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When God Seems Absent in Bible Reading

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Christian Gafenesch (2022), public domain

In my previous post, I wrote about the way God reveals himself through the Scriptures. I claimed that he meets with us when we seek him in the Bible and that he entices us to continue seeking him.

I’m guessing some readers finished that post and muttered, “yeah, right.” For many people what I described seems like a dream, completely divorced from their difficult reality. For these Christians, Bible reading is not joyful, but difficult. It feels much less like a meeting with a loving, fatherly God than it does a dry, drowsy duty. They gain no encouragement, conviction of sin, or measure of hope when they open the Word.

In short, it feels like God is absent.

If this describes your situation, you’re in good company. Not only do I have some good news for you from the Bible, but many Christians now and throughout history feel and have felt exactly the same way you do.

Is God Actually Absent?

For Christians, God is not absent. This isn’t to deny what people feel and experience, just to state the Scriptural reality: God has promised never to leave or forsake his people (Heb 13:5).

You may feel that God is distant or absent, and that is a common feeling and experience. But when God the Holy Spirit comes in our conversion, he does not leave. This presence of God himself is a down payment or a small taste of the full divine presence we will enjoy in the new creation.

So, God may not be absent, but it sure feels like he is sometimes. We might not be able to point to a specific cause behind this effect, but we can easily find similar expressions of this feeling in the Bible.

Lamenting God’s Absence

Prayer in the Bible comes in many flavors, including prayers of lament. A lament is simply an honest cry to God about the sorrowful parts of living life in a fallen world. And these parts include feeling like God is absent.

Hear the ways the psalmists pray.

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I take counsel in my soul
    and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? (Psalm 13:1–2)

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,
and by night, but I find no rest. (Psalm 22:1–2)

But I, O Lord, cry to you;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.
O Lord, why do you cast my soul away?
Why do you hide your face from me? (Psalm 88:13–14)

These Biblical prayers do not fit our present condition exactly; however, they are all examples of saints who were expecting God to be present in their troubles and their experience is the opposite. (It has been helpful for me to realize that many of the psalms are psalms of lament; here is a list to consult.)

How to Handle God’s Perceived Absence in our Bible Reading

My basic advice when Bible readers don’t secure a take-home nugget every day was it’s okay and keep going. My advice in this post is basically the same, but with a few more specifics.

Pray. It is good for us to share our hearts with the God who already knows them. Use some of the language of the psalms of lament or put your frustration into your own words, but talk to God! Ask him: he has promised never to leave you, so why does it feel like he has?

Ask others to pray. As I mentioned above, this feeling is not unusual. If you take someone aside after church, you’ll almost always see a sympathetic smile in return. Enlist your Christian friends to ask God to make his presence real to you again.

Read with others. In the global west, we often individualize our relationships with God, but this doesn’t have to be! If you’re struggling to read or study the Bible on your own, perhaps a friend would be willing to read or study the Bible with you a few days each week. God may use this shared experience to meet with you more intimately.

Keep reading. The Bible is a treasure because it reveals God himself. Sometimes this treasure seems easy to access, like candy at Halloween. At other times, it seems entirely invisible. Talk with older saints and listen to their testimonies: these dry periods eventually come to an end.

4 Practices that Cause Boredom with the Bible

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My co-blogger Ryan has provided a very helpful explanation for why the Bible is not boring. Pastor Mitch Chase also recently wrote about 4 reasons you might think the Bible is boring. His reasons are:

  1. You’re ignoring the christological shape of Scripture.
  2. You’re unaware of certain historical matters.
  3. You’re reading inconsistently.
  4. You’re reading prayerlessly.

Chase offers some excellent guidance for ways to pull out of each of these situations and find more delight in God’s word.

Check it out!

Devotion Begets Devotion: Encountering God in the Bible

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Arvid Hoidahl (2019), public domain

The force of gravity that one object exerts on another depends on a few factors: the mass of each object, a gravitational constant, and the distance between the two objects. But in the calculation, distance is in the denominator of the fraction, meaning that, all other things being equal, gravitational force and distance have an inverse relationship. The closer the two objects are, the greater the gravitational pull.

If you have trouble with formulas and forces, picture a whirlpool. A feather caught in the outside of the spinning water starts to move slowly in a circle. But the longer it stays in the whirlpool, the faster it moves, pulled steadily inward and down until it disappears.

A Book Like No Other

The Bible is a book like no other. We do not read it like a biography, a novel, or a textbook. We can return to it again and again with much profit. It is deeper and greater and more wonderful than anything else we could ever read.

Why do Christians read the Bible? If you are a Christian, why do you read the Bible?

