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About this episode
What do you do when God seems absent from your story?
Maybe you still pray, read Scripture, and show up, but the closeness you once felt is gone. Does that mean you’ve done something wrong? Has God left?
John Ortberg explores those questions through John of the Cross, the sixteenth-century spiritual writer associated with the phrase dark night of the soul. John explains that this phrase can mean something more specific than a difficult season: a time when the pleasure and reassurance someone once found in spiritual practices seem to fade. For some, John of the Cross believed, that season can become part of learning to love and trust God more deeply.
Through the image of a weaned child in Psalm 131, John asks what it means to remain with God even when we are not receiving the comfort we want. He also remembers learning to ride a bike as his father ran beside him. When his father let go, the support felt different, but his father had not abandoned him.
If God feels hard to find right now, you do not need to manufacture a spiritual feeling today. You can bring your honest experience to him and ask for the grace to wait.
Scripture: Psalm 131:1–3
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Welcome to the World by Sarah Watson
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