Tough Questions: Part 4 - When God Feels Far Away
Psalm 16:8-9, 11; Psalm 88; Matthew 13:14-15; Jeremiah 29:13-14
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
We are continuing in our tough questions series, and so far we've covered questions like, why did God let it happen? What about hell? And why didn't God answer our prayers? I just want to ask, how many of you have had any of those questions before? Just raise a hand. Have any of you struggled with, there's no shame. Oh my goodness. Okay, there we go. I was like, there's no one raising their hand. I've definitely, yeah. A lot of these questions, at some point or another in our faith, in our walk with God, these questions have come up. And so I just hope our prayer is that God is reaching you and speaking truth into your life. And whether it's a question you're asking right now or maybe it's just one that you've had and you kind of had some resolve. And maybe this is just a nice reminder of God's truth and who he is. We just pray that you guys are being encouraged. And so we're going to continue today in that series. If you've grown up in the church, you've probably heard this phrase, God is always with you. God is always with you. I tell people this as a pastor. I tell my kids this. I want them to know God is always with you.
This comes from Psalm 16:8-9, 11, which says, “I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore, my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices. My body also will rest secure because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful ones see decay. You make known to me the path of life. You will fill me with your joy and your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” So just from the psalms we know that he is with us through thick and thin through joys and hardships he will be with us now until we join him in heaven but what if we don't feel that what if we don't feel God's presence every moment of every day maybe you've been in a season of life or a time in life where you just don't feel God's closeness his uh his love you don't feel much of anything from him. And maybe you've put effort to try and feel closer to God. Sometimes that kind of backfires and you feel even more estranged from him because the thing that you thought would bring you closer doesn't and it just sends you reeling. Maybe you've opened your Bible to read it but it doesn't really make sense or it's just not connecting with you and you're definitely not closer to God after that. Maybe you've been at church and everyone around you is singing during the worship time and their hands are raised and maybe even some tears are coming down their faith or their face with just how much they're connecting, but you're singing and you don't feel anything. Maybe you just feel numb. Maybe you've been praying, trying to connect and talk with God, but you hear nothing back. We talked a little bit about that last week. And you want to believe, you want to experience God's presence, but you just don't feel anything. If you've been there, if you've experienced this, or maybe you're in this right now, you know just how isolating, how depressing, how frustrating this can be. You've cried out only to hear echoes back. You've looked around to see evidence of God, to see nothing. And you start to feel so far away from him. And maybe the doubt starts to creep in. And maybe you're starting to think there's a distance between me and God, and I don't know if it can be overcome. If you felt that before, if you're feeling that right now in this point in your life, you're not alone. I said this last week. I want to say it again. You are not alone in how you're feeling in your relationship with God.
We're going to read Psalm 88. But before you do that, let me just pray. Let me pray one more time for us. Bow your heads. God, I pray, Lord, through the preaching of your word, that your spirit would comfort us, would reach us. and maybe we're in a good place right now in life and so this is just going to be helping us spread deeper roots of faith to know that when that tough time comes lord we we know the truth and we can be reminded of your presence but maybe we're in it right now and so god i pray that again through your word and through your spirit you would reach people and that they would know that you are there with them and that through a time together as a church through the preaching of your word through worshiping, through song, through fellowship around a table, we pray that we would feel and experience your presence, God. So we give this morning to you. We pray this in your name. Amen. If you've been with us long enough and you've heard us preach out of the Psalms, you know that we love mentioning the Psalms as our go-to book for relating with emotions. It's a very, it's got all the human emotions in it, the good, the bad. There is a Psalm for how you are feeling. And sure enough, if you're feeling like God is far away, there is a psalm for that too. There are psalms for times of consolation and desolation. Consolation times where we're moving closer to God and times of desolation where we feel like we're moving away from God. So I want to read Psalm 88. And it says it's a song from the sons of Korah. And if you ever see that title above a psalm that you're reading, you can just know this is going to be a darker, sadder psalm. The sons of Korah wrote sad songs. We all know those bands today that only write like sad, emotional, emo songs. That's the sons of Korah. So if you read that and you just are like, oh, is this going to be happy? And you see that title. No, it's not going to be happy. Get ready for tears and anguish. All right.
