I understand why people walk away from God. Might be a strange thing to hear me say as a Christian, and not only that, as a woman who has thrown her entire adult life into starting a church in NYC, but it’s true.
I know for myself that sometimes, because of something God allows or doesn’t allow, His action or His inaction, His words or His silence, God can feel far away, and His love? Yeah… well, that can feel downright nonexistent.
And I’ve experienced this multiple times throughout my life.
Summer of 2012, as I dropped my husband off at summer camp something felt off.
We had been youth pastors for years, and I knew well the excitement and exhaustion that came from taking loads of teens to camp every summer, but this feeling was different. It would be the first year I’d be unable to attend (with our daughter only 9 months old at the time and sleeping on the ground in 100-degree heat out of the question), but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I didn’t want to leave that day. It was more than just FOMO, something felt wrong and unsettling.
As I left for home that night with our daughter, leaving my husband behind at the campsite, I watched the entire camp staff gather in the outdoor barn to worship. I could hear their voices echoing as I drove past with my windows rolled down.
It was then that I felt God speak something simple and comforting to my restless heart: “There’s no reason to fear, I am with them.”
I took a breath of relief. God is there. Everything will be okay despite how I feel (…right?).
36 hours later I received a call from my husband that would have me asking him to repeat himself again and again, because what he was saying on the other end of the line was so heartbreaking and cruel, it was as if my mind was refusing to acknowledge what he was saying could be true.
What he proceeded to tell me was that a 15-year-old boy from our youth group had slipped into the river and had been pulled under the waterfall. Another counselor, a friend of ours, had slipped in as well; neither of them had surfaced yet. It had been 30 minutes.
We would spend the next two weeks attending their funerals, and years afterward reeling with heartache and questions.
They were supposed to be having fun at camp. Even more, that week they were coming to hear from you, God. I thought you said you would be there. I thought that meant things would be okay.
Believe me when I say, I know for myself that God can feel far away and His love mind-blowingly nonexistent.
A year later, God (first) called my husband and me to move to NYC. We had committed to do everything God told us to do, no matter the cost; we sold our house, our cars, and nearly all our possessions to move where He led us (which happened to be a one-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan)… only for our marriage to fall apart months after.
We were on the brink of divorce and thousands of miles away from our support system, and now I was feeling the weight of being a single mom in one of the most expensive zip codes in the world and looking up how to get food stamps so that I could get diapers should I need to leave my husband. All while knowing it was God who had led us to this place of hopelessness.
Where was God now? Where was the blessing in our obedience? My god…where was His protection?
And then there are these last few years, which have been some of the darkest and most confusing in my faith to date. After a plague-like 6 months at the start of 2020 came the cherry on top–I got pregnant miraculously, naturally, after many years of infertility, the very thing doctors had told us would likely never happen. And then, surrounded by lavender tissue paper and flowery cards, I miscarried on Mother’s Day.
It was far more than a miscarriage to me, it was a miracle lost. More than that, a miracle granted and then retracted. I had seen God in this. I thanked him every day for that pregnancy and took 18 pregnancy tests to revel in the real-life miracle God had done despite what the doctors had said. I had seen God’s power and felt His love, and then, I watched Him withdraw it and fade into the darkness. It will be 4 years in May with not a single positive pregnancy test since.
I remember a friend telling me upon hearing of this loss, and knowing the decade-long journey it had taken us to get to this place, that she had stopped mid-jog on her morning run that day around her quiet well-behaved suburban neighborhood in the South, to yell at the top of her lungs, WHAT THE HELL, GOD?
He did the miracle… and then He took it away… I just don’t see Him in this, she said to me later that day, waiting for anything I could say to relieve the tension she felt. A tidy bow? A happily ever after? A pretty verse promising better days and favorable outcomes? As a lifelong Christian herself, she was trying to understand.
But what I’ve learned is there are no bows and happily-ever-afters when you are living real-time drownings, when you are feeling the crushing weight of divorce or that diagnosis. When you experience your own personal tragedies…. (At least not yet.)
