I sometimes experience certain thrills of the spirit—the spiritual high that we often feel when we’ve helped someone find Jesus, or when the Word has spoken loudly and clearly to us, for example—which are a token of the Lord’s love and a special encouragement from Him. He knows we like to feel these things, so He gives them to us as pleasurable experiences. But even at such times we can’t expect those feelings, and we shouldn’t get discouraged or feel that something is wrong with us or our connection with the Lord if they don’t happen.

You’re not always going to be excited and feel inspired and be jumping up and down for joy. Sometimes you’re hungry or tired. Sometimes you’re sick. Sometimes it’s a struggle to keep your mind on the fact that Jesus loves and cares about you, and that if you hang on long enough, He will pull you through.

So sometimes you might not feel close to Jesus, and other times you might. But don’t let that worry you. Even if you don’t feel close to Jesus, you can still be close to Him, because closeness to Jesus is much more than a mere feeling!

One of the greatest mistakes that we make is that we measure God's love for us by our present circumstances. We reason that if things are going bad for us, then God must really hate us. But if the birds are singing, and the sun is shining, and we are happy, then God must really love us. We also usually assume that God works only through the successes we have, and not through our weaknesses. The truth is that our circumstances are constantly changing but God's love is always with us. His love for you does not ride the waves of your feelings. We also bring many unwanted circumstances on ourselves, and because of pride and sinfulness, we are the ones usually responsible for many of those terrible problems that we often find ourselves in.

At the same time it is hard for us to understand that if God really loved us, then what exactly is his purpose for allowing so many bad things to come into our lives. But faith in God does not mean trusting God to stop the bad storms in our life. Faith and trust in God are things which enable us to walk through those periods of hurt and sorrow and come out victorious. We must trust God and believe that when trouble occurs, he is going to give us the ability to cope with it. We are wrong if we expect belief and faith to be an exemption from suffering. If anyone should doubt this then just look at what the world did to Jesus. Instead, the storms of life should become workshops where we can practice our faith in God's greatness.

We also wonder why if God loved us then why doesn't he answer our prayers immediately. But please remember that only God is able to see the total picture. We can only see a small fraction of what is happening right now. We have no idea what effect the things happening today will have on our lives and the lives of others in 10, 20, even 50 years from now.