Difficult times can tempt us to doubt God’s presence in our lives. Today we’ll talk about six reminders of God’s faithful presence, as well as some scripture verses.

I heard an interesting quote the other day—from a teen show of all things: “Knowing something and understanding it are two different things.” Amazing where you can find nuggets of wisdom, isn’t it?

Sometimes it’s hard to believe something when we can’t understand it. Or maybe I should say when we can’t feel it.

As Christians, this whole concept is close to us. Faith, by its very nature, is believing what we can’t always see, touch, feel, or understand. We know that God promises to always be near, but sometimes we can’t feel His presence.

And difficult times can make this worse. Then we start to think that maybe God has abandoned us. Or maybe we walked too far. Maybe we’ve finally gotten what we deserved. Maybe God has finally given up on us.

Our feelings, though, are terrible guides. This we also know, but it’s so hard to ignore them sometimes.

So let us focus on what we know is the best guide—scripture.

Reminders for When We Doubt God’s Presence in Our Lives

#1 – God is omnipresent.

Think about this. He is everywhere, all the time. He is all around us. How could God not be close to us?

#2 – The Holy Spirit indwells us.

In fact, God is so close to us—if we’ve accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior—the Holy Spirit is inside us. You can’t get any closer than that.

#3 – Nothing can take us from the hand of God.

God is so near to us, and He always will be. He’s promised that nothing can take us from His mighty hand. This includes our circumstances and choices. If we’ve accepted Jesus as our Savior, the Bible says that we are sealed with the Holy Spirit. Sealed—as in “It is done.” Be sure to check out my post on this topic if you’re struggling with this.

#4 – God is interested in us.

It’s one thing to know that God is all around us, but sometimes we forget that He cares about the little things.

It can be easy to believe the lie that we aren’t included in those little things. After all, look around. Look at the oceans and galaxies. Look at all the hurting people around us. There is so much. God is interested in all those things, but he’s also interested in us—even our “little” problems.

#5 – Pray.

I’m sure you’ve heard that God knows everything we could possibly tell him, but He wants to hear it anyway. This includes our fears, doubts, and struggles. There’s absolutely nothing we could say that would surprise Him or make Him cast us aside.

Sometimes, just telling someone how we feel can have a glorious release. It helps us name our feelings and break their hold on us. The same can be true when we pray to God.

One thing that helps me when I particularly struggle with something like this is to journal my prayer. It gets out the feelings and allows me to process.

#6 – I’m okay.

Jodi Carlton, the wonderful autism counselor my husband and I see, said something a while back that has been so helpful to me, and it’s applicable to this situation too.

We were talking about how the brain shuts down sometimes when we’re overwhelmed or afraid or frustrated. She said that one thing we can do to help our brains engage again is to tell ourselves “I’m okay” over and over. This seems like a super simple task, but it’s amazing how easily influenced our brains can be. Whatever we tell ourselves, no matter what it is, after enough times, we will start to believe it. But this can be a good thing, too, because we can use it to guide our feelings.

Hard times come around for all of us, but they don’t have to make us doubt God’s loving presence in our lives.

What helps you remember God’s presence in your life? Share in the comments below.

More reading

• Fear Not: 6 Important Scripture Reminders to Cast Out Fear from HISsparrowBlog
• 5 Reminders for When You Doubt God’s Love and Care from HISsparrowBlog
• Does God Have a Sense of Humor? from HISsparrowBlog

I frequently link up with the following: Grace & Truth with Embracing the Unexpected, Tell His Story with Jeanne Takenaka, and Let’s Have Coffee with Joanne Viola.