Why He Seems Far Away

Hey everyone! I'm happy to have my blogging friend, Lauren, guest posting today. She is an awesome writer and has a thoughtful Christ-centered blog that you must check out. 

I am so thrilled to be guest posting on Sarah’s blog today, and I blog over at Loving Our Creator! I am so honored to be able to post here today, and I hope this post encourages you in your faith! 

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Do you ever feel like you don’t want to read your Bible…or that something doesn't seem right when you try to talk to God? Do you ever just want to not work on your relationship with Jesus anymore, but you still want to keep living as a Christian?

Yeah, I’ve been feeling like that too, for about the past week or so. 

 I don’t know what makes us decide that we don’t want to spend time with God, but usually this is the reason that we feel stuck in our relationship with God.

To be quite honest with you, the week I didn’t want to read my Bible. I think it was because I just wanted to fit in with the crowd: I wanted everyone to like me. I was influenced by a particular person that God has put in my life who has taught me so many lessons. Over the summer, I learned some lessons about relationships with guys from him and yet again I wanted to be the person that he would want to be friends with. God has been using him in huge ways to open my eyes to the selfishness that is buried deep in my thoughts and actions that I need God to take away.

I was sitting listening to the youth group lesson last night, and then my eyes were opened to my blindness. I had been feeling so uptight and stubborn and just wanted to do what I wanted to do. Somehow I had convinced myself that doing these things would make these cool people (who by the way are two years older than me), including my friend, accept me.

I didn’t literally hear a voice, but I could feel something saying, You don’t need to be accepted by anyone. You can be who you want to be, and live your life for Christ, because that is the best life to live.

You honestly don’t know how relieved I felt. I felt free to be able to do what I want, and yet it was my own sin that was holding me captive.

Is there something holding you back from God…something that you are refused to let go of? I realized I had to refuse my desires to want to be accepted by other people in order to have the same relationship with Christ as I had before. It was sin that was separating me from the love and comfort that I knew comes from Christ.

 So, if you feel like God isn’t there, or you want nothing to do with God right now in this season of your life, it’s probably a specific sin separating you from God because God hates sin, and won’t tolerate it.

When we don’t read God’s Word (and a lot of people who call themselves Christians don’t, and is one of the reasons why the Christian Church in America is lukewarm!) it is a huge problem. Time with God is a critical part of living a Christian life.

Matthew 4:4 says, “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” 

We can’t live without God, and when we don’t read from his word, we start to become distracted on our purpose here on earth (and in my case, it led to wanting to be accepted by others this past week). We can also become more prone to temptation, and in my case, I was tempted by my selfish desires.

Isn’t it amazing how God uses the times when we don’t want to read from His word to teach us how important it is to read from His word?

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Thank you so much for reading, and thank you again, Sarah, for allowing me to guest post!