The "Hug" of God

"I used to feel God's presence all around me," the caller said to me, "But lately I haven't felt it as much." As pastors, we get all kinds of questions; this one happened to come from someone who looked us up randomly and called (no joke), but it's a variation on something we all experience from time to time: why do we go through times that we don't feel close to God?

It was revealed a few years ago that even Mother Theresa, a beacon of faithfulness and self-sacrifice, went through a long period of questioning and doubt at mid-life, a "dark night of the soul" that didn't lift. Because of her sense of call, she soldiered on, and ultimately this perseverance led to a deeper identification with the suffering of the poor whom she served.

God's presence is a fact. Sometimes it is accompanied by a feeling. Jesus said, "Surely I am with you always, even to the end of the ages" and "Never will I leave you, nor forsake you". Numerous passages in the Psalms talk about God's omnipresence, and the fact that he goes before us and surrounds us with his presence. God is everywhere!

But we don't always feel it. So we have to trust what's true, and resist letting feelings of loneliness or despair be the measure of the strength of God's presence.

Think about a hug. A hug is a tangible expression of love and care. It reassures us, giving meaning to whatever words of adoration or appreciation accompany it. But hugs can't last forever. You can't hug your child all day long; but that doesn't mean your love ceases the moment the embrace is broken, nor that the love is stronger during the hug, nor that it wears off the longer they're away from you.

So it is with feeling God's presence. It's a nice reassurance, but its absence doesn't indicate a weakness of God's resolve. Certainly there are things we can do on our part to dull our receptiveness, and it's also God's prerogative to reveal himself however to whomever he wishes. But as we can see from the example of Mother Theresa, there is not a direct correlation between one's longing for God and their acute awareness of his presence.

As much as worship services, camps, and retreats try to push us toward them, it turns out that an authentic spiritual life is not an unbroken chain of mountaintop experiences. There are valleys, deserts, and long stretches of lonely highway.

One of the most confusing things about the Christian experience to kids is understanding what grown-ups mean when they say God talks to them or that they felt his presence. We would do well to couch the language of experience in this important caveat: it is not feeling his presence or hearing his voice that makes him real. Rather, God is real and present; and sometimes he chooses to reinforce this by making his presence especially known.