God & Man: A Long Distance Relationship?
Originally Written on February 7, 2024. Edited on October 22, 2025
I’m in a long-distance relationship. My girlfriend lives four hours away from me, which may not seem like a lot, but it isn’t easy. There have been many times when I’ve been thinking about my relationship and have been led to think about my faith and relationship with God. I could go into a lot of tangents or random things I’ve thought about that had to do with comparing my relationship with my faith, but I want to focus on this one thing: distance. To me, not many “normal” relationships deal too much with the problems that come with distance because they’re together a lot. That’s not the case with God, though. I find myself feeling an absence of God’s presence more than I think I should. But what if He’s not absent, but I am distant? There have been times in my relationship when I get “distant” emotionally, and my girlfriend can tell, and vice versa. The physical distance can cause an emotional distance for me, which can really test my loyalty sometimes. I think the idea that God is ”far,” because Heaven is “far,” can have the same effect on Christians. Sometimes I can feel like God is distant like He’s not close to me or here for me. This leads me to grow spiritually distant from him, testing my faith and loyalty to Him. With this distance can come doubts, bitterness, and a snowball of sins.
But this idea of our relationship with God being, for lack of a better phrase, “long-distance” is wrong.
1 John 4:12 and 13 tell us, “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.” We see here that God is within us. No one has ever seen God, and no one will until Jesus comes back again, but we have God living in us. When someone is baptized, giving their life to God, they accept the Holy Spirit into their heart.
Jesus tells us why we need the Holy Spirit in John 14, verses 15 through 20, saying, “If you love me, keep my commands. 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 will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” Jesus tells us that through the Holy Spirit, He lives within us. He doesn’t stop there, though, as Jesus continues in verses 26 and 27, saying, “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
We’re reminded that the Holy Spirit within us will guide us, teach us, and give us peace. God sent the Holy Spirit to give us peace, telling us, “do not let your hearts be troubled” and “do not be afraid”. That’s so reassuring to me. God knew that we, or at least I, would struggle with feeling abandoned or like He’s absent, so He sent the Holy Spirit to us. He gives us free will, the choice to accept or reject the Spirit and all that comes with it. He made sure that our relationship with Him was not a “long-distance” relationship. James 4:1-8 says, “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” James knows our tendency is to be away from God, but he is calling us to draw near to Him. We want to be away from God for many reasons. Some of the big ones are the pleasure and attarction we have to sin, as well as the lure of the Devil. This verse shows us that resisting the Devil’s attempts to pull us away from God is something we need to be mindful of and intentional about. We should be asking ourselves “What have I done today to draw closer to God?” and be putting habits in place to assure ourselves we are drawing near to Him.
Through the Holy Spirit, we are given divine power to build these habits and discipline, as well as resist the Devil and his attempts to draw us away from Christ. God is near to all of us, and for those who have given their lives to Him, He is in them. Day in, day out, through everything, He is with us. I find that incredible and I hope that encourages you, too.