The greatest gift I ever received was to rediscover God through estrangement. That may sound crazy. Estranged relationships cause you to feel isolated, devalued, and unworthy and so it seems unlikely that God would reach out and pursue you.

But that’s exactly what I experienced, and it was life changing. Do you feel alone? Misunderstood? Judged? Do you avoid church for some of those reasons? Has your self-esteem been shattered so that you feel you have nothing of value to offer?

This episode is for you. Whether you feel guilt, shame, anger, alone or bitter, I offer hope to you through a relationship that is like no other. One that promises to never leave or forsake you. Ready?

God Speaks when You are at your Lowest

Have you noticed that when everything is going well in your life, you tend to skip time with God. Life is good and you don’t need anything, and you find that you don’t really need him right then.

Then, a medical diagnosis for you or a loved one is frightening. A child decides to end a relationship with you. You lose a job or a promotion. A family feud threatens the core of your support system. Life has fallen apart.

Isn’t that when we think about reaching out to God? But do you feel guilty because you haven’t been praying or reading your Bible? I have felt those emotions, and I can tell you that God is waiting with open arms. He never left you.

Don’t allow Satan to Keep you from Reaching Out

My first encouragement for you today is not to let your past distance from God keep you from reaching out now. He wants to hear from you and give you hope and security.

Satan will keep you locked in a prison of guilt. He’ll tell you that God isn’t listening and doesn’t love you. He will do everything he can to influence you so that you don’t reach out to God. That’s exactly when God wants you to come to him.

Judgment and the Church

If you’ve read my story, you know that I had an affair that ended my marriage. It was public in a small town. Judgement and finger pointing caused me to feel like the woman at the well. Everyone knew what happened and I was the villain.

Your story is different. Was your husband unfaithful to you? Are you struggling with addiction to alcohol or drugs trying to cope? Or are you divorced for other reasons and your children have sided with your spouse and against you?

Church seemed to me to be a place where people go who live upright and godly lives and I wasn’t one of those at the time. I’ve heard sermons about people that went through what I did, and it was all hell fire and brimstone. I didn’t feel that I fit in.

Have you felt that loneliness and isolation? It’s extremely painful and causes you to feel that God couldn’t love you or find any value in your life. At times, I felt the greatest judgment coming from people in the Church and to me that equated to judgement from God.

Understanding the Message of the Church

God’s mandate to pastors is to preach the good news of the gospel. The Church is for sinners like you and me. Mark 2:17 reads “It is not the healthy people who need a doctor, but the sick. I did not come to invite good people but to invite sinners.”.

I’ll use a funny illustration. Just because you sit in a pew in Church doesn’t make you any more of a Christian than sitting in a hen house makes you a hen.

God revealed to me during my lowest point that everyone is sick and needs him. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God scripture says. Unfortunately, some will sit and judge and there’s nothing you can do about that.

Divorce recovery groups as well as support for those who abuse alcohol and drugs is a ministry of some churches. Those understand the struggle and the help people need. Find a church that offers a compassionate ministry.

What to when the Sermon Steps on your Toes

And if a sermon that preaches God word steps on your toes, it’s supposed to. Godly pastors teach the entire word and if you’re feeling guilty, you need to do something.

In my case, I was divorced. And there were consequences to my choices. God doesn’t remove those. He removes guilt, shame, and judgement. Forgiveness, compassion, and a secure relationship with him take its place. You’ll need him to help you through the consequences of decisions you made.

Rediscover God through Estrangement

Judgement from other people is something you cannot control. Let them judge. Let them misunderstand you. They don’t know the full story. Even in situations where you’ve done nothing to warrant estrangement, you’ll feel powerful negative emotions and you’ll need a relationship with God to get through.

How do you rediscover God when you’ve been distant for a while? Simple. You open your Bible and before you start reading you ask God to open your mind and heart to what he wants to say to you. Ask forgiveness for being absent from the relationship and anything else you need to confess.

My recommendation is to start with the gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are accounts of Jesus time on earth. You’ll discover how he interacted with people. His compassion and mercy spilled off the pages. He meets the basic needs of people, and he listens.

