When God Is Hidden

Have you ever gone through a trial so severe that it completely obliterated your view of the Father? Have you felt your strength melting away in dark valleys where God is hidden?

Believers with mental health struggles feel this more keenly than others. Take, for example, religious OCD. If you have an OCD diagnosis or OCD tendencies as a Christian, you may have struggled with God’s hiddenness in some of these ways:

• Lacking a consistent assurance of salvation 
• Feeing plagued by spiritual doubts that you can’t seem to solve
• Having scary physical sensations, dreams, or impressions that seem to indicate God has left you 
• Remembering a sweet experience you once had with God which is now gone (in tandem with the rise of your anxiety disorder)
• Struggling with unanswered prayer

If you deal with these issues as a person of faith, it can be so spirit-crushing. Feeing like God is not there when you need Him most—who can bear it?

In today’s post, I’d like to share a few thoughts about how we can process, in a healthy way, the feelings we get when God is hidden. 

The God of the Dark Cloud

The temple is finished. Every tool has been carried away. The stones and brass work have been polished till they gleam. The sun rises on Solomon’s temple on the day of its dedication. 

Solomon gathers all the people for a grand and solemn ceremony. His prayers rise towards heaven while the people listen in hushed silence. 

He sends the priests inside to initiate the first offerings before the Lord. What happens next is glorious. 

And it came to pass, when the priests came out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the LORD, 11 so that the priests could not continue ministering because of the cloud; for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD.

Then Solomon spoke:

​​“The LORD said He would dwell in the dark cloud. ​​I have surely built You an exalted house, and a place for You to dwell in forever.”

1 Kings 8:10-12

A resplendent cloud of glory filled the temple, of such a quality that it prevented the priests from ministering. 

What were the properties of that cloud?

Was it dark? Thick? Potent-smelling? Tingly-electrified? Disorienting? 

Solomon’s only commentary comes with a sense of awe. We can almost imagine him standing on Solomon’s porch, mouth agape, as the priests scramble out of the new building. Perhaps the cloud leaked out through the rafters in fluffy little puffs, giving the crowd a glimpse of what was happening inside. Or maybe it poured out like thick billows of smoke, making the temple appear as if on fire. 

In any case, Solomon declared, “The Lord said He would dwell in the dark cloud.”

That is, the approach of the transcendent God is veiled with a covering. He lives in unapproachable majesty which looks, to us, like a dark cloud. 

And yet, Solomon rejoices that he has built a house for this darkly-veiled God to dwell in forever. 

Solomon’s father David also spoke of the darkness that hides the face of God. He wrote,

​In my distress I called upon the LORD,
And cried out to my God;
He heard my voice from His temple,
And my cry entered His ears.

​Then the earth shook and trembled;
​​The foundations of heaven quaked and were shaken,
Because He was angry.

​​Smoke went up from His nostrils,
And devouring fire from His mouth;
Coals were kindled by it.

​​He bowed the heavens also, and came down
With darkness under His feet.
​​He rode upon a cherub, and flew;
​​And He was seen upon the wings of the wind.

​​He made darkness canopies around Him,
Dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.
​​From the brightness before Him
Coals of fire were kindled.

​The LORD thundered from heaven,
And the Most High uttered His voice.
​​He sent out arrows and scattered them;
Lightning bolts, and He vanquished them.

​​Then the channels of the sea were seen,
The foundations of the world were uncovered,
​​At the rebuke of the LORD,
At the blast of the breath of His nostrils.

​He sent from above, He took me,
He drew me out of many waters.
​​He delivered me from my strong enemy,
From those who hated me;
For they were too strong for me.

​​They confronted me in the day of my calamity,
But the LORD was my support.

2 Samuel 22:7-19

Here, David describes God with imagery that sounds like a terrible storm. Lightning bolts, dark clouds, thunder, broiling smoke, and fire. God comes, wrapped in darkness, to save His beloved. 

Did David realize it was God at first? Or did he take a look at all the calamitous weather and think God had utterly forsaken him?

Both David and Solomon learned that God was hidden in the dark cloud, the one which no human wisdom could pierce. 

When God Is Hidden in My Scrupulosity Story

Many of you who have been struggling with religious anxiety are plagued by the thought that God might have forsaken you. Please remember that the feelings of darkness, abandonment, and hopelessness are nearly universal to every serious believer throughout history. 

Every serious believer has seasons of hopeless agony. Every serious believer has seasons of dryness, listlessness, and, dare I say it, boredom. We go through deserts, pitch-black valleys, glorious mountaintops, spooky forests, delectable meadows—you name it. Most likely, wherever you are right now is just a season. And God is near you in each of those seasons, even when it seems that God is hidden. 

