When God Feels Distant

**This article also has an unscripted video at the bottom of this post that has much more content. I recommend you watch instead of reading for a more personal experience.

How many times have you heard someone say, “I don’t feel God’s presence anymore”? Or maybe you’ve said or felt that yourself.

When that happens, we wonder, “Where did He go? Has He abandoned me?” I can’t count how many times I’ve thought the same thing. I’ve been in that place where everything around me felt dark, desperate to feel His presence again, feeling rejected, forgotten, even betrayed by God.

But when I was finally able to think clearly, I realized something many others have realized long before me:

When God feels silent, it doesn’t mean He’s abandoned me. It usually means that I’ve turned away from Him.

There are so many little ways we drift from God in our everyday lives. Whenever I find myself desperate to feel His presence again, I can usually trace it back to one thing—I’ve let myself be too influenced by the world. Circumstances, worries, relationships, finances…all those daily pressures creep in and start to dictate how I think and feel.

Instead of trusting that God will handle it, I try to control everything myself. That’s when the distance begins.

This doesn’t mean we should never feel worry or concern. It means that in those moments, when fear or doubt takes hold, we must still choose to trust Him. The moment we stop trusting, the moment we hand our peace over to the enemy instead of giving it to God, that’s when He starts to feel distant.

And this isn’t only true in hard times. Sometimes everything in life is going beautifully, and yet God still feels far away.

Why? Because even—especially—in our happy moments, we often forget Him. We get comfortable. We pour ourselves into the joy of life and forget to praise the One who gave it. We forget to thank Him, to show love and appreciation for all that we have, and naturally, He begins to feel distant.

I’m guilty of this in both the bad times and the good. When life is hard, I cling to Him. But when life is good, I sometimes forget I need Him just as much.

We need God every second of every day, through the good and through the bad. He isn’t just supposed to be a part of our lives; He’s supposed to be the center of them. Without Him, we are nothing.

Most of the time when we feel distant from God, it’s during seasons of suffering—grief, loss, depression. That’s exactly where the Enemy wants us. He wants us to blame God. He wants us to think that because we can’t feel His presence, God must have turned away.

I learned this the hard way.

When my mom’s cancer came back, I rushed to the U.S. to be with her. It turned my world upside down. I put all my work and projects on hold to help her.

After a time, her doctor said the tumors had shrunk, and she seemed to be improving. I returned home to Mexico, trusting she was in good hands with my family.

Before I left, I had felt God’s presence everywhere. I was reading the Bible daily, immersed in His Word and His light. But when I came back home, it was like all of that had vanished. I couldn’t find my footing again.

Then one day, after finally getting motivated to start a new project, I suddenly felt crushed by a wave of sadness. I couldn’t understand why. I prayed through tears, “God, please just tell me what You want me to do.”

Five minutes later, I got a message from my daughter: my mom was going into hospice.

That was my answer.

I dropped everything and went back. My mom passed away a week after I arrived.

After her death, the same darkness crept back in. I asked God, “Where are You? Why can’t I feel You when I need You most?”

But I see it now. God didn’t abandon me—I had let grief and fear and heartbreak consume me. I let the Enemy whisper lies into my heart, making me feel distant from God. But His presence never left.

He doesn’t always answer the way we want or in our timing, but He is always there. Nothing happens that He doesn’t allow for our good and His purpose.

When things fall apart, it’s not because God pulled away. It’s usually because we did. We let the world, the enemy, and our own worries take over.

Sometimes, even when we’re doing “everything right,” we still feel distant. We read the Bible daily, pray regularly, go to church, do good works, and yet we still feel something missing.

That’s when we need to stop and ask ourselves if we’ve become too focused on the doing instead of the being.

It’s easy to fall into a legalistic mindset—treating our relationship with God like a checklist. But our faith isn’t about performance; it’s about love. When our works become a burden instead of a joy, when it stops coming from the heart, we’ve lost focus.

Sometimes, we simply need to slow down and remember that God doesn’t want perfection—He wants connection.

Countless things can pull us away from God. Here are a few that I’ve had to confront in my own life:

• Secular influences — Music, TV, books, movies, or toxic relationships that feed the flesh instead of the spirit. What we consume shapes who we become.

• Overwork or distraction — Pouring too much time into projects, hobbies, or even good things that don’t remind us of God can leave our souls starving.

• Neglecting the Word — Whenever I skip even one day of Bible reading, I feel my mind drift. One missed day becomes two, then weeks, then months. Staying rooted in His Word keeps me grounded.

• Letting the old self creep in — My old nature—anger, gossip, gluttony, pride—still tries to resurface. Every time I give in, I’m giving the Enemy more room to work.

• Guilt and depression — I lived with depression and anxiety for over 25 years before God healed me almost overnight. But the Enemy still tries to use nostalgia and sadness to pull me back under. It starts as a drip, then becomes a flood if I let it.

If you ever feel like God is distant or that He’s abandoned you, take a step back and ask yourself:

• What am I allowing to control me instead of letting God take control?

• What have I let into my life that’s pulling me away from Him?

• What am I doing—or not doing—that might be dimming His light in me?

Sometimes God does allow us to walk through darkness. He uses trials to strengthen us, to refine our faith. But so often, when He feels far away, it isn’t because He’s left us. It’s because we’ve drifted.

God never moves.
We do.

May this remind you, as it reminds me daily, to turn back toward Him.

May God bless you, your family, and your life.

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The text in this article is copyright © 2024 Jessica Redmerski.

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