Thursday, August 9, 2012

When God withdraws the sense of His presence

Do you feel at times that God has withdrawn the sense of His presence?

Here's a good article and interview today from The Gospel Coalition with Ryan Kelly about how it feels when God withdraws the sense of His presence.

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/08/09/when-god-withdraws-the-sense-of-his-presence/


Rev. Kelly notes that the Psalms deals with this topic in great detail as do a number of books by the Puritans.

A few quotes from Rev. Kelly:

-there is "an ebb and a flow to our sense of His presence. And that is why we see Paul praying for more grace and more peace and more comfort. It implies that there are times when you don't experience His grace and peace and comfort like you had at other times. And the pastoral take-away is: that's okay. Be patient, wait on the Lord...wait on the Lord while you work, wait on the Lord while you ask yourself hard questions."

-"It is a fair thing to wait on the Lord and trust that He is good even when you cannot trace His hand."

My prayer for you (and me) is that we would grow in God's grace and peace and comfort in times when we can sense His presence and times when we cannot.

-d.

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