What To Do When God Feels Distant

Many Christians walk through seasons where prayer feels hollow, worship feels empty, and God seems far away. In those moments, it’s easy to assume something is fundamentally broken. 

But what if spiritual dryness is not always evidence of God’s distance — but an invitation to deeper faith?

If you’re struggling to feel close to God — or want to help someone else through spiritual dryness — this episode is for you. 

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Feeling spiritually dry doesn't mean God has abandoned you.

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But doing nothing about it might be exactly what keeps you there.

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Your feelings about God are not the same thing as the facts about God.

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God is not distant. Your heart might have replaced him without you even noticing.

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The question isn't whether God feels close. The question is, what has he promised? Welcome to Off the Sidelines, a podcast from Central Bible Institute, the deployment center at Central Church, where we equip believers to move from watching ministry to doing ministry. All of our service is rooted in the gospel. We love because Jesus first loved us, and we serve because Jesus first served us. I'm Greg Sucert.

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And I'm Brianna Sucert. And today we're tackling something almost every believer has walked through. That season when God just feels far away.

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The lights go dim, prayer feels hollow, you're going through the motions, but there's no sense of nearness. And the guilt that piles up on top makes it worse. Like something must be fundamentally broken in you.

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Here's what we want you to hear today. Spiritual dryness is not a guaranteed sign of spiritual failure. It's a universal experience. And there are real biblical ways to walk through it, not just survive it.

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By the end of this episode, we want you to be able to name why God might feel distant, know you're not alone, and walk away with actual steps, not just encouragement, action.

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So let's start with the honest diagnosis. What's actually happening when God feels distant?

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There are real external causes like unconfessed sin. Isaiah 59.2 says sin can genuinely create separation. That's real. But other causes can be burnout, busyness, grief, unmet expectations, and spiritual attack. And sometimes it's just a season of testing where God is deepening your roots.

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But I think one of the most important and least talked about causes is actually something happening inside us, something Paul Tripp would call an idol of the heart.

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Say more about that.

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Well, in Ezekiel 14, God confronts the elders of Israel who came to seek him, and he says they have set up idols in their hearts, and those idols have become a stumbling block before their faces. It's such a vivid image. Imagine holding your hand up in front of your face. What happens to your vision? Everything gets distorted and obscured. That's what an idol of the heart does.

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And here's the thing, we're not talking about statues. Tripp defines a heart idol as anything that rules you other than God, the approval you can't live without, the comfort you run to first, the identity you've built in your career or your family or your ministry.

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And the dangerous part is it's hidden. It's underground. You can still give financially, still attend church, still serve in ministry, and be functionally living for something other than God at the center of your heart.

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Tripp writes that our hearts are, borrowing from Calvin, idol factories. We don't wake up one day and decide to replace God. It happens in the routine moments of life. Something becomes a treasure. That treasure becomes a ruler. And whatever rules your heart will exercise inescapable influence over your whole life.

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Which means the distance you feel from God might not be God pulling back. It might be your heart quietly moving towards something else. And now when you try to look at God, the view is obstructed.

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That's a completely different diagnosis than just, I haven't been reading my Bible enough. And it calls for a different response.

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There's also the emotional entitlement problem. Most of us have come to expect that walking with God always produces a certain feeling. Closeness, warmth, clarity. We've conflated God's favor with emotional experience.

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And the Psalms are so honest about the gap between those two things. Psalm 42, 1 through 3 says, As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night. That's not someone who walked away. That's someone who's desperately seeking God in a dry season.

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In Psalm 22 says, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me? And that's from David, a man after God's own heart.

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And that's the very psalm Jesus cried from the cross, which means the deepest valley of felt absence in all of human history was the moment of the greatest act of redemption. God was most at work when he felt most absent. That should wreck our assumptions.

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So what does God's word actually say about this? Not talking about what our emotions tell us, but what does God's Word tell us?

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The featured doctrine for this episode is the doctrine of creation. And you might wonder, what does creation have to do with feeling far from God? But it actually has everything to do with it.

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Walk us through that.

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Greg Allison writes that God created everything out of nothing, ex nahilo, out of the superabundance of his love. God didn't create because he needed something, he didn't create because he was lonely, he was already eternally complete within himself, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, who eternally love and glorify one another.

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So creation itself is a declaration of who God is. He didn't have to make you, he wanted to make you. He made you out of his overflowing love.