Psalm 88 says this, "Lord, you are the God who saves me. Day and night I cry out to you. May my prayer come before you. Turn your ear to my cry. I am overwhelmed with troubles and my life draws near to death. I am counted among those who go down to the pit. I am like one without strength. I am set apart with the dead like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more, who are cut off from your care. You have put me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths. Your wrath lies heavily on me. You have overwhelmed me with all your waves. You have taken me from my closest friends and have made me repulsive to them. I am confined and cannot escape. My eyes are dim with grief. I call to you, Lord, every day. I spread out my hands to you. Do you show your wonders to the dead? Do their spirits rise up and praise you? Is your love declared in the grave your faithfulness and destruction? Are your wonders known in the place of darkness or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion? But I cry to you for help, Lord. In the morning, my prayer comes before you. Why, Lord, do you reject me and hide your face from me? From my youth, I have suffered and been close to death. I have borne your terrors and am in despair. Your wrath has swept over me. Your terrors have destroyed me. All day long, they surround me like a flood. They have completely engulfed me. You have taken me from my friend and neighbor. Darkness is my closest friend.”
Do you feel the anguish and the pain i mean can you hear the author the author fighting back the sense of betrayal he's sharing with god his fears of being abandoned i just want to go section by section through this chapter in verses one through eight we see the author pleading over and over again and like i said last week repetition in the old testament is key to understanding the heart of the person writing it. So just, he's trying to convey, this is all that's on my mind. This is it, God. And he seems to convey that he's holding God responsible for everything that he's going through. All the pain, all the hardship. But he also conveys that God is the only one who can deliver them. Have you ever had similar thoughts? God, why are you doing this to me? Please save me. Like, God, you're responsible. This is your fault. But also, I'm looking to you for the answer. And I think I love that because I think we've all said that at some point. And it's just an honest line to God. We don't understand. We're kind of blaming him. But we're also acknowledging that he is God. He's the one that can do something about it. Verse 5 sticks out as this theme in the Old Testament. I am set apart from the dead like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more, who are cut off from your care. and it's this idea of not being in God's presence the author is saying your presence would be the answer to be in your presence would bring me peace would be life-giving would help me feel full and without your presence life feels hellish it's terrible it's a place of suffering and so that's this theme throughout the old testament but also throughout the bible of we want to be in God's presence. And there's no middle ground. It's not like, hey, over there is not God's presence and that's really bad. And over there is God's presence and it's better. And I'm just in the middle and life is fine. No, we want to be in life's presence. And the farther away we are from him, the worse it gets. And so all this descriptive language, I'm thrown into a pit. Another theme in the Old Testament of near death, being in the ground. That's the language that the Old Testament is using of being in the ground means I'm feeling like I'm buried. Going back to the being cast out of God's presence, that makes us think of Adam and Eve, the first to be cast out of God's presence. After sin, and what sin did to the relationship between humanity and God, they could no longer dwell in Eden where God's presence was, and So they had to leave. And again, there's this pattern throughout the Old Testament of those who disobeyed, who rebelled, were no longer able to be in God's presence. We'll come back to that more later.
Verses 9 through 12, we see that the pleading continues. And in verse 10, I mean, this just shows just how sad and struggling he is that there's not even hope in death because God isn't present there. In a way, they're saying they're as good as dead. And the author rattles off these questions in 10 through 12. Do you show your wonders to the dead? Do the spirits rise up and praise you? Is your love declared in the grave, your faithfulness and destruction? Are your wonders known in the place of darkness or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion? These are all rhetorical questions saying, God, you're not there. You're not in death. But I feel like I'm in there right now. I feel like I'm dead because I don't get anything. And I'm not able to respond in the way that I want to. to you. And he's appealing to God's character and reputation. And he's saying, I want to declare your wonders. I want to sing your praises. So God, help me out. The psalmist is trying to appeal to the God of life and saying, please undo this. Make me feel alive again so I can praise you like I was created to.
Then in 13 through 18 there's there's more pleading verse 14 why lord do you reject me and hide your face from me he's accusing Yahweh of afflicting him through neglect that's another theme that the Israelites would have that phrase of hide your face is again when God looks on us there's these phrases in the old old testament that repeat over and over again God looked on him with favor he faith his face shining upon him was a blessing and so to hide God's face meant rejection and God couldn't dare look we kind of have that we have a similar phrase today right I couldn't dare look upon you I couldn't I can't look I can't bear to see which again just conveys that it's so bad and I just can't I can't acknowledge that And so the author's crying out, God, you're not looking at me. I just want to see your face. He sees himself helpless and overwhelmed before God.