We read the Bible to know God. About the Bible, the Westminster Confession of Faith states that “it pleased the Lord, at sundry times, and in divers manners, to reveal himself, and to declare that his will unto his Church” (my emphasis).

God reveals himself! This means that reading or studying the Bible is no ordinary endeavor. We are not reading just for information or even inspiration. We are studying the Scriptures to learn from God, to know and love him. And as we learn from him and love him, this should kindle a desire to draw even closer.

God Entices Us

When we read the Bible, God teaches us about himself. He also shines light into our hearts and convicts us of sin. God shows us his Son and removes the blindness from our eyes. And like many in first-century Galilee, we are eager to follow the Rabbi-King, Jesus.

By his Spirit, God works on our hearts as we read the Bible. He meets with us and entices us to return and meet with him again.

Reading the Bible creates a longing within us for what is to come. When the world seems to be crumbling around us, we have a sure promise that all will be put right (Rev 21:4). And we will enjoy fellowship with God face to face (Rev 21:3).

Additionally, as we read, we see more of what we will become. In all the ways we offend God and our neighbors, we can cultivate hope that these stubborn sins will not last forever. God’s commands are for our good, and one day we will embrace and obey them fully.

Further Down and Further In

If you’ve talked to any older saint recently, you’ve probably noticed they are still eager for the Scriptures. Even after a lifetime of reading and hearing and studying, they are not tired of those familiar words.

The Bible may be bound like other books. It may sit on our tables, support coffee mugs, and sport dog-eared pages and pencil scribbles like other volumes. But what the Bible offers we can find nowhere else.

God reveals himself to us in the pages of this holy book. To the novice and the expert, to the young and the old, God offers himself to those who would take up and read. And as we taste and see how good the Lord is, we’ll joyfully take another lap around the whirlpool, drawing closer and closer to the God who made and redeemed us.

When Bible Reading Doesn’t Produce a Neat and Tidy Takeaway

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Joshua Wilson (2024), public domain

It’s hard to imagine the American restaurant landscape without the drive-through window. It wasn’t always this easy, but now about 70% of fast food customers make their purchases from the comfort of their cars.

The convenience is undeniable. I’ve driven past a coffee place in my town numerous times and seen a line of cars wrapped around the building. (I always wonder how much faster it might be to park and go inside.)

Many of us treat our Bible reading like a trip to the drive through. We want it to be convenient, we want it to be easy, and when we’re finished, we want a neatly-packaged takeaway to sustain us (spiritually) for the day.

Our Desire for a Takeaway

Our desire for a strengthening spiritual nugget is part of what has fueled the daily devotional industry. Every year, publishing houses produce dozens (hundreds?) of collections of short, prepackaged, easy-to-digest Bible teachings designed to help Christians start their days. These often end with a thought or question of the day related to a spotlighted Bible passage.

This seems like a modern and processed form of an ancient practice called meditation. Bible meditation is the practice of thinking pointedly about a verse, passage, or idea for an extended period of time. And Bible meditation is a wonderful way to grow in our understanding of, love for, and obedience to God. But Bible meditation is not the same as Bible reading.

(For the record, I am not opposed to all devotional materials! Many of them are good and edifying.)

Bible Reading and Bible Study

In our desire for a takeaway from our daily Bible reading, we may simply be confusing forms of Bible intake. Bible reading, Bible study, and Bible meditation are certainly related, but they are not the same.

Bible reading is the most straightforward—this is reading or listening to portions of the Bible. Daily Bible reading is often part of systematically making one’s way through a book or longer portion of the Bible. Bible study is a slower, deeper look at a Bible passage with an effort to understand what the author was trying to communicate and then apply that truth. And we defined Bible meditation above.

If we are frustrated that we do not have a takeaway from our Bible reading, it may be a blurring of categories. The main goal of Bible reading is exposure to the larger themes and threads of the Bible, while Bible study aims for deep understanding and application. Bible meditation has a more narrow aim: to turn a specific verse or concept over in the mind for our transformation.

It’s Okay, Keep Going

For those who feel frustrated by their daily Bible reading, I have two short bits of advice.

First, it’s okay. Coming out of your Bible reading without a thought/truth/question/application for the day does not make you (or your Bible reading) a failure. Hopefully you have other opportunities and outlets in your life for deeper, engaged thinking and prayerful interpretation of the Bible, but that doesn’t need to happen every morning.

Second, keep going. The greatest value of daily Bible reading comes not from pointed epiphanies but from the accumulation over time of familiarity with the things of God. We cannot get very far with a few long jumps, even with Olympic-level ability. But if we put thousands of ordinary footsteps together, one in front of the other, we can travel quite a distance indeed.

