https://vimeo.com/70200344

I'm Wayne Jacobson, and this is Engage. Well, we're about halfway through these videos that I plan to use to help coach people into a meaningful relationship with God, and over the last week I've gotten a couple of emails that kind of coincided with each other, and I thought it might be a good topic for us to cover. What do we do when God still seems distant in our attempts to come to know Him? This from Lenny, it was on our blog, it said, I listened to the transition series eight years ago, and in that series you gave some advice as to how to begin the journey. One day I started to pray as you suggested, I stuck with it for a while, probably one week, and then I turned to other things that I thought would help me on this journey. One was the God journey, in reading your books and others. Today it still feels that I'm just as far away from God as I was eight years ago. I struggle with anxiety and depression, and some of it is surrounded by the fear that I will not have the relationship with God you describe. And Donald wrote me an email that said this, it's very similar. Your books have been very liberating for me, but having been on this journey for a good four years now, and despite what can only be described as an authentic supernatural experience with Jesus some 20 years ago, I have never felt more distant from God. My depression is acute right now, so I think about suicide hundreds of times a day. I am currently underemployed and stressed with my stomach tied in knots continually and constant feelings of shame and guilt. I literally beg the Lord for help and feel like He just ignores me. Now both these letters have something in common. Let me just cover the depression thing first. I don't think depression is necessarily the cause here, but I do get emails from time to time from people who talk about being depressed and suicidal, and I just want to say this from the very beginning. If you deal with depression, get help. First get help medically. Go make sure there's not a chemical imbalance that's causing it, because that's going to make it difficult to move forward. And if it's not a medical issue, then find out psychologically what's happening that's causing you to believe things about yourself that promotes that kind of depression. And I mean, get help with a professional counselor. Not a religious counselor. Not one that's going to beat you over the head with more performance, but one that's going to help you unpack, because if your emotional state is not in a place that you can be responsive to God's leading, this is going to be a difficult journey. But just for those of us who may not be battling depression, but still feel like, man, I'm trying to get this connection. It's not happening. One I want to draw attention. When he said he tried it for a week, a week is not long at all, and we're really not trying it. This is about broadening your heart, opening to a place where God makes himself known to you. In both these letters, we hear from people who are afraid that somehow God's ignoring them or God's not going to do for them what he does for others. We know clearly that God is not a respecter of persons. I wouldn't be talking about having a relationship with God on my website or on these videos. If I didn't think it was just as available to you as it is to me, God's not a respecter of persons. He wants us to learn how to live inside that relationship, but we've got to appreciate the fact that when the transcendent God is connecting with broken humanity, it's quite a journey. It takes something. It takes time. It takes our ability to cooperate with that process. I want to say this if God seems distant from you. Number one, it's not your sin. Let's all of us go to that place. Somehow, if I could just give up this habit or this bad thought, then God would make himself known to me. When you go there, life is tough. The second thing, God's not ignoring you. God is always making himself known. We may not be seeing it. We may be missing it. But once you get into the space of thinking that he's ignoring you, it's going to be tough for you to move ahead. Paul was able to say to unbelievers, in him we all live and move and have our being. So if it's true for unbelievers, how much more for you who are trying to engage God and looking into this life? So it's not your sin. It's not because God's ignoring you. And it's not because it's too difficult. It may be because of misplaced expectations. I'm expecting God to show up in a certain way or to have a certain feeling or to replicate an experience I've had some time ago. This is not specific advice to Donald or Lenny because I don't know them well enough. These video encouragements always had their limitation. This is to help people catch a journey. But I think you really pass this on, not video to person, not website, not book to another person. It really passes on people to people. I'm hoping others who listen to these engages are getting a desire in their heart. I want to walk alongside other people. And I want to encourage those who can't see to see to pick up those moments God's doing things in their life and recognize it. Because Lenny and Donald, I'm just sure God's making himself known. Somehow you're missing it. And that's where you want to broaden your heart to let him show you what's going on. That's what I think's behind Jesus' words about asking, seeking, knocking. Keep on asking. Keep on seeking. Keep on knocking. He wants to open a door to you that makes that life happen. You may need to get someone to help you and ask God to show you someone. An older brother or sister can be a great help just to have the conversations that help you focus on what God is doing. A friend of mine from Florida shared an illustration he uses to help pastors recognize how community expresses itself in the world. Takes them out to a parking lot and they're looking at the asphalt. And then notice finally that little sprigs of grass are growing up in the cracks. That's how the kingdom of God comes to us. It's what Jesus talked about about the mustard seed. Starts very small, but it grows. I know most of us look for some cathartic, euphoric experience that finally affirms God's with me. It actually for most of us awakens in much simpler ways. There's little fingerprints of God, things He nudges in our heart that draws us into this broader space of knowing Him and bracing Him. He's awakening you to a new reality. It's a challenge. It takes a bit. Don't just think it's a process you're trying to follow. It's a lifetime of learning how to hear Him, see Him, and follow Him.