When You Feel Abandoned by God

I will never leave you nor forsake you.

Hebrews 13:5 is just one of those verses. It’s quoted often, and it often helps me.

But.

When I can’t hear God, can’t see God, when everything hurts and hope feels lost, those words — they just make me want to scream out, “Well, where are You, then?!”

In Christian circles, it feels wrong to admit that you can’t feel God or that you’re doubting God. Feelings of shame and anger can intensify if you decide to share your doubt and are answered with bible verses like 2 Corinthians 10:5 (“take every thought captive”), or, worse, James 1:2 (“count it all joy”).

Because — while verses like these are fantastic tools when you are in a state of heart and mind to accept them, when you’re already struggling with shame, these responses just feel like a very biblical way to tell you to shut up, don’t have those feelings, that’s not good.

So starts the circle of negative feelings/shame/denial. We may feel like we are the only people who have doubts or feel abandoned by God. We may feel like we don’t measure up, that we’re not good enough Christians. Down and down we tumble, further into shame and silence.

Mental health note: While not all feelings and thoughts are healthy, our pain and wounds are very real. They matter. Working through our emotions, especially those layered with shame, is a process.

So, how can we cope when we feel abandoned by God? If you have these feelings, does it make you a bad Christian? (Spoiler alert: It doesn’t.)

Lucky for us, the bible is filled with examples of people who felt far from God.

Huh. It’s almost like God knew we would feel this way.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

The bible is filled with people who felt abandoned by God. Through reading others’ experiences, you can know that you are not alone in feeling alone.

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?”
that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Matthew 27:46 ESV

Israelites ⋅ Job ⋅ Jeremiah ⋅ David ⋅ Sons of Korah ⋅ Asaph ⋅ Jesus

Not Alone in Feeling Alone

Countless people in the bible felt abandoned by God. These verses are just a few examples to show you that, truly, you are not alone in feeling alone. If you are going through a time of deep grief, I highly recommend reading through Psalms.

Matthew

(27:46) About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Elí, Elí, lemá sabachtháni?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

Exodus

(6:9) Moses told the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their broken spirit and hard labor.

(14:11-12) They said to Moses: “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Isn’t this what we told you in Egypt: Leave us alone so that we may serve the Egyptians? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”

(17:7) He named the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites complained, and because they tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

Job

(10:1-3) I am disgusted with my life. I will give vent to my complaint and speak in the bitterness of my soul. I will say to God, “Do not declare me guilty! Let me know why you prosecute me. Is it good for you to oppress, to reject the work of your hands, and favor the plans of the wicked?…”

Lamentations

(2:5) The Lord is like an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel. He swallowed up all its places and destroyed its fortified cities. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation within Daughter Judah.

(5:20) Why do you continually forget us, abandon us for our entire lives?

 

Psalms of David, the man after God’s own heart

(13:1-2) How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long will I store up anxious concerns within me, agony in my mind every day? How long will my enemy dominate me?

(22:1) My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far from my deliverance and from my words of groaning?

(55:1, 12-13) God, listen to my prayer and do not hide from my plea for help. … Now it is not an enemy who insults me — otherwise I could bear it; it is not a foe who rises up against me — otherwise I could hide from him. But it is you, a man who is my peer, my companion and good friend!

(60:1) God, you have rejected us; you have broken us down; you have been angry. Restore us!

Psalms of the sons of Korah

(44:23-24) Wake up, Lord! Why are you sleeping? Get up! Don’t reject us forever! Why do you hide and forget our affliction and oppression?

Psalms of Asaph

(73:13-16) Did I purify my heart and wash my hands in innocence for nothing? For I am afflicted all day long and punished every morning. If I had decided to say these things aloud, I would have been betrayed by your people. When I tried to understand all this, it seemed hopeless.

(74:1) Why have you rejected us forever, God? Why does your anger burn against the sheep of your pasture?

While all of these men of God, including Jesus Himself, cried out to God that they felt abandoned, those very cries were the Word of God. In the most literal sense, God was with them in their suffering —

For their cries are ingrained into the very essence of His being.

Perhaps this is how, as described in Romans 8:26, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.

In Psalm 73, referenced above as an example of when people in the bible felt abandoned by God (“Not Alone in Feeling Alone”), Asaph says:

When I became embittered and my innermost being was wounded, I was stupid and didn’t understand; I was an unthinking animal toward you. Yet I am always with you; you hold my right hand. (Psalms 73:22-23)

I don’t know about you, but I relate to this.

Have you ever been in an argument — like, a really unhealthy argument — filled with rage? I can think of times that I have acted like an unthinking animal, especially when “my innermost being was wounded.” I’ve said some pretty stupid things in my hurt and anger. … I can also think of times that I’ve acted that way toward God.

