If God has promised to always be with us (Matt. 28:20), why does God sometimes seem so far away?
It is important, as you note, for God’s promises to be the grounding of our faith. This means our faith does not rest in our capacity to predict what God is doing or our ability to perceive God’s presence. If Jesus has promised to be with us to the end of the age, we can be sure of his word. For even if every other person were found to be a liar, he would still be found true (Rom. 3:4).
There are times when we, like Jonah, are the ones who are hiding, who are running away from God. But there are also times when God’s people trust and obey yet still feel empty and forgotten. Many saints have testified to feeling God’s absence. On the cross, Jesus himself takes up one such prayer: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Ps. 22:1; Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34). The experience of feeling forsaken is one that Jesus shared with us, and this means that when we feel forsaken, he remains with us in the midst of it. He is with us by his Spirit, the one who prays for us when we cannot find the words (Rom. 8:26).
Indeed, because we are united with Christ, he takes what is ours and gives us what is his. He joins us in the dark so that we might join him in the light. Just as the cross is not the end of the story, so too our experience of emptiness is not the end of the story.
In the meantime, Jesus shows us how to commit ourselves into the Father’s hands (Luke 23:46; 1 Pet. 4:19). As C.S. Lewis once put it, the kingdom of darkness is never more threatened than when a person fails to see any light around them, yet still obeys.
About the Author
Justin Ariel Bailey is assistant professor of theology at Dordt University. He, his wife, and their two children are members of Covenant Christian Reformed Church in Sioux Center, Iowa.