First, the trouble may be no more than a temporary break in God-conscious communion due to any one of half a hundred causes. Trust God in the dark till the light returns.
Second, should the sense of remoteness persist in spite of prayer and what you believe is faith, look to your inner life for evidences of wrong attitudes, evil thoughts or dispositional flaws. These are unlike God and create a psychological gulf between you and Him. Put away the evil from you, believe, and the sense of nearness will be restored. God was never away in the first place. ("..in Him we live and move and have our being" Acts 17:28)
It is a splendid rule to refrain from making decisions when we are discouraged.
Periods of staleness in the life are not inevitable but they are common. He is a rare Christian who has not experienced times of spiritual dullness. Sometimes our trouble is not moral but physical. The Christian who gets tired in the work of the Lord and stays tired without relief beyond a reasonable time will go stale.
We can keep from going stale by getting proper rest, by practicing complete candor in prayer, by introducing variety into our lives, by heeding God's call to move onward and by exercising quiet faith always.
Stop trying to compete with others. Give yourself to God and then be what and who you are without regard to what others think.
Reduce your interests to a few. Don't try to know what will be of no service to you. Avoid the digest type of mind.
Learn to pray inwardly every moment. Practice candor, childlike honesty, humility. Pray for a single eye.
Read less, but read more of what is important to your inner life.
Call home your roving thoughts.
Gaze on Christ with the eyes of your soul. Practice spiritual concentration.
-an excerpt from A.W. Tozer's, 'Counsel for Faith's Journey' found in the booklet, Gems From Tozer.
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