disconnected from him in the past week, um, probably because of this. So when I say we're probably living in something that we're not recognizing, I was living in bitterness and unforgiveness towards her. So then all of a sudden I start to think the worst about her, and I start to think that she's out to get me or out to prove that I'm under her or subpar or not good enough, like we talked about in that carrying the weight. And this is something that, you know, we we live in marriage ministry. Yeah. So this isn't something that just, you know, he's he wants to kill and steal and destroy our joy and our marriage.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

I think that's so interesting, right? That that idea, thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy, or or uh in 1 Peter 5, be alert and sober-minded. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour, right? So he's out there looking for someone to devour and destroy. I think this is the importance that we see of community, right? Being surrounded by you know other godly community, other Christian marriages. It's so important because it helps you to defend. And actually, what's interesting, if I look back on it, I didn't really realize it until just this morning. But when I look back on that early part of our marriage where we struggled, all these moves, financial difficulty, things started to get better when we found a local church here in Texas and started attending church together on a Sunday. And it actually had not dawned onto me until this morning when I was thinking about this difficult period in our early marriage, is that's actually when it started to get better, is when we started going to church together.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

That's good. I, you know, it's funny, sometimes we don't see, like what I've noticed is when Lauren and I pray and we come together in the Lord, we feel very close in those things. But when we don't, when we get busy and we don't do those things, I feel the complete absence. And so it's good if you can get to that point where you are praying and you are in the word and you are doing those things, because then when you when you remove those, you you feel it. Um you don't feel close to God anymore and it and it directs you back to Him. But sometimes it really takes getting out there and being in the Word and praying and making the habit of doing it. And then maybe, like you said, you got to reflect on that and see that that was something that significantly changed your your life and your walk, so that when we get away from it, that's a that's just a good reminder. Hey, this is I need to get back to this.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

Yeah, and our and our challenges and our difficulties didn't, you know, they didn't evaporate and go away immediately, but it just totally changed our perspective that we were working together, that we were united, that God was with us, that we could trust him.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Well, you got a peace beyond understanding, right? And that's what God will give you. I I think that, you know, going back to the dominion part of this, you know, in the beginning, God said, Let us make man in our image so that they may rule. Yeah. And he blessed them and said, Be fruitful, increase in number, and fill the earth and subdue it. We had complete authority. Now, once Adam gave that over to the enemy, you know, Jesus had to come back, and there was a long process of uh Jesus coming back and then reclaiming that authority and dominion. Um, in Luke 10, 19, he says, I have given you authority to overcome all the power of the enemy. Nothing will harm you. Well, if you believe the word, nothing will harm you. We have to live in that. Yeah, we have to take ownership of that dominion, right? It is on us a little bit. He's given us the power and the authority. So let's, you know, how many of us are actually doing that? How many of us are telling the enemy to flee, to leave? You know, the Bible says, resist the enemy and he will flee from you. Flee means running in fear, scared, out of your mind. It's not just scampering away. Yeah, it is running for your life. And we have that power and authority in Christ. And I think the more you're in his word, the more you recognize those things. And you had spoken earlier in another podcast about I am the vine, Jesus was saying, I am the vine. If you abide in me and I abide in you, right? Apart from me, you can do nothing. Yeah, nothing. Nothing. And so when we realize we're in these stagnant, desolate isolation periods where we feel like God's not there, we have to remember and get back in the word. How many times in his word does he say that he is with us? He will never leave us nor forsake us. I am with you until the end of the age. Yeah. Right? We have to remember what he has told us and know that it's truth.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Yeah, I think that tides me back also thinking about a previous podcast about identity, right? That we are a new creation in him. And uh, we talked a little bit in that podcast how when I retired, you know, work had been my identity. And I had to go through a transition, you know, missing that, right? I, you know, I was ready to stop working, I was ready to put away the stresses and some of the frustrations. But but I also realized that that was a huge part of my identity. And I kind of knew it was coming, uh, but I had to learn to transition that and say, look, my identity wasn't in my work, my identity is in my relationship with the Lord, right? And who he says I am. And I think that goes back to this directly thinking about the authority that you're talking about, right? And the fact that we're not abandoned, right? We might walk through these difficult times, we might feel like, oh, this is taking too long. Um, but we're not alone, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:36

