Why are there times when God seems silent / absent in a believer's life?

There is more than the possibility, when your prayers are long unanswered, and your expectations languish, and the dark clouds of hopeless despair begin to settle down on your soul, that you say with Jacob of old (Isa. 40:27), “My way is hid from the Lord and my judgment is passed over from my God.”

A dark mystery seems to attach to the dealings of God with you. Things are not as in days past when His candle lit up your darkness and His sun shone on your path. You then prayed and were heard. You felt that you had abundance of help and sympathy from on high. Your sky was clear and your song triumphant. But now clouds, darkness, difficulty, sorrow, helplessness surround you, and your heart is crushed. And the sore experience continues. Did it last but a night and then be followed in the morning by joy and deliverance, you could bear it; but that deliverance comes not, and the one thing that makes life, for the man of faith, worth living—the realized, conscious help and smile and favour of God—are still withheld. If His loving-kindness be better than life, the lack of it is worse than death. “True, indeed,” you say. Hence you think that your way is hid from the Lord and your judgment passed over by God!

It need hardly be said that for us the withdrawal is on our side, and that if joy and spiritual food and power fail, we are straitened in ourselves alone. God does not hide Himself, the Spirit is not grieved away, but the barrenness and loneliness of soul are just as real as though it were so. Thanks to His grace, the presence of the Spirit with us is a pledge of our recovery to the joy of the Lord.

These lightning-bursts, these momentary gleams, are just the hints of truth which the Holy Spirit darts into the mind from time to time, revealing matters as they really are. But we ought to recollect, that even during the dark the solid landscape has not vanished, but is only hid. And even so, when Christ's sensible presence is withdrawn, we should remember that He is near as ever, and it is the believer's wisdom to go on in the joyful strength of the assurance, "Lo, I am with you."

Past experiences throng in; to intensify the bitterness. We are made to realize the gladness with which some at least of this people; exiled for so many generations, will return to set up again; as in Ezra's time, their altar to the God of their fathers; under the protection of that covenant with Gentile power (Dan. 9:27) so soon to be broken; and the altar itself devoted to the "abomination" of worse than heathen idolatry. That gleam of sunshine has in this psalm been already swallowed up in the blackness of a tempestuous eclipse. It abides as a memory of distress; "how I passed along with the multitude; how I went on with them to the house of God; with the voice of singing and praise — a multitude keeping festival." And yet the soul cannot let it go as a mere transient vision: faith stirred by it lays hold with its resolute will of this past; to recall it, and make it abiding; the soul rebukes its own despondency: "Why art thou cast down? and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God." Yes; here is what is permanent, what is eternal: hope in God, even though thou canst not find Him; though clouds are round about Him, and thou canst not come unto His seat; though His ways are in deepest mystery; though even thou couldst not find a promise that thou couldst claim undoubtedly. He Himself is promise! In His own all-pitying love — in the goodness of His nature, passing all that we can tell or think; — in Himself thou canst find refuge; a door wide open; and strong fortress walls that close around the one who has fled to Him. Can He say; you have trusted Me too much? Nay, He cannot. Here is His word at last that applies; if nothing else does: "Blessed are all they who put their trust in Him."

The truth is, that, in the way in which many believers are occupied in daily life, they little realise the presence of God. It is not that they have not peace, but that they never fully estimate what the flesh is before God. One learns this from intercourse with Christians, and specially with those who have been long Christians. They know very little what it is to find themselves face to face with God. They may have been awakened under convictions of sin (perhaps terrible convictions), and have got peace to their souls; but since that there may have been the going on comfortably with certain things, without a realising of the presence of God, so that if it were to come on them, they too would be "consumed" with terror. It is well for us to remember that certainty as to salvation is the proper, the normal state of a Christian. I repeat this here, just to shew that what I am now saying is not meant to deny it at all; but still I say that if God were to meet such persons, real Christians though they were, in the present power of what He is as God, it would produce trouble and distress. This ought not so to be. It is quite clear that, if it is the case, we are not really living in His presence, and that is the place where we are privileged to be. There is a constant tendency in our hearts, when out of it, to be taken up with certain things that are grounded upon what is truly our relationship to God, and to carry on these things without realising His presence. Now, if confidence goes along with this, it is a most hardening thing. Confidence, I repeat, ought always to be the portion of the believer - the confidence of faith. God does not withdraw this, but we may lose it. Whilst there is a going on with confidence, and we are not walking in the presence of God, the conscience not being sincere, there exists that which is mining the very foundation. We may go on in joy, but if that joy is not joy in the presence of God, there will be a breakdown some time.

