Being raised in the black church tradition gets you used to the “feeling of God.” You haven’t had church unless the preacher has preached the people happy. Sometimes the service itself is a way to express emotions you have wrestled with all week. It’s even in our songs “Every time I feel the Spirit”. Feeling and emotion had always been a major part of my walk with God.
Then one day it happened. I knelt down to pray and I felt nothing. For years I had been privileged to experience God and receive answers to my prayers. It often felt like heaven was as near as my breath. That day heaven felt closed. And it continued for months. During that time I resigned from pastoring. Me and my family moved to Pittsburgh and life spun out of control.
One of the worst feelings I have ever experienced was that numbness. That feeling that God wasn’t there. It was even harder dealing with so much uncertainty and change while at the same time feeling a million miles away from God. In that space my faith was tested. I had to believe beyond what I experienced. I failed many days on end and it felt like I was grasping at straws. There is nothing worse than feeling abandoned by God. It’s what motivated Jesus to cry out “My God My God Why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).
After that experience I have come out a different person. Not knowing whether we were going to make ends meet was nothing compared to the agony of being numb to God and his Spirit. It’s given me a new perspective on God. I believe he allowed me to feel nothing because he is more than a feeling and in that season of numbness I desired God himself more than the feelings that accompany his presence. My season of numbness taught me to Be still and know that he is God (Psalm 46:10). I’m not against feelings. I am a Christian hedonist at heart but I now know that God is more than a feeling and that when we can’t feel anything it does not make him any less real or available. He is God and he doesn’t need our feeling to validate him or as the old folks used to say “He’s God all by himself!”