I also love the Bible app which you can download onto your device. Search for relationship with God or who God says you are. What he teaches us is that he seeks a relationship with us.

My husband and I were talking one day. He had been to church most of his life and served on committees and boards. But one morning he said it became clear that Jesus is about relationship and not religion. He got it!

And he began a relationship that day with fresh insight and discovered his love, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness. It’s changed his life and ours. We both rediscovered God through estrangement.

My Story of Rediscovering God

My youth began in church attendance and involvement with youth groups. As adults, we engaged in Church as were our kids. I sang in the choir although I didn’t have a singing voice, but I blended well. Volunteering was second nature and we along with our kids were baptized.

But we were far from the perfect little family others saw. My marriage had been in a shambles for some time.

But I’ve always considered myself a Christian. Until the affair and divorce and all that surrounded that. No doubt I had sinned. And judgement ensued. From friends, family, and others in the community. Many of whom were Christians.

I was done and wanted nothing else to do with church. An extended period of estrangement with family and friends and God flooded my life. Until one day, I missed God. I wanted to reach out to him again, but I was afraid.

I had nowhere to go but to my knees to invite him back into my life. What I discovered is he had never left me. He was simply waiting for me to turn around and come back to his wide-open arms. It was a beautiful beginning to rediscover God through estrangement. The estranged relationships were the catalyst that drove me back to God.

Living with Consequences

Don’t get false hope. God will forgive you. He’s already paid the price in the person of Jesus for your sins and mine. He will accept you as his child. He will never leave nor forsake you.

But he won’t remove consequences from things you may have done. My family was still estranged and remained so for several years. However, God did a mighty work in my heart and theirs and reconnected and reconciled us in relationships better than before.

God also showed me that some friends were not meant to be part of my life any longer. And I let them go without judgement or bitterness. He brought new friends into my life. And a relationship with my new husband that blessed me in so many ways.

I struggled to believe that he would bless our marriage since it had been born out of sin. But God accepted our pleas for forgiveness. He showed us mercy and compassion. We told the pastor that married us that we wanted to honor God in this marriage, because neither of us had in the first one. God honored that prayer.

Consequences linger but God is with us. In our devotional time in the mornings, he speaks through his words. He offers hope, love, and assurance and tells us of our value to him. We are so valuable to him that he sent his one and only son to die for us – to be the sacrifice for our sins.

The key is to stay in a relationship as you would any best friend. Talk with him in prayer as you would speak with a friend. Share your worries and fears. Seek comfort in his words and the holy spirit he sent to live in you. Repent when you sin because we all do every day. He will forgive and help you get back on track.

Church is Good

To rediscover God through estrangement, I needed to view the estranged relationships through a biblical lens. And that meant working on my heart and letting God transform me as he promises he will.

And church is a good place to worship him corporately, find his voice through a sermon and participate with other Christians in volunteer ministry.

God may use your estrangement or pain to help someone else who needs to hear from you. If you don’t have a church family, do your research before selecting one. Not all churches today preach God’s word as gospel. Unfortunately, some offer other theories or ways to God other than Jesus.

They teach that there is no hell and if there was God wouldn’t send anyone there. Enter Satan’s #1 mission to steal, kill and destroy.

That’s a message for another time but know that Satan hates God and will do anything to steal our joy, kill our hopes and destroy relationships with each other and God. But greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world. That’s to say God’s spirit living in his children is greater than anything Satan can do.

And we need God’s word living in us and that’s why it’s so important to mediate on it in a daily quiet time.

Are You Ready to Rediscover God?

If you’ve been distant from God for a long time, he wants you. Have you discovered a relationship with him? He pursues you. Scripture tells us we are his children, loved, accepted, and forgiven. If you struggle with a relationship of abandonment or rejection by a parent, God longs to show you a different father.

Do you need to find out what God thinks about you?

Who he says you are to him?

I’ve created a short workbook just for this purpose. It’s what helped me find my value in him and rediscover God through estrangement. If you would like to have a free copy, just go to www.beckykolb.com/guide

Until next time, remember that you are a valued and loved child of a God who seeks a relationship with you.

TOPIC: Podcast