“When I was little, I felt that God was with me, but now I feel so lonely! I wonder if God really was with me back then”.
This question from a young woman is a sign of pessimism; it is the pessimism of youth that has outgrown the age of innocence, but not, fortunately, its aura. However, the author of the question does not ask, as one might expect, whether God is with her in that moment. It is as if she believes, with resignation, that He is not. So she asks herself whether this state of grace in her childhood, when she felt God close to her, was real or illusory.
What happens when, having felt God close to us, we find that we no longer feel Him? Does He move away from us? Or us from Him? I would say now, after years of experiencing this relationship with Him, that it is neither!
Loneliness in the presence of God
The Bible says that it is our sins that have separated us from God (Isaiah 59:2), which is why we no longer perceive Him as we did in those moments of grace, moments that He nevertheless sometimes offers us and that can serve as a “yardstick”. Sin is inevitable in our earthly nature, and we will have to struggle with it until the end of our lives. But we can ask for divine help so that we are not overwhelmed by relapses, temptations, weaknesses, shortcomings, mistakes and sins. We should ask God each time to break down the wall that is between us, to change us according to His will, and to restore our innocence as His children. Therefore, we must not identify ourselves with the “old self”, the worldly, primal, sinful self, which is the only one that turns away from God. Instead, by distancing ourselves with disgust from the sinful self within us, and always aspiring to the Saviour’s model, to His world, we will keep the connection alive.
Reconnecting with God: total surrender and return to innocence
How can this be done concretely? By a total surrender, without holding back and without any hidden “chambers” of the heart, because any such “chambers” show that we are holding on to our autonomy precisely where our choices are more important, more sensitive, and more profound. If we overcome this pride of thinking that we know best in these matters, then He will make Himself known through the experiences of our lives, through people, through events, through processes, through reflections of conscience, through scriptures, through information, and even through miracles, revelations, testimonies, and so on. It is this extremely useful advice of the Apostle Paul: let us make every thought “obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5), every day. Whenever we are tempted or our thoughts and feelings slip into areas that are displeasing to Him, let us first stop and say: “Lord Jesus Christ, take this away, I do not want it to belong to me, it does not represent me; I reject everything that can lead me away from You”.
This practice of inner purification will gradually become stronger, because apart from Him there is no autonomy in our life, only loneliness. We must do the same with our conscious faults and sins: we must confess them to Him with sincere sorrow, realising our total helplessness that comes when we separate ourselves from Him. If, after this confession and abandonment into His hands, we feel a special peace of the soul, even in troubled circumstances, then it is His answer and we will know that He is with us. If we remain fearful, anxious, and gloomy, then the acknowledgment has not been wholehearted and the surrender has not been complete. Let us persevere, let us “call on Him in truth” (Psalm 145:18), and He will be found!
How God responds
Sometimes the typical impatience of youth means that we do not “wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord” (Lamentations 3:26). At other times, the answer we receive is negative or different from what we asked for (perhaps it is silence) and is therefore not noticed for what it is; we complain that He has not answered, that He is not at our side, when we should be attentive to the way in which He answers us, for our good and for our protection.
At other times, although He is with us, He does not manifest Himself in the ways of the past, because He leaves us to act by faith alone, thus strengthening our faith; or He builds up our patience in waiting for His answer; or He chooses other ways of giving us an answer, according to our development (through nature, through reading or talking to someone, through images and sounds, through suffering, loss, and so on), so that we may understand His greatness and omnipotence and surrender everything to Him and work with Him.
His answers cannot be the same throughout our lives, as we grow and develop our capacity to understand, to reason, and to relate to the Divinity with a devotion that should always improve. We cannot always demand proof, as Gideon did (Judges 6:39).
Sometimes the barrier to communicating with Him is pride, vanity, or an inflated sense of who we are and what we deserve—and we know that He opposes these, but “shows favour to the humble” (Proverbs 3:34; 1 Peter 5:5). So let us truly humble ourselves! It happened to me once, at a certain time in my life, that I kept waiting for His answers through dreams; it seemed to me that this was what I was supposed to receive: revelatory dreams. Indeed, revelatory dreams did come, but they were dreamed by others about me, precisely so that they could also be lessons of humility in my communion with Him.
Breaking loneliness
We know that Jesus Christ promised to draw all people to Himself (John 12:32); so let us accept the call, let us respond joyfully when He calls us by name (Isaiah 43:1)! Let us humbly seek Him in prayer, making requests according to His will, citing His promises from Scripture. Then we will find that His promises are about our service to Him and to our neighbours. Not selfish and self-centred, but works of faith. Only then will we ask and receive according to His will and in His name.
One of the promises is this: “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24). Thus, by receiving what we ask for unselfishly and with complete trust, we will have the proof that He is close to us and we will never again feel helpless or alone.
If we seek to know Him more and more, we will love Him more and more, and His love will enlighten and warm our souls more and more. Humility and selflessness in the desire to serve Him and those He draws to Himself will also help us to receive the solution of our own problems without having to deal with them ourselves. It is not by solving personal problems that the relationship of trust in Him should begin, but by doing the works “which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10). In this way, the loneliness we felt will disappear, like the mist of self-righteousness and self-absorption that prevented us from looking around.
God also responds through the coincidences, the facilitations and the miracles that He performs before our eyes when we want to please Him. This is the most fruitful way in which we can be sure that He has not abandoned us, that He is always with us, because He makes us part of His work for humanity and gives meaning to our existence.
Corina Matei, in all her efforts to be of use to the young people of today who are walking the same hesitant paths of their soul and spirituality, formulates an answer that she would have given to herself when she was a teenager.
