Where Was God for 30 Years?

I’ve been a Christian for almost 30 years. I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior when I was 23, some time in September or October 1995. I don’t remember the exact date. But I remember what changed in my life: mostly, nothing. I had new friends at church, where I used to not have any friends at all really. So that changed. I started reading the Bible, at least one chapter every day. (See my previous blog post.) I started going to church (obviously) and to Bible study. So I added those activities. But what changed about how I lived my life, how I viewed life, how I dealt with the difficulties in life? Not much really.

I had been depressed since some time in my teenage years. And that depression didn’t leave. I had my sinful activity of choice, and that activity didn’t leave me either. Unless you saw me at church, there was not much evidence in my life that I was a Christian. I was a “functional atheist”. In pretty much all of life’s circumstances, I functioned as though I was an atheist. When difficult things happened, I rarely prayed about them. And if I did I rarely considered that God would actually answer those prayers. I would talk about how I prayed more when I felt good – when it was easier to pray of course. I never really understood God’s love for me. I agreed that God loved me, but I didn’t “feel” it, I didn’t “get” it. It was mainly a theological principle I agreed with. When I read passages in the Bible about God’s love for me, I would mostly gloss over them, since they didn’t really seem to affect me too much. I believed in God, but believing he would actually do anything wasn’t really part of my life.

Now what about all that Bible reading I did? I did it because it’s what a good Christian did, right? I mainly did it to get it done. Usually at night, right before bed, so I could check the box. I did do it for several years (5? 10?) but then stopped. For the next 15-20 years I read the Bible occasionally, very occasionally in any real way. Now in those years I did read the Bible I did learn all the stories well enough to recognize any time they were referenced in a sermon. I recognized the key verses you’d hear a lot, even if I didn’t know the reference and couldn’t have come up with them on my own. But I did agree with the principles they taught and supposedly the application of them as well.

Why was it hard for me to be more than a surface Christian? But wait, I wasn’t a Christian just on the surface. I wasn’t acting. I did actually believe all these things. I tried to do the things I thought I was supposed to do. God was the most important thing in my life. At least I believed He was and I would say He was. But still, most of life functioned as though He was not. God’s love was something I believed in but rarely if ever felt. God’s grace was something I believed in but rarely if ever felt. God’s care, God’s loving kindness, God’s companionship, God’s valuing of me – I believed in all of those things. They were all in the Bible and I believed the Bible. But I rarely if ever felt or knew any of those things outside of my agreement that they were true. This gets a perilously close to James’ statement that even demon’s believe in God and shudder.

Now my depression probably played a part here. I rarely, perhaps never, had streaks of feeling good that lasted more than one or two weeks. Whatever good thing I might start or intend to do during those good times, would pretty much instantly stop once the depression reasserted itself. Running is the only new thing that I can think of that I was able to sustain for any long period of time (years by God’s grace). And perhaps just because I did it for my mental health. But there is another thing, and that’s where the story changes.

I don’t remember exactly when (like when I accepted Christ, interestingly) but sometime in 2023 I believe (so about 28 years as a Christian) I started spending a regular time with God every morning. My pastor has talked about this for years, dropping it into various sermons and talks with me. He’d spend an hour every day with God, a weekend every month, a week every year – or something like that. I always resisted it. I seemed too hard, too scary. How would I have time for it? But for some reason I committed to actually doing it – the hour each day part at least. And at this point a couple years later I don’t actually remember why. It was not a big ground breaking decision I made. Or at least it didn’t seem that way at the time.

Now I was still in my depression at this time. So I recall it not being super easy at the start. It required discipline. I spent (about) an hour with God every morning, right after I got up in the morning and made my coffee. (I’m sure that coffee was a big help.) I did it every day, almost without exception. I can stay on task very well if I actually choose too (which I did rarely). When Jenny any I would go out of town or had some other weird schedule happen, I’d still find some way to have my God time almost every time. Why an hour? Because that’s what my pastor did.

Like I said, it took discipline. Which really means it wasn’t all that fun, at least at the start. But I kept at it. I mainly just read the bible and prayed for other people. I was attending our church’s men’s accountability group at the time. Praying for those men became a big motivator for me. I’ve always been better at praying for other than for myself. Probably because I didn’t believe much in God actually doing anything for me. Because of those men, that discipline slowly turned into devotion. I wanted to pray for those men. I enjoyed praying for those men. I started to look forward to my God time. Imagine that!

And in that hour every morning my “relationship” with God slowly turned into a relationship, no longer with the quotes. But that’s what happens when you spend consistent time with a person – you actually develop a real relationship. Not just a “hey how ya doing” head nod as you pass in the hall. In my God time we talked. Or at least I talked and then allowed some silence afterwards for Him to talk if He wanted to. I asked for His wisdom. I pondered what he thought about things. What he thought about me. I asked Him what he thought about me. And as I read the bible each day, I slowly began to find out how he felt about me. Because the bible told me. And it started to seem like maybe it was true. Maybe He did love me, though I still didn’t really understand it.

And them, one day, after almost 40 years of depression, God took it away. There wasn’t a specific day. I just realized at some point in the spring of 2024 that I was not depressed like I used to be. And it has not come back. God actually gave me three straight months where I felt great. Not mania-great. Just great. Happy. Able to deal with things. When there was conflict with my wife, I’d remember that my value came from God, not my wife, and I could move on and repair things well. I felt at peace, God’s peace. And biggest of all I felt God’s love for me, all the way down into me, into my bones. It’s hard to describe. But for some reason, through nothing that I can see I did, I suddenly “got it”.

After that three months, my constant peace and joy did diminish and some struggle to find that peace and love did come back. But not the depression. Even when I’ve felt down or depressed, there is always a chunk of hope right next to it. And it’s never been like it used to. Again, it’s hard to describe. It’s like I’m now a “normal” person, dealing with the ups and downs of life without the giant wet blanket of depression darkening everything. There are still difficulties, but those difficulties have become opportunities to turn to God for help, to seek him out, to spend time with my friend.

There’s a lot more to what happened with God and I during this time, but I’ll save that for later. I want to get to the main question here: Where was God for 30 years? I accepted Him as my Lord and Savior when I was 23. Why wait until I was 52 to remove my depression and teach me his true love for me? Only God really knows, but I have two possible answers, and I think both are true.

First, it was his plan for me to be depressed until I was 52. He could have taken it away at any time but he chose not to. I don’t begrudge him this. I can see how the difficulty in those years has shaped so much of the good that’s in me. It’s taught me to be gracious, merciful, and understanding of people going through difficult times.

Second, I did not engage with God in a consistent way for those 29 years. Now I did read the bible at times, and I did pray at times, and I did go to church, etc. But I did those things “at God” (when I considered Him at all) rather than “with God”. I threw my prayer over the wall that in my heart separated me from God. And God did do things for me. He saved my life more than once. He provided for me financially. He brought my wife and I together. But we were always distant from each other. Or rather, I was distant from God, and God gave me the distance I wanted.

Today I was reading from the book The Great Omission by Dallas Willard. It’s what inspired this post. In it he talks of the “golden triangle of spiritual transformation”. One side of the triangle is “…faithful acceptance of everyday problems. By enduring trials with patience, we can reach an assurance of the fullness of heaven’s rule in our lives.” (p26) Note how during my miraculous three months God graciously gave me that. The second side of the triangle is “…interaction with God’s Spirit in and around us. … When we inwardly experience the heavenly sweetness and power of life – the love, joy, and peace – that Jesus knew, that is the work of the Spirit in us.” (p27) Again, in my miraculous three months God showed me that sweetness. Definitely the work of the Spirit. The third side of the triangle “…is made up of spiritual disciplines. These are special activities, many engaged in by Jesus himself, such as solitude and study, service and secrecy, fasting and worship.” (p28) These are the activities that I had started in earnest about a year before my miraculous three months.

I believe God gave me those three months as a gift and as an example. An example of what it’s like to know him, what can happen if I pursue him. That “faithful acceptance” and “sweetness” diminished in the time after those three months, but as I’ve continued to pursue God through the spiritual disciplines they’ve been slowly growing ever since.

I’ll leave you with this last statement from Dallas’ book. It may sound harsh but it was very, very true of me: “The single most obvious trait of those who profess Christ but do not grow into Christ-likeness is their refusal to take the reasonable and time-tested measures for spiritual growth. … The abundance of God to our lives, our families, and our ministries is not passively received or imposed and does not happen to us by chance. It is claimed and put into action by our active, intelligent pursuit of it.” (p30,34)