And then in 18, the psalmist ends with this bleak note of loneliness. You have taken me from friend and neighbor. Darkness is my closest friend. Just the loneliness, the feeling of abandonment. when we feel far from god this is where the enemy loves to come in and start to do his work the enemy loves for us to be isolated wants us to feel alone wants us to not look for community to reach out just wants us to kind of disappear and say yeah no one cares you're in such a bad place that nothing can help you no one can help you and so the psalmist is saying i feel like god you're my last hope and i don't even think you're going to help me now unlike other psalms this one doesn't end with a praise to god we've seen in other sad psalms that there's all this sadness and at the very end it's like but god praise you for you are good and i know you love me and you're so steadfast and it kind of always ends on this uptick of like but i know you're going to figure it out and i'll be okay this one doesn't it just ends right there with God, I'm lonely. And I think that's also, I think the other Psalms are helpful to know that like, hey, we should end by praising God. But I think this also just validates that we can have seasons of feeling at our absolute lowest and just bring that before God and just leave it there and say, God, this is where I'm at. This is what I'm feeling. It emphasizes just how frustrating and scary and devastating it feels like to have God not there with us. Now you may be wondering, does this venting and this psalm and how much the psalmist is accusing God, is that worship God? Is that okay? Can we have that in the Bible?
And I want to quote this theologian. He says, “Psalms such as this one, despite being accusatory of Yahweh, actually express faith in him by directing concerns to him. The accusations of Yahweh do not necessarily accurately depict Yahweh's character or his actual role in the psalmist's life. Instead, they express the emotion of the psalmist toward Yahweh. In this regard, psalms like this one show that Yahweh is willing to listen to any and all prayers directed faithfully to him.” I take such great comfort in that thought, that God is listening. We don't have to have a polished, I praise you, God, at the end. That's great. If our hearts are there, by all means, we should. But he will also listen if we're just coming before him saying, God, this is what I have right now. This is where I'm at. I don't know where to go from here. I don't know how to even talk to you because I'm so frustrated and lonely and scared. And I love that God listens. God hears you and is listening always and faithfully. I know sometimes in our anger and in our hurt, we can say things that are more hyperbolic. We can use some exaggeration. I know I've been guilty of this. Sometimes in my lowest moments, if I'm arguing with a wonderful wife, I will say words like always and never that are not good to say in arguments, but I'm just feeling that frustration. And I'm like, you always or you never. And that's not good. That's not accurate, but I'm just wound up with emotion and I'm feeling hurt. And I think that is what's here. Again, this psalm, just because it's in the Bible, doesn't mean that, oh, this is how God is. God abandons us. God, no, this is just the author saying, God, this is how I'm feeling. This is just where I'm at, thinking of you and almost kind of like, please prove me wrong. Please show me that you are good, that you are faithful.
So this psalm validates and shows that there are times where we don't feel close to God. And David isn't alone in this feeling. Or David, he writes other psalms like this, the sons of Korah. Israel as a nation has felt moments like this where they have not felt close to God. We'll get to some of the reasons why. Paul had moments where he didn't feel close to God, wondering where God was. Adam and Eve, like I mentioned, they were once who said, God, where are you in the midst of this? You can go through the entire scripture and find moments where people who are known for being, the relationship with God was so tight, had moments, had seasons of, God, I'm just feeling far away from you. And even Jesus on the cross as Father, Father, why have you forsaken me? That distance that he felt in that moment from God. So I want to look at some scriptural reasons as to why we don't always feel close to God. I think there's three possible reasons that we see from Scripture.