Some circumstances are just exceptionally dark and confusing. And sometimes in those circumstances, God can feel far as hell.
A man named Job felt a similar sentiment when he experienced unspeakable loss. He was a good man who had followed after God when the unimaginable and confusing shook his world to the core–in mere hours he lost all his wealth and every single one of his children.
Because of that, as one would expect, we find Job desperately looking for God in his circumstances.
He cries out with these words, “If only I knew where to find God… I go east, but He is not there. I go west, but I cannot find Him. I do not see Him in the north, for He is hidden. I look to the south, but He is concealed.” (Job 23, NLT)
No matter how hard Job tried, he was unable to find God in his circumstances. He too knew why people walk away from God. But a few verses later we find out why he was unable to find God in his circumstances. (It may be the same reason why you can’t find God in yours.)
In Job 23:17 Job goes on to say,
“Darkness is all around me;
thick, impenetrable darkness is everywhere.”
You see, Job’s circumstances were so dark, so impenetrably dark, he couldn’t see.
Don’t miss this: some circumstances are so dark and confusing we won’t be able to see God in them–when there is yet another school shooting or black slaying, after delivering a stillborn or receiving that awful diagnosis. When you miscarry on Mother’s Day after 8 years of infertility, all while Sally prays for a toothpick in the morning and it shows up at her door perfectly packaged with a bow by noon, to name a few.
There will be seasons where we will feel God near and bask in His goodness and the evidence we have of His Sovereign hand guiding our lives, and then others where we have to squint to see even the slightest glimpse of Him. You may reach for Him and not find Him, call out to Him, and receive no answer.
And don’t be surprised if, in your darkest circumstances, you can’t find a trace of His presence, nor a glimpse of His heart and His love.
But know this: that doesn’t mean He’s not there.
I remember God illustrating this to me when my family and I traveled to the Lake of the Ozarks in the summer of 2020 and toured an expansive (and dark!) cave that lies beneath Thunder Mountain called the Bridal Caves.
During our tour we made our way through the most scenic caverns, the darkness lighting up almost magically as we stepped into each new part of the cave. But towards the end of the tour, our guide suggested we experience what the cave would really be like, without the man-made lights illuminating our path. As we stood there in silence, we watched as each light in the cave ticked off, until we were standing in complete and utter darkness.
I had never been in such deep darkness in my life. I’ll never forget how completely helpless I felt. Disoriented. Even more, I’ll never forget how far away our guide felt.
Before the lights went out I had seen how close he was to me, no more than arm’s length away, but in the deep darkness, it was as if he wasn’t there at all. (And the same can be true of God.)
I think back to Job’s words… I cannot find [God], He is hidden. He is completely concealed….
But after acknowledging that he can’t find God, I love the verse that follows. Job continues, “But He knows where I am going….” (Job 23:10)
Job knew that even when He couldn’t find God in the darkness of his circumstances, God never —not even for a moment— took His eyes off of him.
Just like my guide in the caves that day, when we are forced to walk through dark and difficult things in this life, God can feel far. That’s not something we should be ashamed of, as much as it is something we should expect. But just because we can’t see God’s presence, doesn’t mean He isn’t there. Just because we don’t feel His love doesn’t mean God is not attentively watching our every move even when we can’t understand His. Even when everything feels like it’s being upended, our Guide is still very much in control when the lights go out.
Scripture tells us this, saying, “Whether silent or hidden, He’s there, ruling.” (Job 34:29-30, MSG)
Whether silent or hidden, active or seemingly sleeping in our storm. Whether His love feels near and palpably present, or if He feels far and His love nonexistent,
He’s there, ruling.
He’s there… and my goal in this season is simple: to find Him in my darkness. (Writing is how I always have.)
And my prayer for you is that as I write to find God in my own dark circumstances it helps you better find Him in yours.
Because God promises He’s there.
Next Post: Why are you hiding your pain? (There’s a better option.)
Krista Ortiz 