Let the Gospel Connect the Dots in Your Bible Reading

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This helpful piece Lara d’Entremont will help you connect the dots in your Bible reading. You know, when you’re reading all the different stories, poems, and prophecies, and you’re not sure how such a hodgepodge of texts fits together. The thread that ties it all up is the gospel.

She writes:

Maybe you read the Bible like this: The Old Testament is law and wrath, but when Jesus finally appeared in the New Testament, everything became about grace and good news. Then the Bible ends with some rules and promises and a terrifying and cryptic picture of the end times and eternity.

The best we can do is say that we’re not really sure what this means. Perhaps God was angrier back then; Israel is special; you’re David and your problem is Goliath; Jesus saves; follow these rules; and you’re unsure how it will all go down, but you’ll be walking on gold pavement. Sound accurate? Can you relate?

Check it out!

The Arrogance of a Little Bible Reading

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Jacob Crouch has a really important point to make: Those who read the Bible only a little tend to become arrogant people, looking down on those who do not read the Bible.

One sure sign that someone hasn’t read their Bible for very long, is that they are arrogant. That might seem surprising, but it is almost universally true that someone who has spent a little time in God’s word always seems to have the answer for any situation…

When I was freshly seeking the Lord, I seemed to have all the answers for finances, marriage, and children, all while I was a broke single man. I had lots of verses in my arsenal, but I had only really been seeking God for a few years.

The cure, of course, is not to stop reading the Bible, but to read the Bible excessively. This strategy is rooted in God’s requirements for kings called to shepherd his people.

Check it out!

Does New Testament Grace Eliminate our Obligation to Obey God’s Commands?

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A listener to John Piper’s podcast recently asked him a question about the roller coaster of Bible reading. A steady diet of Scripture can take a person consistently through cycles of promise, warning, assurance, and threat. What are we to make of that?

In the process of answering the question, Piper offers a keen answer to an important question: Does the grace of God in the New Testament eliminate our obligation to obey God’s commands?

Piper says:

And here’s what our friend, who sent this question, is drawing our attention to: God uses both promises and threats to motivate that obedience to his commandments. Lest anybody say, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I don’t even need the word commandments. We shouldn’t even use the word commandments in the New Testament. That’s an Old Testament idea. We don’t live by commandments in the New Testament. That’s law. We live under grace.” To that I respond…

I won’t paste his excellent response. You’ll have to go check it out for yourselves.

Read the Bible in Bigger Chunks

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Aaron Armstrong encourages you to read the Bible in bigger chunks. There is a time and place for detailed study of small portions of text. But what we must not do is lose sight of the whole.

Early on as a new Christian, my pastor challenged me to put down any other books and only focus on the Bible until I read the whole thing cover-to-cover. No in-depth study required. Just read, pray, and make notes as I went.

I set to work. I finished 8 or 9 weeks later, reading about 30-45 minutes a day. And I had a great big stack of notes to show for it. Actually, that’s not entirely true: I had a lot more than a stack of notes. I had a greater appreciation for the Bible as a whole.

Most importantly, I didn’t take his challenge, do it once, and never do it again. It’s something I’ve come back to a few times over the years. When my reading maybe feels formulaic, or when I’ve been struggling to read consistently. At the time of this writing, I’m nearing the end of one of these “big chunk” reads—or, actually, listens since I’m using an audio app for it this time.

Check it out!

Need Help to Concentrate on the Bible?

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Apparently some folks at All Nations Church in Ilford, London struggle to concentrate when reading their Bibles. I suspect they are not alone. The church offers some wonderful counsel here, including:

  • Sharpen your resolve
  • Keep track of your progress
  • Start small
  • Use a paper copy
  • Plan the place and time to read
  • Remove distractions
  • Use a highlighter
  • Get physically active
  • Use others

Perhaps some of these suggestions may benefit you as well.

Check it out!

It Doesn’t Matter How Much Time You Have

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Kristen Wetherell makes a fabulous point: You can study the Bible in 5, 15, or 30 minutes (or more). It doesn’t matter how much time you have. There is no perfect way to conduct a quiet time. Just start where you are, take what you have, and do what you can.

We need to intentionally provide our souls with a meal that nourishes us with truth. We often call this meal “quiet time”—and feel like we’ve failed if it doesn’t look a certain way.

But God isn’t prescriptive about this in his Word (Deut. 6:5–6; Phil. 2:16; John 15:4). He wants us to prioritize meeting with him through Scripture, however it looks. He wants us to hunger for him, the Bread of Life, not a formula. He wants us to pursue our perfect Savior Jesus, not a perfect quiet time, as if there were such a thing (John 5:39–40).

Check it out!