Social Distancing: I Can’t Feel God and He Knows

I'm an extrovert and I enjoy spending quality time with those I love so social distancing has been particularly hard for me, though very necessary. To further add to it, there have been times over the last few weeks where I can't feel God. I don't hear him speaking. He feels far and distant, almost like he isn't there anymore. And boy does it hurt! Why? Because for some reason it feels like abandonment. I've felt this in times past but this weekend as I was reflecting on the Easter holiday it suddenly dawned on me that Jesus knows exactly what it feels like to not feel God. That was a comforting thought that brought renewed hope in this season of life.

It is documented in many historical manuscripts that Jesus died a gruesome death by crucifixion. The Bible records that while on the cross this happened:

And at three o’clock Jesus shouted with a mighty voice in Aramaic, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” —that is, “My God, My God, why have you deserted me?”

- The Bible (Matthew 27:46 TPT )

In that moment, Jesus felt abandoned by God because he couldn't feel his presence and it hurt. It appears that it hurt even more than the physical pain he was experiencing. I won't go into the full gamut of emotions he must have felt but this was my biggest takeway:

If the God and King of my heart knows how I feel experientially, including the range of emotions I may feel towards him, then it means I can trust him with my emotions, feeling them fully and discharging them safely and completely with him.

He can empathize with me. He's not so lofty or mighty that he doesn't fully understand the emotions I experience. He's experienced them all to further degrees than I have and is well acquainted with my grief. That's comforting because it allows me to trust him more with all that I'm feeling now; the uncertainty, introspection, perplexity, grief, and sometimes even anxiety. In dying he didn't just die to take away my sin and shame; he also died and experienced my pain and grief. He died that I might know him fully and know that the extent of his love for me runs even unto death. He died that I might know that no distance was too far to go to prove his love for me and then he ressurected to prove that no thing, not even death, was strong enough to separate me from his love.

So in this time of social distancing, I cling to the one who understands isolation. I draw nearer to the one who already laid his heart bare for me and longs to spend quality with me. I love the one who loved me, even unto death. I embrace the one who conquered death to give me a new life!

As he gave his life to love me, so will I! As he gave his life to love you, so will I!