Bible Devotions for Living

During your Christian life, you will have times where you feel distant from God. Although it is normal, it is a miserable feeling … at least it should be. If you feel unsettled and miserable when God feels distant … good! Your misery, unsettledness, and desire to be close again are signs that you are in love with Him. Your distress at His absence shows how important He is to you.

Learn from Mary and Joseph when God feels distant:

Every year His parents traveled to Jerusalem for the Passover Festival. When He was 12 years old, they went up according to the custom of the festival. ⁴³ After those days were over, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but His parents did not know it. ⁴⁴ Assuming He was in the traveling party, they went a day’s journey. Then they began looking for Him among their relatives and friends. ⁴⁵ When they did not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for Him. ⁴⁶ After three days, they found Him in the temple complex sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. ⁴⁷ And all those who heard Him were astounded at His understanding and His answers. ⁴⁸ When His parents saw Him, they were astonished, and His mother said to Him, “Son, why have You treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for You.” “Why were you searching for Me?” He asked them. “Didn’t you know that I had to be in My Father’s house?” (Lk 2:41-49)

Just like Mary and Joseph, when you are distant from God it is because you drifted away from

Him without even realizing it. The distance you feel may have been the result of starting to live a more sinful life, or you turned your focus off Him and onto the world, or you stopped following good Christian habits like reading the Bible and praying. Regardless of the reason, when you realize God is distant, you need to do whatever needs to be done to get close to Him again. You need to search desperately for Him to get close.

Imagine how Mary and Joseph must have felt when they realized that they had LOST the Son of God! Can you imagine their panic? It is bad enough losing a child, but they lost God’s Child! Think about how desperately they must have been searching to reunite with Him. The text tells us they were “anxiously searching” (v48) for Him but I think we minimize their sheer panic.

Picture them frantically scurrying from tribe to tribe in their travelling party looking for Him.

Feel their utter panic when they realized that He was not with them. Imagine how overwhelmed they were scouring the city of Jerusalem for days searching for Him and not finding Him. Mary and Joseph stopped at nothing to find Him; they looked everywhere and did everything to find Him when they were apart from Him … you need to be the same when God feels distant.

Reuniting with God should be your top priority in life when He seems missing. Approach finding Him with the same urgency of Mary and Joseph. Do whatever it takes to get close to Him again. Fast, pray, beg, plead, confess, repent, obey, and seek Him with everything you have in you:

²⁹ But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul. (Deut 4:29 – NASB) Let us examine and probe our ways, And let us return to the LORD. (Lam 3:40 –

NASB)

You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. (Jer 29:13)

“This is what the LORD of Hosts says: Return to Me”—this is the declaration of the LORD of Hosts—“and I will return to you” (Zec 1:3)

Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. (James 4:8)  

And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek you. (Ps 9:10)

We all wander away from the Lord at times. How do you handle it when it happens?

Key points

• You will feel distant from God at times
• Longing for God when He seems distant is a good sign that you love Him. It shows you how important He is to you
• Make it your top priority in life to get close to God again when He feels distant

Think about it

Do you even pay attention to your relationship with God? If He was distant, would you even notice?

How do you feel when you drift from the Lord? Do you lose peace or perspective? Do your priorities get confused? Do you do things you shouldn’t or neglect things you should be doing?

Do you seek God as passionately as Mary and Joseph when you feel separated from God? Is reuniting with Him your top priority?

How can you reconnect with Jesus?