Friday Prayer: When You Feel Far Away

Father, you feel absent and I hate it. I pray but heaven seems silent. I worship but feel nothing. I read your word but it's just ink on paper. Where are you? Why won't you answer? Why do you feel so far away when you promise to be close?

Help me trust your promises when my feelings contradict them. You said you'd never leave me, never forsake me, be with me always - but I don't feel you. Teach me that your presence doesn't depend on my ability to sense it. You're here whether I feel it or not. Your promises are true whether they feel true or not.

If this absence is because of unconfessed sin, show me what needs confessing. If it's because I'm exhausted or depressed, help me address those realities. If it's because you're purifying my faith to trust you for who you are rather than how you make me feel, give me endurance for this dark night. You haven't left. Help me believe that when everything in me says otherwise.