He hasn't abandoned us. Yeah, and John 14, 27, peace I leave you, my peace I give you. That I love because that is what you got when you started to seek him and go into church. Things didn't go away, right? Troubles are always going to be around. But is there a peace in the midst of those troubles? You know, I I make a lot of decisions now based on the peace that I feel in those times when I feel like God's not there and I might feel anxious or whatever. I've learned not to move in those time frames because I don't feel his peace. I might be disconnected from him because of something I'm doing, but I've still recognized that if I don't have his peace, I'm not moving. You know, and that's somewhere that I would really love for everybody to grasp that peace that God gives you when you walk with him.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

Yeah, I think that reminds me, that's one of the comments Brooke made. We were talking to some couples last week about finances. And and and one of the things Brooke mentioned along that line was that, hey, when you're making big financial decisions, you know, seek peace. Right? You want to make sure that the two of you have peace together in that decision. Yeah. And that's and then that's because we know where that peace comes from. Yeah, it's coming from the Lord. That's right. In those big decisions. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

And and I think that in those times when you're not feeling that peace and that disconnection, it is really, really imperative that you get into that word, pray, seek Him. He says, seek and you will find, knock on the door will be opened unto you, right? What are we not doing? How are we not seeking the Lord? You know, and I think that's a really important thing. I think another thing that sometimes when we feel disconnected from him, we have to remember the authority that we have. And I know that the power of the tongue is a big part of that authority. You know, God spoke the world into existence with his words. You know, Jesus is the word, right? He's known as the word in 1 John 1. And I forget the exact thing, but Jesus in the beginning was the word. And the word was with God. The word was with God, and the word was God, right? The word is powerful, right? And I think that we have learned in this culture to say things that are not right. You know, I remember back in the 80s, like, oh man, that thing's bad. Well, that meant it's good, right? But we're speaking these different words, and the power of our tongue is so important. Uh, are we speaking life or are we speaking death? Proverbs 18, 21. The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit. You will bring about the things that you say. And I want to make a an you know, I've I've learned more about the power of the tongue and speaking things into its existence. And, you know, we talk about it a lot in healing. Thank you, Lord, for my healing, even though I feel sick. But we're his stripes, we are healed. By his stripes, we are healed, right? And and if we're not speaking that, if we're speaking death, like if I know that somebody is sick and they may have been diagnosed with cancer, I will never come up to them and go, hey, how's your cancer doing? I will say, how's your healing coming along? Right? Because I want to speak life and I don't want death to be spoken over over somebody that's really struggling. Um, our speaking will shape our mindset, it'll speak to our faith. You know, do we really believe the things that God said? Um, or are we just speaking the world?

