(…continued) In another passage from A Grief Observed (the book C.S. Lewis wrote after his wife died), Lewis describes how God seemed so far away, even absent, after his “house of cards” faith collapsed:
Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be — or so it feels — welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence.
You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. And that seeming was as strong as this. What can this mean? Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?
I tried to put some of these thoughts to C. this afternoon. He reminded me that the same thing seems to have happened to Christ: ‘Why hast thou forsaken me?’ I know. Does that make it easier to understand?
In the second chapter of Ephesians Paul describes our relationship with God by using words like far away, barrier, dividing wall, of hostility, foreigner, and aliens. This is just what Lewis is describing, and we all know the feeling. God can seem very far away, and not only that, it sometimes seems like he’s against us. Certainly, as Paul says, there is a dividing wall, a barrier, between us. Faith is never easy. We don’t see God, and we often don’t understand him and his ways.
The reasons for this go way back to Genesis (chapter 3), when Adam and Eve sinned and were sent out of the Garden of Eden. Before that, God was right there with them; there was no distance, no separation. They saw each other and talked freely. But then, as a result of their sin, and now our sin, there is now the separation, and we cannot see clearly or understand fully. It feels that way because it is that way—and God made it that way because of our sin.
But God has not left us completely. He has come to us again, reopening the lines of communication. In the Old Testament God spoke his Word through the prophets and others. Then, in Jesus, God came to us and spoke to us in person. In the New Testament we have Jesus’ words and promises to read and hear and believe.
After describing our distance from God in Ephesians 2, Paul says we have now been brought near to God through Jesus. He is our peace and has made us one, reconciling us to God and destroying the barrier. He ended the hostility and made peace. Now, Paul says, we are no longer aliens and foreigners, but fellow citizens and even members of God’s household.
We have been separated from God by our sin. In Heaven we will be again with God in person. But for now we are in an ‘in-between time’ and there will be this mixture. Sometimes God will feel very close, and sometimes God will seem very far away. We know those feelings. That’s how it will be in this life—for us, for C.S. Lewis, and, for Jeremiah.
Jeremiah was who one who, like C. S. Lewis, also felt these extremes of God’s distance and closeness. He was one of God’s most important prophets, and God spoke to him often. One time Jeremiah said he was sick of being God’s spokesman and wanted to quit; but, he said, “God’s word burned inside my bones and I could not keep it in– I had to speak.” That’s how intensely Jeremiah could feel God’s presence— sometimes. But other times God seemed hostile and far away. Jeremiah once said he wished he had never been born, and shouted to God, “You are to me like a muddy stream.” At that time, nothing was clear to Jeremiah, and the God he served seemed absent.
In one sense, God is absent. In our sin we say we want to do it our own way and ignore God. So God said to Adam and Eve, and he says to us, “Okay, I’ll get out of your way.” And God has removed his visible presence from this world.
We don’t see God, but we do hear from him. We have his Word, he has given us his promises, and at times we can feel his presence and care. By his grace, he has chosen to keep in touch, to offer again his gifts, to come to us in Jesus. And to all who will receive him and believe him, he grants eternal life in his eternal home.
But it’s not all clear yet. “We walk by faith, not by sight,” says the Bible. And is kept alive by keeping in touch, by worshiping, by prayer, by not saying no to God and ignoring him. Then faith can grow and God can seem closer.
Later on in A Grief Observed, Lewis describes how he again began to feel God’s care and presence:
I have gradually been coming to feel that the door is no longer shut and bolted. Was it my own frantic need that slammed it in my face? The time when there is nothing at all in your soul except a cry for help may be just the time when God can’t give it. You are like the drowning man who can’t be helped because he clutches and grabs. Perhaps your own reiterated cries deafen you to the voice you hoped to hear.
(continued…)
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