Does God Withdraw?

I was asked yesterday by a friend about the daily walk with God.  His question to me was is it a normal experience for God to withdraw from His children?  We are so close to God in times of desperation and often in times of great provision there is a joy and sense of His presence that is so comforting and reassuring.  Why is it that so much of the Christian walk is not like this?  Why must there be times of silence and feelings of being alone?  Below is a quote from C.S. Lewis from his book, The Screwtape Letters.  The book is a fictional novel about a Sr demon giving instructions to a Jr. demon on the art of tempting and tripping up Christians.  There is tremendous insight in this book and the quote below answers this confusing area of walking with Christ in a masterful way.  Read and i hope you are comforted and grown from it

"You must have often wondered why the enemy (God) does not make more use of his power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree he chooses and at any moment.  But you now see that the irresistible and the indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of his scheme forbids him to use.  Merely to over-ride a human will (as his felt presence in any but the faintest and most  mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for him  useless.  He cannot ravish.  He can only woo.  For his ignoble idea is to eat the cake have it; the creatures are to be one with him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or to assimilate them, will not serve...Sooner or later he withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all supports and incentives.  He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs--to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish....He cannot "tempt" to virtue as we do to vice.  He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away his hand...Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of him seems to have vanished and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."  (emphasis mine)

Comments

[Cindy G. Hunt]

Excellant message!!! Thank you. Very timely for me which I have felt (feelings) that God has been distant but in reality (faith) He is right beside me. We need more and more times where God wants us to stand on our own to bring dependance on Him and Him alone. Exercising our spiritual musles.

[Bob & Mary Ann Coghlan]

Great insights from CSL - I love The Screwtape Letters cause I see myself subject to the wiles of the demons along the way - Miss you guys.

Love & Peace

Bob & Mary Ann

[Janet Cowan]

Whoa....how apt....and how helpful to this one Christian person...me :).... gracias!