The more serious issue for the scrupulous person is stopping to ruminate about the season. 

• “Why is this happening to me? Maybe I committed the unpardonable sin.”
• “I must be so hard hearted! Maybe God is trying to tell me something—like giving me my last chance.”
• “What did I do wrong to grieve away the Holy Spirit?”

Stop!

You’re just in a difficult valley. God is still there, hidden in the dark cloud. No amount of ruminating about the issue is going to bring Him out into full view. However, ruminating WILL make your mental health much worse!

How did Solomon react when he saw the Lord descend in a dark cloud?

He worshipped. 

Maybe that’s a good idea for us, too. 

Leaning into the Unknown

This concept is part of our bigger framework where we talk about leaning into the uncertainties of our faith as we seek to overcome OCD.

Let’s remember that the OCD mind is constantly triggering new doubts, to the point that it is impossible to answer them all. But the hiddenness of God is a biblical thing. We have to lean in and get comfortable with it. 

I’d like you to think for a moment about how the hiddenness of God has evolved over the course of history.

We are six millennia removed from the Garden of Eden, where God walked and talked with mankind in the cool of the day. Even after the fall, God seemed much more visible in human history than He appears now— He ate lunch under a tree with Abraham. He wrestled with Jacob. He appeared in pillars of smoke and fire. He spoke to Job out of the whirlwind. 

But somehow, none of this seemed to change the course of sinful humanity. Idolatrous idols were still erected and justice was still perverted. Seeing God in visible, tangible ways didn’t seem to matter in the grand scheme of things.

So God began hiding Himself. No longer speaking with us face to face as in the garden, now He spoke through prophets and apostles. No longer appearing as He did to Moses in a burning bush and pillar of fire, Elijah saw Him not in the fire or the earthquake but only in a still, small voice. 

God was slowly veiling Himself from the world. 

Why? Because walking by sight wasn’t working. The ancients had so much visual evidence and none of it seemed to prevent them from going off course. They’d seen it all. They’d picked up the miracle manna from the ground with their own fingers, they’d seen God part the Red Sea, they’d watched fire come down for Elijah’s sacrifice on Mount Carmel, but it still didn’t change anything for them. 

Proof doesn’t always change the heart. 

So what is God to do?

When walking by sight isn’t working, God changes tactics. Maybe it was part of the Old Covenant experience all along—to prove to human beings that walking by sight fails time after time. Walking by faith is a higher plain, a stronger foundation, surer footing. 

Perhaps it was to help humans begin walking by faith instead of by sight that God began hiding Himself. He started veiling elements of the faith in mystery. He allowed discordant feelings and uncertain questions. He began giving just enough evidence to make a sensible commitment without giving us enough evidence to answer all our questions.

We face these uncertainties every day, and our hearts are breaking. We long for assurance and peace and to just…know.

But God looks backwards in history. He sees the generation of Israelites who came out of Egypt—those who saw His mighty hand and yet perished in the wilderness. And God says, “No, my child—more evidence and assurance isn’t what you need. You need to learn to go forward even when all looks dark and uncertain.”

The safest path is not always the clearest one. Walking the road of “uncertain faith” is a raw and honest path, one that may not even be understood by those superchristians who have never had a doubt in their entire lifetime (although I find it suspicious if anyone claims they never had a doubt in their faith journey—either they are lying, or their grasp of God and truth isn’t very deep.) Sometimes doubt, uncertainty, and confusion are markers of going in the right direction.

Conclusion

I cannot count how many times I’ve felt the stark, cold loneliness of feeling like God has disappeared. My mind and heart grope after Him, and I plead with Him for a sign that He is still there. 

I never get a sign. 

What usually happens, though, is a soft, gentle reminder of the evidences in my past experience. 

It’s like winter roadside markers. When the snow falls heavily, the road itself is completely obscured. But those little orange-tipped rods poking up from the sides of the road give enough evidence for us to know where to go and what to do. 

Paul spoke about

…the living God, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them, who in bygone generations allowed all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.”

Acts 14:15-17

God has not left Himself without a witness. There are many evidences that still point to His presence, even when He is hidden. 

I encourage you to keep going forward, doing the things you need to do, even when it feels like you’re doing it alone. Remember the good times you have had with the Lord and the deliverance He has previously wrought in your life. When you cannot see Jesus, look backwards to the last time you saw the light and just keep holding on. 

Best wishes on the journey,