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And that same God who created everything through the Son by the power of the Spirit is not a passive observer from a distance. Colossians 1:17 says, In him all things hold together. He is actively sustaining every part of your existence right now, even in the dry season.

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And then Psalm 46, verse 1 says, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help and trouble. Not was, not will be, is.

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The literal Hebrew is that God is very findable. Ancient Near Eastern refuges were built on distant hilltops. You had to travel far to reach them, and you might be ambushed along the way. God is the opposite. He is not a far-off fortress, he is as near as your next breath.

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And Pastor Johnny Artavanus puts it so well in his book, Consider the Lilies. God is not a sometimes present God or an often-present God. He is an ever-present help in trouble. He never takes a leave of absence.

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But here's the pastoral warning. Many of us treat God as what Artavanus calls a divine 911. We run to every other refuge first. Our income, our relationships, our plans, and our own strength. And when all else fails, we finally call on God. And then we wonder why he feels distant.

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Paper mache refuges. They look solid until you actually need them.

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Exactly. And here's what ties this all together with the gospel. The God who created everything out of nothing, needed nothing, sent his son to close the gap that your sin created. The cross is the ultimate declaration that God's movement toward you is not based on your feelings or your performance. That's the gospel.

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And John Piper says that in the darkest season of life, the main thing we must learn is to preach the gospel to ourselves, to say to your own soul, if God is for you, who can be against you? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for you, how will he not also with him graciously give you all things? And that's Romans 8, verses 31 and 32.

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The felt distance is not the deepest truth. The cross is, hold on to that.

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And remember, the Lord of hosts is with you, the same God whose one angel killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in the night. The commander of angel armies never leaves your side. There is no panic in heaven, only plans.

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Martin Lloyd Jones said, Faith is the refusal to panic, because God's word is the anchor. And in Hebrews 13, 5, God Himself says, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Not, I'll just be with you when you feel me. Never. Period. That promise doesn't rise and fall with your feelings.

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So what do we actually do? Let's get practical.

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Three moves. First, examine your heart and confess what you find. And I don't just mean a general sin check. I mean sitting down and honestly asking, what has been functionally ruling my heart lately? What am I running to first? What can't I live without? Because whatever has taken the center, that's what's blocking your view.

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Tripp writes that the deepest issues of the human struggle are not issues of pain and suffering, they are issues of worship. What you worship determines your response to everything. So the question isn't just have I sinned? It's what am I actually living for right now?

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Second, stay in the means of grace, which are scripture reading, the preached word, worship, fellowship, prayer, and service. All the means by which God enables us and invites us to get a front row seat to the glory of his character and the steadfastness of his promises. And here's what I want you to hear about this one. The reason you can do this, even when you feel nothing, is not willpower, it's the Holy Spirit.

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Donald Whitney says the Holy Spirit's role is to create a hunger for holiness. And in those times when you are lazy and have no enthusiasm for any spiritual discipline, it is the Holy Spirit who prompts you to pick it up in spite of your feelings.

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2 Timothy 1.7 says, God has given you not a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, love, and self-discipline. You don't have to manufacture the desire. Ask the spirit to produce it, and then put yourself in the path.

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One writer that Whitney quotes describes this so beautifully. He said he began to pray about praying and he found something surprising. Quote, I found my focus subtly shifting away from my efforts to God's, from rigor to grace, from rigidity to relationship.

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You're not trying to feel close, you're trusting the Spirit to carry you to where closeness is found. Scripture, worship, preaching, prayer, fellowship. You put yourself in the path. God does the work.

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In On Fellowship, let's be specific here. Whitney makes a distinction that most have never heard put into words. The difference between socializing and fellowship. Two Christians can sit together for hours talking about the news and sports and weather and walk away spiritually empty. That's socializing.

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Fellowship, true Koinonia, is the sharing of spiritual life. It's where you actually say, I'm in a dry season, where others speak truth you can't hear on your own, where someone testifies to God's faithfulness in your life when you've lost sight of it. That's what your small group is for.

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Don't settle for fast food socializing when God has set a banquet in front of you. Let people in.

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Third, live by faith. Reach toward God with what Tripp calls the empty hand of the soul, expecting everything from him, bringing nothing in your own power. Doubt says, maybe God isn't in this because my feelings aren't in it. Faith says, God said he's here, and my feelings will never change that.

