Why Can’t I Feel God’s Presence? Here are 7 tips and simple exercises for how to overcome this hiccup on your Christian journey!
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
First, I want to say to you that God is so pleased with you. You are His child created in His image and He loves you!
What amazing faith you have for believing in God even when it seems like He is far away. You believe even when you do not see and great is your reward in heaven!
We all go through seasons when it seems like God is far away. However, rest assured He is with you and loves you! (Psalms 139; John 1:12)
Friend, because you are truly seeking more of Him, you will find more of Him.
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Jer 29:13
Unfortunately, because we live in this fallen world, sometimes it can be difficult to sense our Creator Father in our personal spirits.
We spend all our lives training our physical bodies, our minds, and even our emotions. Yet, our personal spirit can remain weak from lack of attention or training.
If you are having a hard time sensing God’s presence, here are a few tips I would suggest to help you sense God’s presence in your personal spirit (inner being/heart).
1. You Have Probably Felt God’s Presence and Didn’t Realize It
Many people feel closer to God in nature than anywhere else. So, it’s possible you may have felt the presence of God as you were caught up in His peaceful presence during a beautiful moment in nature (Rom 1:20).
Also, many people experience God’s presence in a time of praise and worship. So, most likely you have experienced God’s presence of peace and love in those moments.
When you experience immense love, you experience God’s presence. God is peace. God is love.
These kinds of experiences of God can be stepping stones to a deeper awareness and knowledge of God.
So, rejoice, God has not left you. He loves you!
For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Hebrews 13:5
2. Unconfessed Sin and Disappointment Hinder God’s Presence
If you can’t sense His presence, it could be because of unconfessed sin.
So, you will want to take care of that first thing!
Your Creator God is holy, with not even a shadow of darkness in Him. His nature cannot come near sinful humanity until we are covered by Jesus’ great sacrifice.
Simply ask Him to forgive you. Give Him all your guilt, shame, fear, bitterness, unforgiveness, hurt, anger, stress, failure, or any other thing that comes to mind.
Ask Him to show you things in your heart that need forgiveness. He is faithful and just to forgive—if you ask!
Some of you are filled with extreme disappointment. Give your disappointment to God. Tell him all about it and give it to Him.
Do that now!
Ask Him to take those things from your soul. You don’t need those things in there. Get rid of them!
Now, don’t you feel better? You can begin afresh with hope, wonder, and expectation.
Now your ability for a deeper relationship is restored, and you are ready to experience greater depths of His presence and love! Awesome!
3. Understand What God’s Presence Feels Like
Of course, God’s presence can be felt in various ways. It can feel like an internal kind of goose-bumpy feeling—not the fear kind of goose-bumpy feeling, but the loving-peace kind of feeling.
It can feel like strength to face the difficult, or it can feel like liquid love that envelopes you. Sometimes it can feel like a prod in the right direction, but you will know it is right.
God’s presence can feel like lightness or joy in your heart. It can also feel like a deep sense of “knowing” something.
God’s presence is always peace, love, and joy—never anxiety, fear, or hate.
The Bible promises that our Creator Father will send us the “Comforter” (John 14:16).
So, His presence feels like the safety and comfort of home where we belong. He is our Creator, and His presence is our origin—where we belong.
He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.
Heb 11:6
4. Learn How to Awaken to More of God’s Presence
We are created spirit by our Creator Father, so we already have the capacity to experience Him. We just must learn more and more about how to awaken spiritually.
Truly, we can learn to awaken more and more to His presence every day
A medical doctor learns to see things on X-rays the average person cannot discern.
Likewise, many of us learn little by little to recognize spiritual things we did not notice before.
In this article, I share an exercise I practiced over and over until I learned to sense God’s presence.
This exercise will show you step by step how to feel God’s presence!
Practice the exercise in this article over and over each day with expectation until you notice His sweet stirring love. You can do this!
5. Begin to Train Your Soul to Be Grateful
The good news is you can train your personal spirit to become more aware of beautiful, peaceful, good, and lovely things. God is good, beautiful, peaceful, and lovely!
The most important first step I have found is to practice being grateful.
I once took an entire year to find and document something I was grateful for each day.
Practice seeing something good at least once a day to start. You can use a gratitude journal or notebook, or a notes app. Some people take a picture of something they are grateful for each day.
This is a small exercise that reaps great rewards in your spiritual life!
God is good, and we need to learn to notice the good every day!
6. Join Other People
A good tip is to find other people/churches who believe in the moving of the Holy Spirit, hearing God’s voice, and exercising the gifts of the Spirit.
When I participated in these churches, I grew in these areas as well. For example, I wanted to learn about prophecy, so I went to a church that specialized in prophecy. I jumped in and soon I was prophesying too.
Growing in the things of God is like if you were a glowing ember, and if you joined together with a pile of other flaming coals, you would catch on fire and burn hotter and greater than you could on your own.
I pray the Lord directs your steps to the right place for you.
7. Why Can’t I Feel God’s Presence? Here Are Some Additional Tips
*Some people have trouble learning to quiet all the noise in their minds to hear God and feel His presence. In this article, I share a simple exercise that will help: How to Quiet Your Mind to Find Peace
*Here is a free resource checklist I put together for you. It is a list of simple exercises that help you train your personal spirit to sense God’s presence in deeper ways when you can’t feel God’s presence.
*Additionally, if you have not received the gift/baptism of the Holy Spirit yet, this could be a big step forward for you too. See What is the Baptism/Gift of the Holy Spirit?
*Again, here is the step-by-step guided exercise to show you how to feel God’s presence.
Thank you for reading. God bless you on your journey!
Cynthia Johnson, Deeper Walk Ministry
Related Posts on God’s Presence
Knowing God’s Presence Series
- The 3 Secrets to Knowing God
- The Surprising Secret to an Intimate Friendship With God
- Why You Might Not Be Aware of God’s Presence
P.S. I am almost finished with a book on this topic. If you are on my email list I can let you know when it’s ready.
That was very Encouraging. Now I need to Receive this. I’m so Numb inside from Husband Warfare of 20yrs of Strife, Hate, Anger, and Arguing. It’s worn me down. I used to be so Spirit Filled and Close to the H/S. I’ve Repent every night. I just don’t sense Nothing. I can’t Hear the lord. Nor are my Prayer’s Answered. I have no Clue what to do. It’s Horrible thinking youve been maybe Written out of the Lamb’s Book, That he hasn’t forgiven my Sins. Husband is very Demon Possessed so H/S is Grieved here all the time by Anger ect.. Amen !