NEVER FORSAKEN
Hebrews 13:5
Gods promise to all of His children is that He will never leave you or forsake you. We can have confidence in all circumstances
that He will be with us unto the end of the world. That is His promise and it is reliable. 

But He never said you would always feel like He is with you. He never said that you would not have times when you felt like God had forsaken you. The truth is, sooner or later we all feel like God is not with us. Sometimes the trials of life leave us asking the question "where is God" ? 

In 2 Chronicles 32:31 the bible says that God left King Hezekiah. Now we have to understand that if God went to the far reaches of outerspace He is still here because He is all present all the time. 

I believe that when it says God left him it is refering to the manifested presence of God that you can feel and enjoy.
Gods presence that will inspire you,edify you and encourage you can leave. But God cannot. So when it says God left it must have
been His manifested presence that left because God cannot leave by virtue of the fact He is omnipresent.
So God has promised that He will never leave you but He never promised you would always feel like He was with you. The fact is
we all will face the feeling "where is God?". 

Why do these feelings come upon us in times when we think we need His presence the most?
According to the above verse, it is so that God can know all that is in your heart.
Did you know that it is easy to serve God when you are full of His joy, everything is going great and the sun is shining brightly?
When you have the peace of God, the manifested presence of God and His fellowship its a joy to serve the Lord.
But what are you going to do and how are you going to act when you don't feel all that? 

The only way for God to know what is in your heart is for Him to step back and draw back the reason that some people serve Him.
Some people serve God as long as they have joy,as long as they feel the Holy Spirit and as long as they feel the blessings of God upon them. As long as they feel the inspiration of the Lord they serve and obey. But what happens when they have to walk more by faith then feeling? 

God wants us to serve Him because we love Him and because it is the right thing to do. He doesn't want your reason for serving
Him to be because of a feeling. Feelings are great and thank God for them but feelings can change. When it comes to the things of
God feelings are unreliable. 

2 Chronicles 32:31 says that God left him to try him that He might know all that was in his heart. When Gods manifested presence
leaves and you don't feel the Joy of the Lord, that is when you find out what is in peoples heart. This is where many people fall off the bandwagon so to speak and even backslide.
In Mark 4 Jesus referred to a group of people that gladly received His word until hard times came and then they were offended. That is what happens to many sincere people. 

Philippians 2:12 tells us to work out our own salvation. Not works to gain righteousness but works to build and maintain your spiritual life, work to hold the ground that you have attained, work to fight the good fight of faith and to hold fast a good confession.
The bible also says to labor to enter into His rest. So its not all sunshine and roses. The bible speaks of times of refreshing which means that you are not going to feel great all the time. Otherwise there would be no need of times of refreshing. 

In 1 Samuel chapter 30 David is going through the hardest times of his life. His city is burned down, his and the families of all his
men have been kidnapped and his men are talking about stoning him. Do you think he felt forsaken? Sure he did. Verse 6 says that David encouraged himself in the Lord. Why did David have to encourage himself? Because no one else including God was doing it.
David came to a place in his life that the only place he could find encouragement was from himself. 

Sometimes what you need to keep you going can only come from you. When God and no one else is encouraging you then its time to encourage yourself. And if you don't do it you may wind up falling away from God. 

You may be thinking to your self why didn't God encourage him? Because God doesn't want robots serving Him. He gave us a free
will to choose or not to choose to serve Him
The test of your love for God is proven by what you do in the hard times and when you don't feel His presence 24/7.
 
In Jude verse 20 God tells us to build our own selves up by prayer. It doesn't say God will do it for you or to pray that He will do
it for you. It says YOU do it.
Too many people are waiting around on God to do something and God is waiting around on them to do something. I would
encourage you to stop waiting on God because He can wait longer then you can. 

2nd Timothy 1 tells us to stir up the gift within us. It doesn't say wait for God to do it, ask God to do it or pray for God to do it. It doesn't even say call the most spiritual person you know to do it for you. It says for you to do it. 

Trials and warfare can push your spirit down. God has given us His word and His Spirit so that we can pick our self up. He has
given us the tools that we need to overcome but it is up to us to use the tools. 

Don't wait around for someone else to help you. Help your self. God has not and will not ever forsake you. You may be at a level in
your journey with God that its time for you to take more responsibility for your spiritual life. You can do it. 

GO FOR IT!
Tim Voorhies