The question was recently posed to me, “Can one really feel God’s presence?” The person asking had had experiences in which he believed that he HAD felt the presence of God. But what troubled him was the recognition that people from other faiths, or no faith at all, could have similar subjective experiences that felt just as real to them.
This is not an easy question to answer. I believe that God’s presence can be experienced. The writer of Hebrews invites us, “Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith” (10:22). But if I hang my assurance of the reality and goodness of God on the experience of his presence, the consequences for my faith will be radical, and possibly fatal. If feelings are the basis for my faith, and one day I wake up and I do not experience Jesus, but instead experience Gautama Buddha or Joseph Smith, would I then convert to Buddhism or Mormonism?
The question about feeling God’s presence brought to mind the story of Darlene Deibler Rose. Rose was a young American missionary to the jungles of New Guinea who survived four years of captivity in Japanese prison camps during World War II. When Rose tells her story, she describes how a powerful sense of God’s loving presence sustained her through beatings, horrible illnesses, the cruelties of her captors, and the death of her husband.
Although I marveled at Rose’s amazing endurance, I couldn’t help but wonder if I could endure as she had. I have not felt God’s presence in the unmistakably palpable way that she did. But towards the end of the story of her imprisonment, Rose relates an experience that brings the answer to this question into focus. At the time, she was in solitary confinement and severely malnourished. In spite of her outward difficulties, she had continued to feel inner peace. Then, she writes,
Quite suddenly and unexpectedly, I felt enveloped in a spiritual vacuum. “Lord, where have You gone? Why have You withdrawn Your presence from me? O Father…” — in panic I jumped to my feet, my heart frantically searching for a hidden sin, for a careless thought, for any reason why my Lord should have withdrawn his presence from me. My prayers, my expressions of worship, seemed to go no higher than the ceiling; there seemed to be no sounding board. I prayed for forgiveness, for the Holy Spirit to search my heart. To none of my petitions was there any apparent response.
Rose spent the night crying out to God, searching for a reason for why He had withdrawn her ability to feel his presence. When no answer came, she prayed:
Lord, I believe all that the Bible says. I do walk by faith and not by sight. I do not need to FEEL You near, because your Word says You will never leave me nor forsake me. Lord, I confirm my faith; I believe. The words of Hebrews 11:1 welled up, unbeckoned, to fill my mind: ‘Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, THE EVIDENCE OF THINGS NOT SEEN.’ …Evidence not seen — that was what I put my trust in — not in feelings or moments of ecstasy, but in the unchanging Person of Jesus Christ…. In a measure I felt that I understood what Job meant when he declared, ‘Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him’ (13:15). Job knew that he could trust God, because Job knew the character of the One in Whom he had put his trust. It was faith stripped of feelings, faith without trappings.(1)
I believe that we can feel God’s presence, and that we should eagerly seek it. But we cannot base our faith on a foundation of emotional experience. If we base our faith on feelings, when the feelings go, the faith will flee. FAITH IS BEING SURE OF WHAT WE HOPE FOR AND CERTAIN OF WHAT WE DO NOT SEE. Faith is also being sure of what we do not FEEL. If a commitment to Christ assured us that we would always feel his presence, faith would not be required of us.
The story of Darlene Deibler Rose testifies to the reality of the Holy Spirit — the Comforter, who will never leave us nor forsake us — as powerfully as any story I have encountered. But Rose was wise enough to know that her faith could not rest on that experience. When the darkness descended, she kept walking, until she had passed through the darkness into the light.
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1. Darlene Deibler Rose, EVIDENCE OF THINGS NOT SEEN (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), 155-156.
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Copyright © 2007 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. “A Slice of Infinity” is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.
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Version in Holwick’s sermon of May 25, 2014:
Darlene Deibler Rose was a young American missionary in the jungles of New Guinea in the 1940s. During World War II she was captured by the Japanese and spent four years in a prison camp. Through beatings, horrible illnesses, the cruelties of her guards, and the death of her husband, she continually felt a powerful sense of God’s loving presence sustaining her.
But toward the end of her imprisonment, something changed. At the time, she was in solitary confinement and severely malnourished. Her sense of inner peace evaporated. She wrote:
“Quite suddenly and unexpectedly, I felt enveloped in a spiritual vacuum. ‘Lord, where have You gone? Why have You withdrawn Your presence from me?’ In panic I jumped to my feet, my heart frantically searching for a hidden sin, for a careless thought, for any reason why my Lord should have withdrawn his presence from me. My prayers … seemed to go no higher than the ceiling…. I prayed for forgiveness, for the Holy Spirit to search my heart. To none of my petitions was there any apparent response.”
Rose spent the night crying out to God, trying to figure out why she couldn’t feel his presence. When no answer came, she prayed:
“Lord, I believe all that the Bible says. I do walk by faith and not by sight. I do not need to FEEL You near, because your Word says You will never leave me nor forsake me. Lord, I confirm my faith; I believe.”
At that moment the words of Hebrews 11:1 came to her mind:
‘Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, THE EVIDENCE OF THINGS NOT SEEN.’
“…Evidence not seen — that was what I put my trust in — not in feelings or moments of ecstasy, but in the unchanging Person of Jesus Christ…. I felt that I understood what Job meant when he declared, ‘Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him’ (Job 13:15).”
Miss Rose concluded that you can feel God’s presence, and we should seek it. But we cannot base our faith on a foundation of emotional experience. If we base our faith on feelings, when the feelings go, the faith will flee. FAITH IS BEING SURE OF WHAT WE HOPE FOR AND CERTAIN OF WHAT WE DO NOT SEE.