I’m a Christian but I Don’t Feel Close to God Anymore
I've been a Christian for many years. During this time, I've been happily serving God at my local church and through outreaches in the city. I've read through the Bible a lot. But I don't feel close to God anymore. Perhaps it's just a season, but maybe not. What could it be?
Listen to the Good Christian Podcast episode about this post:"What to Do When You Don't Feel Close to God Anymore"
Do you share this feeling? Do you feel like you’ve drifted further from God this year? Perhaps you feel like He’s not around as He once was? That’s been my story in 2020. It’s been a rough year for my spiritual life. In 2019, I felt closer to God than I had ever felt before. But, almost as soon as the new year began, I started drifting away. The feeling of closeness began to dissipate.
How did this happen? Did God leave me?
He didn’t. But, I’ve moved away from Him more than I’ve realized. As I reflected on this reality, which is true for many people reading this today, I’ve come up with three ways we’ve moved further from God.
3 Reasons that Christians say, "I don't feel close to God anymore."
#1. We’ve embraced the culture.
I hear more people than ever before talking about politics. I'm part of this, and I love to write about politics. But, if we make that our priority, often it drives anger or frustration within us, which takes us further from God.We also love Netflix. And, what’s not to love about it! But we have allowed these shows and movies we watch to consume us. It’s become a priority in our lives. Movies and shows are often the focal points of our conversations.We love our lives on social media more than our real lives. It’s sad, but our highlight reel is often more important to us than our actual, messy, raw lives. Because of this, we all pull further from reality and deeper into a world of fantasy.
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The last part of our culture that we’ve embraced is busyness. (This is probably the one I'm most guilty of in my life.) We all have too much to do with not enough time to do it. But we love it. We’re caught up in the whirlwind of western society, which has been disguised as the American dream.
#2. We’ve become closed-minded.
I recently wrote a post about getting close to God. Sadly, many people spoke poorly of this post and roasted it on social media because of the preacher's reputation that I referenced in the post.The negative comments upset me because people missed the point. God can use anyone to speak to us, even if we don't 100% agree with them. We need to be open-minded. We need to stop saying things like, “Oh, I don’t like this preacher or that preacher because of X...”Many of us are not open because we feel that we already know it all. We need to stop thinking this way and start walking in humility! Humility is necessary for growing closer to God.
#3. We don’t feel like we need God.
The feeling of not needing God is the big one. If we’re honest, we’ve allowed our comfortable lives to lead us instead of our righteous fear of God.When it comes down to it, do we believe God is who He says He is? If I did, and I sincerely believed that God is in complete control of even my next breath, would I live differently?
Let me recap the three things we can do to start growing closer to God once again.
- Pull yourself away from culture. Be less involved in heated politics. Commit to watching fewer shows. Look away from your phone more often; God has something better for you right in front of you.
- Stay open-minded. God wants to teach you something through the people He places in your path every single day. Slow down, be quick to listen, and slow to speak.
- Accept the simple, yet difficult to understand, revelation that you need God. Without Him, you are nothing. (Don’t just read these words and agree with them, change your life to reflect this truth!)
Ultimately, draw near to God, and he’ll draw near to you. (James 4:8) If you have found yourself saying, "I don't feel close to God anymore." Remember, it’s not God who has drifted away or turned his back to you. It’s you and me. God is always ready to take us back with open arms. It's up to us to run to Him. I encourage you to begin making the necessary changes to start growing closer to God today.