Imperceptible

Dry moments such as the one David suffered in Psalm 22 have plagued the followers of God for millennia. I dare say that they are the way of life for many Christians far more than they like to admit. For some these times when God seems far away are a source of guilt for some possibly unknown offense. Others find dry times as a source of doubt in God, but there are those who choose faith over the emotional sight that we so desperately desire. The article on the front page of CNN.com about Teresa's Crisis of Faith brought to mind my own current dry spell. Certainly the woman we knew as Mother Teresa was a follower of Roman Catholic doctrine, and so it is possible that she never knew God in the first place. I personally find it difficult to believe that anyone can find God through the tools of pride that the Roman Catholic doctrine provides, but I want to suppose that somehow God did reach Mother Teresa with the truth in His Word about salvation by faith alone. Supposing that this loved woman was truly a child of God in the deepest sense is it possible for her to suffer fifty years of silence from God though seeking Him with a pure heart? I think it is.

This is a big deal because we want to experience God today more than ever, and when we don't we feel a deep sense of failure or hypocrisy. We call this life in Christ a life of faith for a reason. As believers in Christ we are ridiculed by outsiders for our stupidity, our gullibility, and our intolerance, but we want to say "I have seen Him and He is real." Unfortunately we do see through a glass darkly and that means that we cannot see the Subject of our faith, but our sight is not only that of photons perceived, but of the touch that we associate with God's presence. Our life here is incomplete. Just because we don't feel God we can't just assume that He has rejected us or that we have deep rooted sin, but we should remember that God is greater than our condemning hearts and is able to forgive and lead us to repentance.

So don't despair if you can feel God's presence. It is possible that you have to learn to sense Him in a new way, or that this is an extended time to develop your faith. My parting shot comes from First John 3:2-3 "Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears [1] we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure."