Why Can’t I Feel God’s Presence? 6 Reasons and the Way Back
The Real Reasons It Happens, and the Way Back to His Nearness
First, I want to say to you that God is so pleased with you. You are His child, created in His image, and He loves you.
When you cannot feel God’s presence, He is still with you. He has promised,
“I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5),
and that promise holds even on the mornings it does not feel true.
Maybe you remember a season when your heart was filled with God’s stirring presence. Maybe you hear people talk about sensing His nearness and you wonder what that is like. Maybe you sense Him on occasion and long to pursue Him more passionately.
If you cannot feel God’s presence, the reason is usually one of a few. Our desire may have been dulled by hard circumstances, unconfessed sin, or disappointment.
We may lead a busy life that is simply too full to make room for God. Or perhaps you have never known His intimate presence and do not yet know what it feels like.
When we repent and clear these things away, we can awaken to His nearness again.
In This Article
- When God Seems Far Away
- The Six Reasons You May Not Feel His Presence
- How Do I Know If I Am Spiritually Asleep?
- Indicators You Are Awakened to His Presence
- Finding Your Way Back to His Presence
When God Seems Far Away
Have you ever sat down to pray and felt as though your words rose only as far as the ceiling? You know God is near. You believe He hears you. Yet the warmth you long for does not come, and you rise from your knees wondering what went wrong.
Dear friend, God has not withdrawn from you. He is nearer than the air you are breathing. What tender faith you carry, to keep seeking Him even when He feels far away. You believe without seeing, and great is your reward, the Bible tells us.
Because we live in a fallen world, it can be difficult to sense our Creator Father in our personal spirits. We spend all our lives training our physical bodies, our minds, and even our emotions. Yet our personal spirit can remain weak from lack of attention and training.
We all go through seasons when it seems as though God is far away. By faith we know He is with us and He loves us (Psalms 139; John 1:12).
Friend, because you are truly seeking more of Him, you will find more of Him.
“And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).
The Reasons You May Not Feel God’s Presence
When you cannot sense His nearness, the cause is often one of these:
- You have probably felt His presence already and did not recognize it
- Your life is simply too full to make room for Him
- Unconfessed sin stands between you and a holy God
- Disappointment has settled into your soul
- Your desire has been dulled by hard circumstances
- You are still awakening to more of what His presence feels like
Each one of these obstacles is also a door that opens to Him. Let us explore each one.
1. You Have Probably Felt His Presence Already
Many people feel closer to God in nature than anywhere else. So, it’s possible you may have felt the presence of God as you were caught up in His peaceful presence during a beautiful moment in nature (Romans 1:20).
Many people also experience God during praise and worship. Most likely you have known His peace and His love in those moments. When you experience love, you experience God’s presence. God is peace. God is love.
These experiences can become stepping stones to a deeper awareness and knowledge of God. He has not left you. He has not forsaken you. He loves you.
2. Your Life Is Too Full for Him
We may lead a busy life that is simply too full to make room for God. The noise of life crowds Him out. When we slow down and make room, we discover He was waiting there all along.
3. Unconfessed Sin Stands Between You
If you cannot sense His presence, the cause may be unconfessed sin. You will want to take care of that first.
Your Creator God is holy, with not even a shadow of darkness in Him. His nature cannot come near sinful humanity until we are covered by Jesus’ blood.
Simply ask Him to forgive you of sins you know of and sins you may not be aware of at this moment. Give Him all your guilt, shame, fear, bitterness, unforgiveness, hurt, anger, stress, and failure, along with anything else that comes to mind. These things hinder you from hearing God’s voice and sensing His presence.
Ask Him to show you what in your heart needs forgiveness. He is faithful and just to forgive, if you ask.
4. Disappointment Has Settled In
Some of you are filled with extreme disappointment. Give that disappointment to God. Tell Him all about it and hand it over to Him. You can say, “Jesus, by faith I give you my ______. I loose it from my soul” (Matthew 18:18).
Do that now. Ask Him to take those things from your soul. You do not need them in there. Get rid of them.
Now, don’t you feel better? You can begin afresh with hope, wonder, and expectation. Your capacity for a deeper relationship is restored, and you are ready to experience greater depths of His presence and love.
5. Your Heart Has Grown Dull
Hard seasons weary the heart. Grief, exhaustion, and long disappointment clutter our hearts, and over time our desire for God dulls. A dulled heart can be awakened again through God’s Word and the blood of Jesus, and through the cultivation of spiritual sensitivity.
6. You Haven’t Fully Awakened to Know His Nearness
Perhaps you have experienced His presence in worship or in nature, yet you have never known the intimate nearness your heart desires. Perhaps you have not yet learned how to awaken fully to Him. Truthfully, I see this in many, many people.
This one deserves a closer look, because most of us cannot tell from the inside whether our personal spirit is awake or slumbering. The indicators below will help you locate yourself.
How Do I Know If I Am Spiritually Asleep?
“Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (Ephesians 5:14).
I have been a Christian since I was a child. Yet it was not until my thirties that I awoke to a deeper experience of God’s presence.
I had decided to take time each morning for prayer and the Scriptures when I began to experience an internal kind of goose-bumpy feeling, warm and full of peace. It was immense peace and love. I would describe it, as Charles Finney did long ago, as “liquid love.”
In all my years of being a Christian, I had learned about God and experienced His presence in many ways. I knew Him in my baptism and salvation, in worship, in prayer, and even in intercession.
These were precious moments, though they were not sustained daily experiences. I had heard people speak of “practicing the presence” of God and “abiding in Christ,” as you may have too, and I did not fully understand what it all meant.
Many people live their entire lives unaware of God’s glorious presence. Some turn toward Him on occasion, yet most people carry little awareness of His nearness. It is as if they go through life without being truly awake spiritually.
From the beginning, God created us as human beings of spirit, soul, and body. Our bodies sleep through the night while the outside world continues. So also the spiritual world continues around us, whether or not we are aware of it.
His presence surrounds us each moment like the air we breathe, and it offers us fresh opportunities to connect with Him all through the day. What we need is to learn how to recognize those opportunities.
Indicators Your Personal Spirit Is Slumbering
Every believer is awakened to God enough to trust Jesus for salvation. Beyond that, there is a deeper awareness of His presence to which we can all aspire.
Keep in mind that each person carries an individual spiritual and emotional temperament and may experience God differently. Some of us are fully awake in certain areas and asleep in others. Some slip in and out of cycles of sleepiness and alertness.
With that said, the following indicate a personal spirit that slumbers in some way to God’s deep-dwelling abiding presence:
- You know by faith that God is present in corporate worship, yet you do not experience His love in an intensely personal way. You might say, “I believe God is aware of our worship, and I have never experienced what you are talking about.”
- In prayer you cannot sustain communication, because prayer feels dry and dull and your mind wanders.
- Personal Scripture reading has become cognitive reading or study, without the quickening breath of God speaking through the words.
- You feel a flicker of His presence for a moment, then find yourself unable to stay and rest there, distracted by many things.
Do any of these describe you? If so, take heart. These indicate a personal spirit that is not yet awake enough to experience the reality of His abiding presence, and that is something you can cultivate.
Indicators You Are Awakened to His Presence
- You feel Him moving in your personal spirit. God quickens your spirit and enables spiritual worship (John 4:23-24).
- You entertain His presence more and more as you commune daily with the Spirit of God.
- In private prayer and devotion, you can read Scripture, pray, and worship with a real sense of refreshing, strengthening, and love in Jesus Christ’s presence.
- You enjoy a quiet devotional time, because your personal spirit can soar, unimpeded by the demands and distractions of other people.
- Your senses are heightened by being surrounded by His love.
- True worship in the Spirit has become a reality, and your time alone with Him is rewarding and intimate.
- You grow toward more security in your inner person, and you relax into time spent alone with God.
There are many personality types, and even the extrovert can enjoy the awareness of God’s presence in silence. We were all created to enjoy the refreshing rest and peace of His personal presence.
Your next step: Read through both lists once more, slowly, and mark the two or three indicators that describe you most accurately today. Write them down. Then bring those specific places to God and ask Him to awaken your personal spirit in exactly those areas. You have now named the ground where your awakening will begin.
©Dr. Cynthia K. Johnson
Finding Your Way Back to His Presence
Once you have cleared away what dulled your heart, you are ready to awaken to more of Him.
God’s presence can be felt in various ways. It may come as liquid love, as a lightness or joy in your heart, or as a deep sense of knowing something.
His presence is always peace, love, and joy. Anger, anxiety, fear, and hate never accompany it. I describe each of these more fully in What Does God’s Presence Feel Like? How to Recognize It Daily.
“He is a rewarder of those who seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6).
We are created spirit by our Creator Father, so we already carry the capacity to experience Him. What remains is to learn how to awaken.
For many of us this is a journey. It takes time to clear the clutter of the soul and to trust God more and more.
A medical doctor learns to see things on an X-ray that the average person cannot discern, and in the same way we learn little by little to recognize spiritual realities we did not notice before.
Three practices have helped me most, and I walk through all of them in How to Feel God’s Presence:
Practice gratitude. I once took an entire year to find and document something I was grateful for each day. Start by noticing one good thing daily. God is good, beautiful, peaceful, and lovely, and this small exercise reaps great rewards in your spiritual life.
Join yourself to others. Find people and churches who believe in the moving of the Holy Spirit, in hearing God’s voice, and in the gifts of the Spirit. Growing in the things of God is like being a glowing ember. Joined with other flaming coals, you catch fire and burn hotter than you could alone.
Work the exercise. In this step-by-step exercise to feel God’s presence, I share the practice I repeated over and over until I learned to sense Him. Do not give up. Practice it daily with expectation until you notice His sweet stirring love. You can do this.
More Help When You Can’t Feel God’s Presence
Some people have trouble quieting the noise in their minds. In How to Quiet Your Mind to Find Peace I share a simple exercise that helps.
Here is a free resource checklist I put together for you, a list of simple exercises that train your personal spirit to sense His presence in deeper ways.
If you have not yet received the gift and baptism of the Holy Spirit, that could be a significant step forward as well. See What Is the Baptism/Gift of the Holy Spirit?
Thank you for reading. God bless you on your journey.
FAQ About Why Can’t I Feel God’s Presence
A: When you cannot feel God’s presence, the cause is usually something hindering your awareness rather than His absence. The six most common reasons are a life too full to make room for Him, unconfessed sin, disappointment settled in the soul, a heart dulled by hard circumstances, moments of His presence you have already felt without recognizing them, and a personal spirit not yet awakened to His nearness. Each one can be cleared away.
A: A slumbering personal spirit shows itself in recognizable ways. You know God is present in corporate worship by faith, yet you have never experienced His love in an intensely personal way. Prayer feels dry and dull, and your mind wanders. Scripture reading stays cognitive, without the quickening breath of God. You feel a flicker of His presence and cannot stay and rest there. An awakened spirit feels God moving within, worships in the Spirit, and finds real refreshing and strength in private devotion.
A: No. God has promised, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). His nearness never depends on your feelings. Seasons come when He seems far away, and by faith we know He is with us and He loves us (Psalm 139; John 1:12).
A: God’s presence can be felt like a good “goose-bumpy” feeling, like liquid love, as a lightness or joy in the heart, or as a deep sense of knowing. His presence is always peace, love, and joy. Anger, anxiety, fear, and hate never accompany it, which gives you a reliable way to discern what you are sensing.
A: For most of us this is a journey rather than a single moment. For some of us, we just ask. For others, It may take time to clear the clutter of the soul and to trust God more deeply. A medical doctor learns to see things on an X-ray that others cannot discern, and in the same way we learn little by little to recognize what we did not notice before. Daily practice with expectation is what awakens the personal spirit.
Are You Longing for More of God’s Presence?
If you want more examples, teaching, and practical steps to practice the presence of God, I have a whole book to help. Discover a step-by-step guide to practicing His presence in everyday life. See on Amazon!
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That was very Encouraging. Now I need to Receive this. I’m so Numb inside from Husband Warfare of 20yrs of Strife, Hate, Anger, and Arguing. It’s worn me down. I used to be so Spirit Filled and Close to the H/S. I’ve Repent every night. I just don’t sense Nothing. I can’t Hear the lord. Nor are my Prayer’s Answered. I have no Clue what to do. It’s Horrible thinking youve been maybe Written out of the Lamb’s Book, That he hasn’t forgiven my Sins. Husband is very Demon Possessed so H/S is Grieved here all the time by Anger ect.. Amen !
“rest assured He is with you and loves you”???? If I was resting assured, I wouldn’t be reading the article.
“Give your disappointment to God”??? What does that even mean? He knows my disappointment, I tell Him every day and every day He does nothing but make things more difficult. After decades, I think I’ve been patient enough. Not helpful!