The first is, maybe you're over-sensationalizing God's presence. Maybe you're over-sensationalizing God's presence. Jesus said, even in John 6:30, some people are always looking for a sign. And so maybe you've had in your life some experience with God that was really good. You felt his presence, and now you're just chasing that exact feeling forever. And anything less than that or anything different feels like it wasn't as close to God. And maybe you did. Like we at youth ministry, we often talk about the mountain high experience, right? The mountaintop experience where at camp, you feel close to God. You're worshiping every day. You're hearing God's word. And then after that, you come back down from the mountain. You come back to real life and you just don't feel as close. Now, the reality is you may be close. You may be reading God's word every day. You may be praying. It just doesn't feel the same. and then we can compare and say, but God, I'm not close to you. And he's like, I'm right here with you. We're talking every day. It's just not up here in the mountain. It's back here in the normal. So maybe you're over sensationalizing God's presence. You're chasing experience that you've had before. Maybe you're frustrated because you're in a moment where your expectations have set the bar up here and saying, I've heard of someone else. This is what it means to be close to God. So again, anything less than that just feels like, nope, not feeling God's presence. Maybe there's moments where you've thought you've ruined a spiritual moment god's presence and work can still be true even if you get distracted in something that's happening or maybe you were the cause of the distraction.
I remember a time I went to a christian college and I was a resident assistant for a year and we had an RA we had training and it was orientation we all got prepped. We were there for a week. And it was like the day before students were coming and they had this ceremony and we were going to have this commissioning time for us RAs. There was a time of prayer and it was in this auditorium. I sat right in the middle with my RAs right in the middle. This is embarrassing to say. I got the giggles and I just couldn't stop laughing and snickering in this. I don't even know what I was laughing at, but that person up there was trying their best to have this very spiritual, like, hands up, and they're praying, and I just, like, I lost it. And then I laughed, and I laughed, and some people around me were, like, all, because laughter is infectious, and they were all laughing, too. And then it got past the point of funny, and I just kept laughing, and then they got annoyed, and they're, like, dude, get a hold of yourself. And I was ruining this spiritual moment. And I look back, I'm, like, well, God, it's not like I scared God away and he was no longer there because I started laughing. He's still there. He's still doing his work. And so sometimes we can feel like, oh, I ruined something and God's presence is no longer there. And really that's probably just us feeling something when the truth is God is still there. He's still with us. It just took a different tone and so be it. God's work is still being done. His presence is still there. The reality is feelings aren't the only evidence of God's presence in our lives. That's the point here. If we're not feeling it, that doesn't mean that it's not true. If we always felt God's presence, there wouldn't be really a need for faith, right? We just know. In some sense that we have, we just know he's always there. Then we'd be like, yeah, he's either here or he's not. But faith, this is part of our faith that we need is to, even when we don't feel it, we can know and believe and trust that God's presence is with us and that he is walking step-by-step with us every day.
Number two, so first, maybe you're over sensationalizing God's presence. Number two, maybe your heart has hardened. Matthew 13:14 says, “In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah. You will be ever hearing, but never understanding. You will be ever seeing, but never perceiving. For this people's heart has become calloused. They hardly hear with their ears and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise, they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.” Sometimes, we harden our hearts or our hearts become hardened through whatever circumstances, and we can just no longer hear and sense God and what he's trying to do through his spirit. Maybe someone hurt you, and that bitterness and that lack of forgiveness has hardened your heart. And even though God wasn't the one that hurt you, it was someone else. We talked about this a couple weeks ago. Our relationships with other people matter to God and affect our relationship with God. So maybe someone hurt you and you've closed your heart. Maybe your world got flipped upside down and you're just feeling the craziness of the world and you close your heart. You become embittered and hard-hearted. But the number one cause of a hardened heart is ongoing sin. either that you are committing or like i said the bitterness and callousness that comes from not forgiving someone who is sinning against you pastor Craig Groeschel puts it this way when it's cold outside we bundle up right you get layers on get your coat get your gloves maybe scarf some boots maybe a little beanie you get all bundled up and you're covered in clothes you can't feel the cold. Well, when we are covered in sin, it's very hard to feel God. That sin acts as a barrier to what the Spirit is trying to reach, how the Spirit is trying to reach us, talk to us, speak to us. And all that sin makes it so hard for us to feel God's presence, to sense God's presence, to hear him speak. And so this might be a reason that you are not feeling close to God is that you have some sin that needs to be resolved, that needs to be brought before God, that needs to be worked on.