And yet.

Through it all, even during that animalistic behavior, God is always with us. He doesn’t abandon any of us. Even when we feel abandoned, He is there, holding our hand.

It should also be noted that Asaph, like all of us, had a very bad memory. In the very next Psalm, right after he had that great realization about God always being with him, Asaph says:

Why have you rejected us forever, God? (Psalms 74:1)

So. God knows that we doubt. He knows that we are slow learners, and He knows that we often forget what we’ve learned, especially when we experience horrible pain. He also knows what it is like to feel abandoned by God (Matthew 27:46). Jesus crying out to His Father in His last moments… it’s a heart-wrenching mystery to me. And it helps me know that Jesus truly understands.

In the Midst of our Doubt

Jesus Saves

Matthew 14:28-32, ESV
And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

Mark 4:37-41, ESV
And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Jesus, rather than abandoning His disciples in their times of doubt, used those moments for learning experiences, to show that He would never leave them or forsake them. Jesus remained with them, faithful, loving, performing miracles, and saving them, even though they consistently waivered in their own faith.

Before Jesus was betrayed and crucified, He prayed for His disciples, and for all believers. These are the last words John recorded Jesus saying before He was arrested (John 17:20-26, CSB):

“I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe in me through their word. May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me. I have given them the glory you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me, so that they may be made completely one, that the world may know you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me.

“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that they will see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the world’s foundation. Righteous Father, the world has not known you. However, I have known you, and they have known that you sent me. I made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love you have loved me with may be in them and I may be in them.

God wants to teach us to have faith!

This is the reason why God sent Jesus to endure the cross, why He established a new covenant through Jesus’ death and resurrection, why the entire story of the Bible exists: to teach us. (And to save us, restore our relationship Him, defeat death, etc. — but my point is that God also wants to teach us about all of these things He has done for us and continues to do for us. He doesn’t expect us to just know all of it. He knows our sinful nature.)

Jesus is the founder and perfector of our faith (Hebrews 12:2), for He knows that the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth (Genesis 8:21). Jesus, God, knows that we need Him in order to have faith. He knows that our faith waivers — and He loves us, anyway.

doubt ⋅ Fear ⋅ faith ⋅ God

More than Conquerors

We learn through Ephesians 2:8-9, and through many other places in the bible, that we are saved by faith alone. How, then, can it be safe for us to doubt? If our faith waivers, are we condemned by God?

Romans 8 CSB

1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, 2 because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law could not do since it was weakened by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sin offering, 4 in order that the law’s requirement would be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Verses 5-9 not included

10 Now if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then he who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through his Spirit who lives in you.

The Holy Spirit’s Ministries

Verses 12-14 not included

15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. Instead, you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!” 16 The Spirit himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children, 17 and if children, also heirs—heirs of God and coheirs with Christ—if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

From Groans to Glory

Verses 18-25 not included

26 In the same way the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

28 We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified.

The Believer’s Triumph

31 What, then, are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He did not even spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him grant us everything? 33 Who can bring an accusation against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies. 34 Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died, but even more, has been raised; he also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us. 35 Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

Let’s take a look at Romans 8.

First, Context.

In Romans 7, Paul describes his own inner conflict with sin.

For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate. (Romans 8:15 CSB) So I discover this law: When I want to do what is good, evil is present with me. For in my inner self I delight in God’s law, but I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I myself am serving the law of God, but with my flesh, the law of sin. (Romans 7:21-25)

This is the context of Romans 8. This, after Paul wrestles with his own inability to resist sin, is the point where Paul shares with us one of my favorite verses in the bible:

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:1 CSB)

This entire chapter is beautiful. It describes how it is Christ in you, the Holy Spirit, that saves you. I highly recommend the read.

However, I want to draw our attention to one particular portion of Romans 8, verse 36: 

As it is written:
     Because of you
     we are being put to death
          all day long;
     we are counted as sheep
          to be slaughtered.

This verse is quoting none other than Psalms 44:22 — which is directly before a verse that I quoted in the section “Not Alone in Feeling Alone.” 

Psalms 44:23-24
     23 Wake up, Lord!
          Why are you sleeping?
     Get up! Don’t reject us forever!
     24 Why do you hide
     and forget our affliction
          and oppression?

So, Romans 8:36 — of all of the Psalms that Paul could have chosen — references a Psalm in which the authors feel abandoned by God.

With that context, read Romans 8:35-39:

Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
     Because of you
     we are being put to death
          all day long;
     we are counted as sheep
          to be slaughtered.
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Dig Deeper

What doubts do you have? Be brave. Voice them. Pray them. God is waiting to teach you.

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