When God forsakes us!

Image from bahaiteachings.org

Allow me to make the heading clear before some Christians start throwing stones me: 

Hebrews13:5 is clear, "...I will never leave you, nor forsake you." Yes, however, there are times when we feel (keyword is feel) like God has forsaken us, just like Jesus felt when he was up on the cross (Mathew 27:46).

Am almost 100% certain that you are beautiful/handsome, and am also sure that you don't feel beautiful/handsome 100% of the time. Even though you are beautiful, the times you feel not so beautiful, tend to feel so real that you might even start behaving like an ugly person (whatever ugly people do), even though that is not true.

When does God forsake us, or why does God let us feel like He has forsaken us?

1. When our pain is necessary.

Jesus' pain was very necessary for our redemption and glory, I bet you agree with God letting him (Jesus) go through that necessary pain, even though he was innocent. So, similarly, regarding your pains and my pains, sometimes God will let us feel forsaken simply because we need to go through that tough painful season for our betterment or the betterment of others.

2. We tend to pay too much attention to our pains

In times of pain, we tend to pay so much attention to our pain that we can't even see the 1000 other good things happening to and through us, let alone hearing the presence and support of the Holy Spirt.

3. Because usually the easier route is not in God's will for our lives.

Remember at the cross when many were mocking Jesus saying, "Savior, save your self, since you are a son of God, call your father to bring you down from the cross!"?

According to the miracles Jesus performed in his lifetime, I am certain that getting down from that cross wasn't a hard task at all. I mean the guy walks on water, he commands the wind and it obeys, he curses a fig tree and it starts to wither immediately. Getting down the cross would have been even much easier; but no, the easier route wasn't God's will for his life.

What to do when we feel forsaken.

Image from AdeLove.com

1. Pray

As obvious as it is, we need to pray for discernment to know if this is necessary pain or not. If it is not, we fight it out of our lives and if it is, we pray for strength to go through it victoriously and know when its time is up.

2. Invite trusted friends into your situation.

As I earlier hinted, it's hard for us to have a clear view of things when we are in pain. So, a community of friends not only helps to pray for us when we can't pray any longer (like the gentleman in Mark 2:4 whose friends cut a hole in the roof and dropped him in to where Jesus was), it also helps us know when we are being naughty.

I remember years back, I walked through school with tears rolling down my cheeks, I was deathly fed up of my situation and ran to a friend. After I told her about my pain, she told me about her pain at the moment too, and then I realized I was just being a baby. What I was going through then seemed like 5% of what she was facing, yet she was the strongest and happiest girl I knew!

After hearing about her pain and how she was dealing with it, my pain seemed so small that it lost its effect on me.

3. Trust God.

Man, there is always an easier way of doing things, always. So, if we don't learn to trust God, we shall walk away from His will for our lives, yet it is the best way we can ever live.

Trust God in the process.

4. It's okay to laugh while you cry.

In most cases, it so happens that we experience pain in one area of our lives (let's say, health), but we are experiencing progress and victory in other areas like career, education and/or family. We forget that it's okay to be happy and joyous for the successes we are having and at the same time feel sad for our ailing health.

Letting ourselves laugh while we cry and cry while we laugh allows us to live fully, instead of waiting for our pains to end so we can  laugh; because if our pains don't end, we shall live sad lives, yet we had 99 other reasons to laugh.

Till next Wednesday.

Have a blessed week!