The past few days I’ve noticed a certain silence from Jesus. I’ve gone through the usual thought processes we all go through when we can’t sense His real Presence. I’ve pondered which sins I’ve committed and when none came quickly to mind, I prayed that He would reveal them to me so I could confess them.

Nothing happened. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I just couldn’t seem to focus on Him, everything seemed to crowd out my ability to hear His voice so clearly. Now there only seemed to be silence. I thought back over a few circumstances and prayed that He would show me where I had gone wrong. Because obviously if I’m not hearing Him, not feeling Him, I’m the problem, right? We’ve all heard that saying, “If you feel far from God, guess who moved?” And we all know the answer to that isn’t Jesus.

I thought on one particular situation because if I screwed up anywhere that was where I knew Jesus would reveal my sin so I could confess and turn from it, and life could get back to normal. But instead I had a sense of “I did it right! I obeyed when I said that.”

I don’t want to be one who only looks to Jesus when life is hard and hurts. I want to rely on Him and His voice leading and guiding me every day. In the good and hard times I want to rely on His life living in me.

I believe in a time of not hearing His voice He directed me to read Psalm 73. He reminded me that He is good to us (verse 1) and that we are not to be jealous of the wicked. This life is all they have, all they can hope for, but we have untold treasures forever. We can’t even conceive of what awaits us in heaven.

He stopped me cold when I read this;

“But as for me, the nearness of God is my good…” Psalm 73:28

His nearness is our good! He is near–in our pain, in our comparing, in our almost slipping, in our brokenness-He is near and it is our good that He is.

Our sin does not keep Him away.  He is near and it is our good. This is how and why He can say, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5) and “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20) He is always near. He doesn’t move, doesn’t leave.

In our sinful state He drew us near and gave us His goodness. He is good and He is near no matter what we feel, what we do, or what we face. He is near and He is good. Because He drew us to Him when we were sinners, our sin now does not push Him away.  We can’t, by our own inerrant goodness keep Him close.

Our sin doesn’t affect His position at all. He is not remote. We don’t have to be perfect to keep Him close at hand. He is close and He declares us perfect.

If our goodness didn’t bring Him close, our sin won’t push Him away.  We can neither bring Him near or push Him away. He draws us to Himself when we’re evil and hate Him. So why do we think we must be perfect for Him to speak to our hearts?

He is near and He is always near. He is never in our control and never in our strength. He is our strength! We simply are not strong enough or bad enough to push Him away.

So, dear reader, take heart. In those times you’re struggling to feel His presence, to hear His voice, He is near. He still cannot deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13).

I am not at all saying we can live however we please and expect Him to bless us. Life doesn’t work that way.  While He will not bless our sin, it doesn’t push Him away.