“Don’t You Care God?”

By Mark Soppitt

Have you ever felt disappointed by God\’s seeming lack of response to your trials and hardships? Or by His apparent distance in a situation you find impossible or overwhelming to deal with? Have you ever felt abandoned by God in your hour of need? If so, you are not alone. There are times in the Bible when others felt abandoned, too.

In Psalm 13:1-2 David cries out to God:

How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts

and day after day have sorrow in my heart?

How long will my enemy triumph over me?

In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus cried out to God:

At about three o’clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Matthew 27:46 NLT)

During my time as a pastor, I remember struggling with intense feelings of abandonment at times. When life got too hard, or I faced a situation with no apparent solution, and I had tried everything I knew to do. It didn’t feel so intense when there were others close by who I could draw on for support and wisdom. Yet, when I felt alone through my struggles and hardships, the feelings of abandonment were sometimes crushing. This came to its climax when I moved with my family to a new country, with a new church, a new culture and a fresh set of challenges I had not experienced before. Eventually, after several years, I slipped into a severe and prolonged depression, disappointed with God, myself, and others. I left the ministry unable to work or function in any meaningful way. The sense of abandonment I felt was overwhelming, and I just retreated into myself as a form of self-protection. Many years passed before I felt safe and well enough to enter the ‘unpredictable and scary world’ again. Like King David and Jesus, I felt abandoned and deserted by God. 

One of the challenges we face as human beings is that we live in a natural world where we see, hear and experience things in concrete ways. We know when a mountain is near because we can see it or walk up it. We know we drink coffee because we can see, smell, and taste it.

 It’s much harder to believe in something when we can’t use our natural senses, yet we still believe in things we can’t see, hear, feel, touch or smell. We can’t see electricity, though we can witness its effects when a light is turned on. We can’t see the air yet know we live because of the oxygen we breathe. There is an element of faith in these things.

It is the same with God. We can’t see Him, yet we often see or sense the results of His presence, such as when He answers our prayers, meets a need, or speaks to us clearly when we read the Bible. Faith grows through such experiences, yet it can be much harder to maintain our faith in His goodness, presence and power when He is silent or appears not to care. 

As David and Jesus show us, we are not alone in such times.  We should not be so surprised when we feel it ourselves if it happened to them. So, how can we get through these feelings?

Later in Psalm 13:5-6, David expresses hope in God:

But I trust in your unfailing love;

    my heart rejoices in your salvation.

I will sing the Lord’s praise,

    for he has been good to me.

Instead of withdrawing from God, he pushes towards him. His prayer starts with expressing his true feelings but ends with trusting God’s unfailing love and expecting salvation. He reminds himself of the history of God\’s goodness in his life. His life progresses as he moves towards God in prayer, and his outlook on life becomes more positive. By the end, he is rejoicing and singing. What a turnaround. 

The same is true of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. It may seem like total desolation, but Jesus honestly expresses his feelings to God. He is not moving away from God when He feels deserted but towards Him. 

Maybe you feel abandoned by God and are thinking about giving up. I know how you feel! Honestly. Here are a few things I learned on my journey that may encourage you to press towards God rather than move away from him.

Scripture suggests that David experienced some abandonment as a child. Psalm 27:10 says:

Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me.

Perhaps we can see this example when David’s father, Jesse, seems to forget about David when he presents his sons before the prophet Samuel (1 Samuel 16). Only when Samuel asks whether Jesse has any more sons after seeing seven of them does he remember David out in the fields. When we experience feelings of abandonment or the reality of this, particularly as a child, it can leave us with a heart wound, which makes us vulnerable in later life.

 It doesn’t even have to be an actual event. When we perceive it and believe it, it becomes an influential lie that can resonate loudly. This was my case, and I needed to experience healing from God in this area. The effects of my belief had some devastating consequences, and I felt constantly lonely, expecting that other people would also abandon me. I began to dismantle the lie by discovering Scripture that spoke to my feelings of abandonment, and as I renewed my mind, I faced the world around me with more confidence and faith. Hebrews 13:5-6 says:

“…God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?”

John 14:16-17 says:

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be[ in you.

I began to shape prayers that broke the stronghold of wrong thinking and spoke the truth. I would pray:

 “I renounce the lie that I am all alone and abandoned. I announce the truth that God will never leave me or forsake me. He is my helper, and so I will not be afraid. I announce that I have a helper and advocate with me forever, and the Spirit leads me into all truth. He lives in me, and He lives with me. I will not be afraid when I feel lonely or abandoned because I know I am not alone. The Lord receives me, and I will trust in His unfailing love and rejoice in His salvation.”

As I washed myself in the Word of God, my thinking changed, affecting my feelings. So, when I feel abandoned or lonely now, I can say this prayer with faith.

Another thing I realised I had to do was to release God from my disappointment in Him. He never does anything wrong, but we can feel and believe it and hold it against Him. This leads to the very separation we are trying to avoid, as we don’t trust Him and feel resentful toward Him. We must forgive people for the wrongs we feel (whether they happened or we just perceived them), so we must express our forgiveness or release of God. Bitterness and unforgiveness build walls that separate and do us harm. Forgiveness and release enable us to remove the walls of separation and mistrust and restore fellowship.

If you feel that God does not care and has abandoned you, I hope you will be encouraged to move towards God in prayer, as David and Jesus did. If you feel resentment and bitterness towards Him or others, forgive and release them and have a clean slate to bring hope and life to your future. So many things can damage our faith journey, yet God gives us the answers to keep walking and grow stronger. He wants to meet with you in your pain and for you to know that He is with you. He does care, and He is near. He does not lie, and as you create your own prayer of faith, may you discover the freedom to live life to the full. 

Mark lives in Niagara Falls, Canada with his wife, Janet. They have 5 children and a dog and enjoy exercise, public speaking, and motivating others. They have walked through many years of navigating mental illness and its effects on their marriage, their children, and pretty much every aspect of their lives. Through Living Well Coaching, their desire is to connect people to Jesus’ unlimited resources, and help them build resilient, healthy, and fruitful lives that glorify God and reach their full potential. You can follow them on social media: INSTAGRAM @livingwellcoaching; FACEBOOK livingwellcoachingniagara or their website Livingwellcoaching.ca