During mortality, it can feel difficult to comprehend God’s true nature. How can we trust in His divine, boundless love when we can’t always see or feel it?
On an episode of the Out of the Best Books podcast, author and psychologist Wendy Ulrich suggests that when God feels distant, He may actually be giving us a chance to develop a more secure relationship with Him.
Wendy compares how we feel when God seems absent to the way a baby reacts when their parent leaves the room. At first, an infant may become anxious and seek reassurance when the adult leaves their sight. The child responds this way because they still need to develop an understanding of object constancy—the knowledge that their parent still exists when they can no longer see them.
“[A child will begin] to understand that even when Mom and Dad are gone, they come back and that they’re still basically the same people they were when they left,” Wendy says.
Just as a child learns that their parent will return, Wendy has a three-word phrase that we can trust in during times when our Heavenly Father feels far away: “God comes back.”
This perspective can help us develop certainty that God’s love is always there—even when we may struggle to feel it.
God Comes Back
Wendy explains that separations and reunions with core attachment figures are crucial to deepening connection, building inner confidence, and developing a deeper understanding of our relationships:
“Mom and Dad go away, and they come back. … If they never go away, [I] don’t have the chance to learn this principle and internalize Mom and Dad as something inside of me—that I have some of their qualities inside of me. I have some of their power and strength inside of me.”
While God never truly leaves us, He may sometimes seem silent or far away to our limited human understanding. During seasons of apparent distance, we can build faith that He will “come back” and that there are lessons He wants us to learn in the waiting.
Wendy acknowledges that while life experiences like trauma, betrayal, neglect, and rejection can make this process more complicated, we ultimately can still choose to learn about divine love and find healing.
“Part of what we’re here for is agency, … to learn by our own experience what we value, what we claim, what we desire, what we want out of life and out of ourselves and out of our relationships with others.”
Delayed Gratification and Spiritual Growth
Wendy speaks about another principle that relates to our spiritual development: the concept of delayed gratification.
“It’s a pretty sophisticated concept for children to begin to learn that … the things [they] want in the long run may require [them] to sacrifice a little bit of the things that they want right now,” she says. “If you’ve ever tried to teach a 5-year-old why you can’t eat sugar all day long, you know how complicated that is.”
Spiritually, we need to trust that God knows the bigger picture—even when we don’t always understand why our prayers, questions, or heartfelt desires feel unanswered.
“That concept that God goes away and comes back is also sort of integral … to our understanding of who He is,” Wendy shares “Some of what He’s trying to [teach] us isn’t as simple as ‘[I] have a need right now, and I need it right now,’ but [He is] trying to teach you … about other things that you’re going to learn to want.”
When it feels difficult to trust in God and His plan, we can look to past experiences—in our lives, others’ lives, and the scriptures—to remind ourselves of His goodness and constancy. As Wendy wrote in her book Let God Love You:
“Even when it looks for all the world like God has deserted us and evil has won, as epitomized for Christ’s disciples by His death on the cross, God comes back. God always comes back. And He comes with His hands open, full of love.”
Learn more from Wendy on the full Out of the Best Books episode, which is available on all major podcast streaming platforms.
More articles for you:
▶ Does God feel far away? Try this when you pray
▶ This Hebrew definition of faith will be on your mind for days
▶ My life-changing realization about how the Spirit speaks to us
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