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And if you're burned out, genuinely exhausted, rest is not retreat. It's stewardship. Pushing through burnout compounds spiritual dryness. It doesn't fix it. Whitney writes that even a slow plotting perseverance in the spiritual disciplines is better than a spectacular but inconsistent practice.

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I like what one theologian said. One of the godliest things you can do sometimes is have a meal and take a nap. And don't rule out biblical counseling. If the distance persists, if you can't tell whether it's a heart idol, burnout, sin, or spiritual attack, a counselor can help you discern what's actually going on. That's not weakness, that's wisdom. Men, now I want to speak to you directly for a moment. When God feels distant, the temptation is to go quiet, to pull back, to not tell your wife, to not tell your group, not tell anyone, because we think leaders are supposed to have it all together. That is a lie, and it's a costly one. The spiritually responsible thing in a dry season is not to white knuckle it alone, it's to lead with transparency. Tell your wife you're struggling, tell your community. That's not weakness, that's the kind of leadership that actually builds trust and invites others to be real too. And men, examine your heart honestly. Ask yourself, what has been sitting at the center lately? Your work, your image, your comfort. Tripp says, whatever controls your heart will control your responses to everything. If an idol is ruling you, all the Bible knowledge you accumulate in the world will just get recruited to serve that idol. So keep leading, keep showing up, keep bringing your family to the word, to worship, and to community, even when you don't feel it. That's what faith looks like in the valley. Don't wait for the feelings to lead. You lead under the leadership of God and his word.

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Now, ladies, let me speak to you for a minute. Spiritual dryness can hit differently for us. It can masquerade as just being tired, overwhelmed, or like you've lost yourself in the busyness of caring for everyone else. And it's easy to convince yourself the season will pass on its own if you just keep going. But I want to encourage you to name it. Say it out loud. To a trusted friend, to your small group, to your mentor. You don't have to perform spiritual health you don't feel. That performance is its own kind of spiritual drain. And I also want to gently ask, what have you been running to? When life feels hard, what's your first move? Because sometimes the distance we feel from God is directly connected to the other places we've been seeking refuge. Not bad things necessarily, but things we've quietly asked to do a job that only God can do. And if you're mentoring other women, your honesty in a dry season is one of the most powerful things you can model. It shows the women your disciple that faith is real even when feelings aren't, that the anchor holds in the storm. Piper reminds us that the world needs people who have walked through darkness and come out the other end. There's a strange kind of evangelism in enduring a dry season faithfully. It makes you more useful to others who are in the valley. Your suffering is not wasted. God is preparing you to speak life into someone else. So reach out. Let someone in. The body of Christ exists precisely for seasons like this one.

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Now before we close, here is one concrete challenge for this week.

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This week, tell one person you trust that you're in a dry season. Don't carry it alone. Real fellowship requires real honesty.

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And this week, show up to one means of grace, your group, your church, your prayer time, not because you feel like it, but because you believe God is there even when you can't feel him. That is faith. Ask the Spirit to meet you there. He will.

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And this week, sit quietly and ask yourself, what has been sitting at the center of my heart? Let that honest answer lead you to confession and back to the cross.

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The Puritans had a motto, He who suffers conquers. You don't conquer the dry season by escaping it, you conquer it by walking through it with God.

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My feelings will change. God's word never will. Hold on to that.

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We hope this episode has been helpful and inspiring and equipping you to serve faithfully in whatever area God is calling you.

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None of our service is possible apart from the power of the Holy Spirit. He is the one who makes all the difference. And the Spirit is given freely to all who turn from their sin and trust in Jesus Christ alone, resting not in our performance but in his finished work, his life, his death, his resurrection.

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If you're not sure that you've been born again, reach out to us at centralchurch.com.

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And check out Central Bible Institute.org to see ways you can get trained and deployed for faithful ministry service.

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And speaking of getting equipped, our premarital mentoring training begins August 23rd, 2026. This is an eight-week class that will train and deploy you to do two-on-two premarital mentoring with couples who are seriously dating or engaged.

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This is an amazing opportunity for you and your spouse to learn how to invest in other couples, making disciples who are equipped to glorify God in their marriages.

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If what we've talked about today has stirred something in you, this is your next step. Head over to central bible institute.org to register.

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Thanks for listening to Off the Sidelines, a CBI podcast.

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And remember, you were not saved to sit, you were saved to serve.