What are you looking for?

My friend’s alienation crackled through the phone line. “I don’t know. I keep doing all the right things. But a lot of times I don’t feel close to God, you know?”

My friend described time in Scripture and prayer, their attempts to live in ways that pleased God. Yeah, I definitely believe there are things we can do to move closer to God. I also know what it’s like to feel like God is endlessly, silently away from you.

What gives?

When You’re Doing All the Things

I listened for awhile, just feeling that familiar pain along with my friend.

But after a moment, I thought aloud about a romantic relationship: If, for example, I did all the “good wife” things, served my spouse in all the right ways, fulfilled the scheduled date nights, knew the Starbucks order and the shoe size.

But I can see my own husband right now, who often wants me to stop the “good wife” things in order to just be with him, and let his love settle around me, like that perfect ivory throw up on my bed, folding around me on these bitter January nights.

Sometimes when I’m working hard at the end of the night, folding the laundry and loading the dishwasher and doing all the things, he puts his hands on my shoulders and says, Hey. You can stop. 

He’s cool like that.

As I continued to think on this, my mind went to a distinction about sex (stay with me here!) that I’ve heard from Dr. Juli Slattery. Married sex is not about sexual activity, but sexual intimacy.

You can have a lot of sex or do all the right things to be a sexy spouse. But if sex doesn’t bring you closer and play out God’s covenant love for each other, what do you really have?

“I don’t feel close to God. Is it me?”

So back to my friend, asking me essentially, What do I do when I don’t feel close to God? Is it me?

Stacks of books exist on this. But I’ll offer one thought.

In her book The Lord Is My Courage: Stepping Through the Shadows of Fear Toward the Voice of Love, trauma therapist K.J. Ramsey writes,

God then reminds David where he came from, who he is, and whose he is. “I took you from the pasture, from tending the flock, and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you.” God reminds David through Nathan that it is God’s activity that is at the center of this story, not anything David needs to do for God.*

Sometimes, in my flurry of activity in God’s name, I find he’s asking me more to remember he calls me Beloved.

Of course, of course there are times of deep joy that I do things for God, where that activity pulls me into his heart.

But rather than doing those things to be Beloved, I can do those things because I am Beloved. Full stop. (And that, my friends, is a little slice of the Gospel. Jesus is enough to bring us close to God. It…is…finished.)

Feeling close to God sometimes means realizing and confessing God is deeply present.

(Check out All There: Tips on Being Fully, Powerfully Present with God.)

So if you’re the person, like me or my friend, who’s doing all the things–is it time to first receive that you were Beloved before you did anything?   

God’s Intimate, Relentless Love: Verses to Chew On

So for all of us–some free printable verses to stick here and there, or soak in.

PRINT THESE VERSES HERE FOR FREE.

This week, may you sense God’s tangible presence and undaunted care.

*Ramsey, K.J. The Lord Is My Courage (pp. 260-261). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

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