Stylus:
What’s the best thing to do when God feels distant…? Like a stranger you don’t know well who doesn’t seem to care for you?
God may very well be drawing you to Himself, but is requiring your response to His Truth about yourself.
Some people blame God for their own faults, but others endure privation through no fault of their own. I have no idea which group you are in, but you can test yourself. Are you harboring any mistrust towards God, such that you secretly blame Him for this? Or are you one who has always been close to God, and this has suddenly occurred without any clear explanation?
(For my response, I will assume you have the best of dispositions. If not, then the following will probably make you feel resentment).
God may be giving you an opportunity to choose Him for Himself, and not for anything you are getting. Move closer to Him by an act of your will. This can be done by pledging your obedience. It can be done by accepting the absence with the expectant faith of a child who knows his parent is busy preparing something good. It can be done by accepting the absence as a penance to atone for your past absences from Him - or for those of others who are absent from the Lord.
Here is a possible prayer:
“Lord, I do not deserve your constant presence and consolation, but thank you for all the times you granted it to me! I look forward to when you next bless me with yourself. In the meantime, please strengthen my resolve to do my duties and prepare for your return. Please remember the souls in purgatory who long for you so much - may they receive the consolation I now miss. And if what I see is a reflection of my own apathy and neglect towards my neighbor, please forgive me and also make me love you more through my neighbors.”
These and other sentiments of your heart can serve to build up your heart to be filled even more later. Anytime a house is renovated, there is temporary downtime wherein you cannot occupy it. And if you are cleaning a vase, it can’t have flowers in it at that time. But such preparation is for something greater. So be thankful with expectant faith of what our good God plans for you! Try to cooperate as much as possible, and be thankful for the pains and suffering that attends your state, for that same suffering is purifying you. As that marine sticker says “Pain is weakness leaving the body”.
The scouring pad’s goal is to remove the dirt, not to hurt the pot.
Ephesians 1:4 As he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that
we should be holy and unspotted in his sight in charity.
Keep faith with hope and practice charity in constant prayer, offering your body as a “spiritual sacrifice”.
Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto God,
your reasonable service.
Once cleaned inside and rooted in charity, we can be filled.
Ephesians 3:16 That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened by his Spirit with might
unto the inward man, 17 That Christ may dwell by faith in your hearts; that
being rooted and founded in charity, …
that you may be filled unto all the fulness of God.
Now before we can be filled with God, we have to endure being empty towards the world.
1 John 2:15 Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him.
So again, accept your dryness as a matter of course, even with gratitude, and let it profit your soul. Exercise true praise, and not just that which results from good feelings. Charity is to give without requiring repayment. Now is the time you can give to God in truth, for you do not sense any return. And this act will form the basis of your habit of charity, so that later you can return to it as the basis even amidst apparent riches. Blessed are the poor: and those who are charitable always make themselves poor, even as God always makes them rich, for they are always giving what they receive.
Luke 14:13 But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind; 14 And thou shalt be blessed, because they have not wherewith to make thee recompense: for recompense shall be made thee at the resurrection of the just.
So exercise loving trust in the goodness of God for all that happens, and demonstrate this trust by loving your neighbor in thought, word, and deed. Not with fake smiles, but in the truth of obedience, genuinely accepting the accompanying sufferings because God justly deserves it from us; and knowing you are building something that though not filled now, promises to be filled soon.
hurst