Number three, maybe God wants to draw you closer to him. Acts 17:26 says, “From one man he made all the nations that they should inhabit the whole earth. And he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far away from any of us.” That was Paul preaching to Athens, which is this epicenter of culture and different peoples. And it's that phrase in that verse that says, perhaps they would reach out for him and find him, though he is not far away. God did this so that they would seek him. Sometimes the challenges in our life are there as an opportunity for us to grow closer to God, to take a step closer to God. Oftentimes we think of challenges and hardships as being done to us, and we're just afflicted, and that may be the case. But it's also an opportunity for us to take a step closer to him in faith and say, God, I need you even more now. Have you ever noticed that challenges, hard times, suffering can produce the best from you? It's hard by all means. It is so difficult. But when you get through it and you look back, you can say, have you ever had that experience? We're like, man, I kind of stepped up. That was awesome that I handled it better than I thought. That I've learned something from that. I think one of the truths about that too is that comfort, ease, and prosperity can produce our worst. When we just get comfortable, when we feel like we can just go without even thinking about it, that's often when we're not taking steps closer to God. We're just kind of an autopilot. And we're just neutral. And really, there's no neutral when it comes to our relationship with God. We are either moving closer or we're moving, drifting away. so maybe this distance that we feel from god is an invitation to take a step closer to him sometimes challenges and hard times and suffering can produce the best
I think one of the examples that comes to mind it's one of my favorite movies which is remember the titans and you guys seen remember the titans there will be spoilers first it's a true story second the movie came out in like 2002. I don't know. It's amazing. You should watch it. It's one of my favorite sports movies. And this idea of hard times and suffering and challenges producing the best. And so that school in the South dealing with racial diversity and segregation, they have to work through it and they come together and they go undefeated. And it's amazing. And it brings unity to the team, to the town. And so I think we can think of something similar in our lives that sometimes it's the hardest things that produce something so good. Out of deprivation can draw out desire in us. God wants to be pursued and loved and desired.
Jeremiah 29 says, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all nations and places where I have banished you, declares the Lord. I will bring you back to the place for which I carried you into exile." That's rough to see that this is God saying, I did this to you, knowing that I was going to draw you back. And so there's times where it may be true. God, why did you do this? Maybe he really did do it. And it's really so that we could respond in a way that says, God, I'm taking a step closer to you. Just because God feels distant doesn't mean he is absent. Just because you don't feel him doesn't mean he's not there. Don't believe everything you feel because feelings aren't facts. And so sometimes you'll need to get out of your feelings and rely on your faith, rely on the truth and say, all right, God, I don't have a clue of where you are. I haven't heard from you in a long time, but I still believe, please help me. I'm reaching out to you.
I got three steps to take to move closer to God. If you're struggling, or if you want to just log these away for a future time where you come to this place, but here are three things that'll help you move closer to God. The first is, and it's very obvious, pray. Don't stop talking to God. Don't stop. Oftentimes, it's one of the first things to go is we kind of just start withdrawing. God, you're not there. Well, I'm also not going to be here. And we step out of that relationship. And I'm trying to encourage, I want to encourage you, no, keep talking to him. Even if it just feels like echoes, there's nothing back. Keep talking with God. Sometimes I pray, and feel free to take this. I just pray for me to see what God is doing so I can just know, it doesn't have to be in my own life. Just God, help me see what you're doing in the lives of people around me. Give me a sign somewhere that you are at work just so I can praise you. All right, okay, that was clearly you. You are still here. It's okay to ask God for these things as evidence of his presence.
Number two is to fast. I know you guys love this one, so we all do it, right? All of us are fasting? Yeah, for sure. Our spiritual and mental and physical aspects of our body are all a part of who God created us to be. And so sometimes we need that physical deprivation to be more sensitive and attuned to what God is doing in our hearts and to sense his presence in our lives. Author and pastor John Mark Comer says, In fasting, you are literally praying with all your body, amplifying your prayers, increasing your capacity to both hear and be heard by God. So if you are serious about God, I haven't sensed you, I need to hear from you, maybe it's time to take a fast and say, I'm going to fast for a whole day, 24 hours, and I'm going to be listening to God. I'm going to be praying to him. I'm going to wait patiently and intentionally for him to respond to me.