The truth is, that in the way in which many believers are occupied in daily life, they little realize the presence of God. It is not that they have not peace, but that they never fully estimate what the flesh is before God. One learns this from intercourse with Christians, and specially with those who have been long Christians. They know very little what it is to find themselves face to face with God. They may have been awakened under convictions of sin (perhaps terrible convictions), and have got peace to their souls; but since that there may have been the going on comfortably with certain things without a realizing of the presence of God, so that if it were to come on them, they too would be "consumed" with terror. It is well for us to remember that certainty as to salvation is the proper, the normal state of a Christian. I repeat that here just to show that what I am now saying is not meant to deny it at all; but still I say that if God were to meet such persons, real Christians though they were, in the present power of what He is as God, it would produce trouble and distress. This ought not so to be. It is quite clear that, if it is the case, we are not really living in His presence, and that is the place where we are privileged to be. There is a constant tendency in our hearts, when out of it, to be taken up with certain things that are grounded upon what is truly our relationship to God, and to carry on these things without realizing His presence. Now, if confidence goes along with this, it is a most hardening thing. Confidence, I repeat, ought always to be the portion of the believer, the confidence of faith. God does not withdraw that, but we may lose it. Whilst there is a going on with confidence, and we are not walking in the presence of God, the conscience not being sincere, there exists that which is mining the very foundation. We may go on in joy, but if that joy is not joy in the presence of God, there will be a break-down sometime.

You have our fullest sympathy. We have met many of God's dear children in precisely your condition. Indeed they have, in stating their exercises, used your very words. “This,” you will say, “is poor comfort for me.” And yet it may not be so. We know a very dear saint of God who was under exercise for years and the only thing that gave him the smallest comfort was Psalm 88. Why? Because there was not a single bit of comfort in it. Yet it was written by a saint of God. Therefore she might be a saint, though she was thoroughly miserable. We write not thus, dear friend, to lead you to be content in your present dark and unhappy condition. Far from it. We beseech you to look off from your feelings, your experiences, your evidences and your faith itself, and rest in Christ and His finished work. God is satisfied with Christ on your behalf. Is He not enough to satisfy you? Do you want to add something of your own to Christ? This is really the question. May God bless you!

The Lord Jesus wants us to realise how much He feels our lack of love to Him and so it is necessary sometimes for us to be put into circumstances where the awfulness of life without Him comes home to us. So He withdraws Himself and leaves the Holy Spirit to work in our hearts. We read in verse 6, "I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer." He would have us experience what unrequited love feels like. Sometimes the only way that we learn is by passing through circumstances in which we may drop so low as to wonder if the Lord Jesus is with us. We know that He has said, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee" (Heb. 13:5). This is always true, but when my heart becomes cold towards Him, I will lose the sense of His company.

She speaks with anguish now for she had felt what is like to call to him and have no answer. Have you ever done that? Got really low in spirit, prayed hard but it seemed as though He was not listening? Look deeply into your own heart and see if He is everything to you and that you may have, for a while, lived as if He did not exist. We must learn what that feels like.

When we have become neglectful of the Lord and can be content to go on thus at a distance from Him, He feels it keenly. He will seek to arouse us, but He must make us feel too that we have really gotten away from Him. Since the Lord has felt it deeply that we have neglected Him, there can be no real restoration to happy communion and concert of heart with Him, till we have been made to realize what we have done in neglecting Him. So He purposely withdraws Himself till this is realized.

We are not told what caused David to write this psalm that at this time found him so depressed; but it may have been while he was an exile hunted by Saul. While his faith was in the Lord, yet faith wavered in feeling the Lord had forgotten him, and the time seemed so long that he feared it might be lengthened forever (v. 1). Such experiences are indeed a trial of faith, and especially since there is no indication of failure or sin on David's part. Yet the believer today may be lifted high above his circumstances if he only takes to heart the truth of the word of the Lord Jesus, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee" (Heb. 13:5). If it seems He has left us, this word is sufficient to negate such a fear.

Yet the psalm is surely prophetic of the distress of the godly remnant of Israel in the Tribulation period. In fact, the same words, "How long, O Lord," are in the mouths of the martyrs under the altar in Revelation 6:10, though they will have been killed at that time. But here the psalmist asks, "How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily?" Though the time seems interminable, yet it is God's wisdom that delays the answer, not only because He is patient toward the ungodly, but because He knows how needful it is for His servants to have prolonged exercise of heart in order for faith to be both tested and strengthened.