Never Forsaken

By Lettie Kirkpatrick Burress

“…You are My servant, I have chosen you and not rejected you. Do not fear for I am with you…” -Isaiah 41:9-10 (NASB)

It has been called the “dark night of the soul.” Most believers will experience a season where they struggle to “feel” God’s presence. In the book A Grief Observed, written following his wife’s death, C.S. Lewis described his sense of God’s absence. “Meanwhile, where is God?” he wrote. “Go to Him when your need is desperate…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.”

My own wilderness began with a series of losses. As I searched for God, longing to sense His presence, comfort, and peace, He finally reminded me that I could trust Him even when He didn’t actively reveal Himself. I could own a “faith that went beyond feeling.”

I went to His Word and remembered His promises. I looked back on years of answered prayers. I had seen Him reveal Himself in the circumstances of my life. And I knew about His power to change lives and restore hope because He had done it for me. His power allows us to be changed through exchange. We receive His peace to replace our anxiety (Philippians 4:6-7), His joy for our grief (Isaiah 61:3), and His energy for our exhaustion (Isaiah 40:29).

Yes, even without “feeling” God, I could walk in faith that He sees and knows my hurts and my longings.

Permission to Republish by the Author. r: Standing On God’s Promises, pg. 17. Written by Lettie Kirkpatrick Burress.