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Yeah, I think one of the things that comes to mind to me when you're talking about this subject of you know, maybe feeling alone in a situation, where's God? Uh, but also the power of the tongue. I think about David in the Psalms. How many of the Psalms is David crying out? He's in a crisis, he's he's you know, he starts out, where are you, God? Right? So many Psalms, where are you, God? I'm alone, right? You know, my enemies are after me, but all of those eventually finish with, I will trust in you, Lord. I know you are my strength and your refuge. And I think David just comes to mind so many times in those psalms because you can because you can see him. He's speaking, he's speaking truth to himself in existence, but also into the world. Right. And it and it's so strong with so many of those psalms. You think about how many people, you know, when we're when we're struggling, how quickly we turn to them.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Yeah. Well, you look at him, he had some some desperation. God, how long will you let me go? How long will this happen? But then the very next song is like, Lord, you are amazing. I love you, you're the best, whatever. And then it's like, God, how long will I have to suffer this thing, right? And the interesting thing about David, he was called a man after God's own heart. Yeah, he was a man after God's own heart, and he still struggled with sometimes feeling isolated or not close to God. How long will you not hear me? But he was quick to repent. He was quick to say, I have done wrong, Lord, forgive me. You know, thank you for your forgiveness, knowing that God was going to forgive him, knowing that he had been in error. A lot of times we're in error and we just want to hide it. A lot of times we feel alienated from God because we're probably not living right. You know, there's a lot of guys, we talked about a lot of the things that they do to avoid the stresses and things, you know, and we talk about hobbies and porn and all those different things. You know, if you're living in those things, you're gonna feel shame and and and and that, uh, and that can't separate you from the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Yeah, that's with times when you're you're you're trying to hide in the darkness, in the darkness, right? Really when you need to get into the light, right? You need the healing restoration of getting into light. Yeah. Um, but but you're right, we tend to want to go hide in the darkness.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Yeah. Well, in Isaiah 41, 10, so do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. So God's presence isn't determined by how we feel. Because we're gonna feel different every single day. In fact, almost every minute of every single day, we go through this variety of feelings, right? And and your feelings are not always accurate. There you go. I would say that that's a nice way to put it. But God has said, I am with you always, I will uphold you. You know, and so we have to we have to um believe when he says, I will never leave you or forsake you. We have to believe that. And we have to know that we know that we know it. We can't just hear it. We have to, we have to speak it. The more we speak God's word, the more it will come back to us.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Um I think it's I think it's a good reminder, right? Because so many times you can feel like, like you said, you're alone, God's distant away, and just like David, we need to we we can we can speak our frustration to God, absolutely, but then we need to turn around and follow that up with our confidence in God. And I and I think that's something that uh you that's a constant reminder. I think um I I read a good book that I would recommend to people. Uh it's a book called Hang On Let Go by Frank Viola, right? So it's like you got to hang on to God and his promises, and you gotta let go of some other things, right? Let go of your struggles and turn them over to God. So hang on, let go by Frank Viola. I think that's a good book on this topic of struggles.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

I like letting go of the lies that you've believed that the enemy has told us, right? About our identity, about our spouse, about whatever. You know those aren't from God when they're causing havoc. Oh, yeah. You know they're not. That's just him trying to still steal, kill, and destroy, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:56

That's what he tries to do. Yeah. He's the father of lies, so you got to avoid those.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

So I think, you know, one of the good lines I heard was faith is not believing, is not pretending problems don't exist. It's believing that God is greater than those problems, believing that he will do what he says he will do.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

With that, why don't you pray us out?

SPEAKER_00 19:16

All right. Lord, thank you so much. Thank you for always being with us. But thank you so much for your word that instructs us and gives us your heart. It shows you your heart for us. And if we can look at all of the different scripture that you've said that I am with you, do not fear, I have overcome the world, all of these things, we get bogged down by the world and it and it it can bear down on us. But Lord, we have such hope that you are there. We have such a faith and believe that you honor your word because you cannot lie. Your word is truth. And the more we speak your word, the more we see and get involved in your word, Lord, the more that you change us and you reveal things about yourself to us. So we thank you for that. I pray that anyone listening to this who is struggling this will just ask the Lord, Lord, show me how good you are. Show me that you're still around. Show me that you exist when I feel distant from you. Lord, show me the things that I am doing that are creating separation. Show me any sin that I am doing that I need to confess. Lord, help my tongue to speak life and not death. Lord, thank you so much for the ability to come to you with all things, not just a few things. You say all things. Lord, we love you. We thank you. Amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Well, we've hope you've enjoyed our discussion on uh Love for a Lifetime's Authentic Marriage Podcast. I'm Chris, this is Sean, and we look forward to seeing you next time.