The third one is to continue in community. Like I mentioned before, so often isolation is something that we go to when we're not feeling God's presence. We just kind of, we also just leave. And I think that is the work of Satan that he loves to get us alone. And so opposite of that is to continue in community. There is no shame in not feeling as close to God. I think we can feel that shame. And we can see people worshiping with their hands raised and be like, oh, I'm not there. That's not me. And all of a sudden we just like, we send some distance. Like, I'm not as Christian or I'm not as holy or I'm not as, no, there's no shame in wherever you're at with God. That is something to be shared. That is something to put that burden on us as a church family to say, help me, man, I'm not feeling it, but you guys are. I want to be around you. Continue in community, share your life with people that care about you, that love you no matter what. So I want you to pull out your programs right now if you have them. There's an action step on there. And I listed all three. This week, what are you going to do? Are you going to choose to pray? Are you going to choose to fast? Can't wait to see those. Yeah, fast. Everyone choose fast. Let's all fast together. Are you going to continue to community? I think I put in there something like, I'm going to connect with someone. I want you to mark something down if you feel led. I'm feeling distance from God. And so here's the step I'm going to take to move closer to God. I'm not going to drift away. I'm not going to take steps back. I'm going to move closer to him in some way, shape, or form. Maybe you threw one of those three. And if that's you, go ahead and put your name on that. Mark that off. And at the end, you can drop it in the bucket. And we want to pray for you this week as you do that. I want to end with this. It's a liturgy, kind of a prayer. And I've been really, in the last couple of years, I've really enjoyed and appreciated these liturgies because I think in times in my life where I don't know what to pray, the words from this give words to my feelings and my circumstances. And maybe I'm just too tired or too grieved and I just don't know what to say. And I can read this liturgy and say, yes, God, this is exactly how I'm feeling. And so I wanna read one to you as our prayer at the end. It's from this book called Every Moment Holy written by Heidi Johnston. And if it helps right now, I would just encourage you guys, This will be our ending prayer.
So you guys can close your eyes and just hear this as a prayer over us today. It says this. Jehovah Shalom, God of our peace. You promised that our burden would be light. Yet here I am, shoulders bent under the weight of a silence that is long and heavy. I call to you and wait and hear no answer. I cry to you, but do not hear your voice. Untethered, I feel the loss, not of you alone, but also of myself and who I am in you. I recall with longing days when the waters parted at your command and you carried me father-like into your presence. When your loving kindness was the whisper that revived my weary soul. When your presence was the pillar that marked my path by day. and your voice the flame that banished darkness and kindled my song in the night. Oh God, my God, where is your comfort now? Why has your voice stilled? Have I wavered or wandered from your path? Has my heart been drawn away? Search me, oh God, and find within me any pride that caused me to stand at a distance, even as I mourn your absence. Any sin that brings dishonor to your name, grieving your spirit and robbing me of the intimacy I so crave or so long to crave. Rid that from me. If my gaze has drifted, help me trust your grace and look you in the eye once more. God, if this distance is instead a hidden blessing, then let me be found faithful. If in this season of loneliness, your silence simply offers me a chance to do what will never be asked of me again in all of eternity to come, to trust without sight, believing that time will vindicate my hope and prove you ever constant, then give me the courage to stand. Trusting that these lines I throw out are not cast into emptiness, but passing through the veil have taken hold of things eternal. Give me boldness now, even as doubt crouches at my door, that I may choose to anchor my heart, not in the ebb and flow of feelings, but in what I know to be true, that your word can be trusted, that your promises unbroken in all of history remain constant for me, that you are still who you have shown yourself to be, unchanging in holiness, extravagant in grace, relentless in love. Could it be that even now within this darkness, you are shaping and preparing me, deepening my trust and forming within me a richness of love or a truer humility, which will one day be used in your kingdom or for your glory in ways I cannot yet understand. If so, then fix my eyes on what for now is hidden from my view. Hold my soul fast, O God of my salvation, that I may praise you even here within the silence, for you are my rock and my redeemer, my stronghold, and the sustainer of my faith.
God, that is our prayer this morning, that if we are in that time right now, feeling lost, that we would cling to you. And God, we beg, we pray, we plead for your presence in our lives. Meet us this week, God. Show up for us this week. Open our eyes to what you are doing so that we can praise you. and we can have more faith in you. God, thank you for our time this morning. Thank you for the people around us that love us, that care for us. And thank you for the opportunity to have a meal together. We pray a blessing over the food in our time together as a church family. We love you and we pray this in your son's name. Amen.