Far but Near

Christ knew that God is nearest in support when he is furthest off in feeling. Often, where he is nearest the inward man, to strengthen it with his love, he is furthest off in comfort to outward sense. To whom was God nearer than Christ in support and grace and yet to whom was he further off in outward sense when Christ was on the cross? Christ had the secret sense of God, knowing that he was his Father, but he did not have the sensible sense of God's love.
This should teach us in any trouble to set faith to work and feed faith with the consideration of God's unchangeable nature, and the unchangeableness of his promises, which endure forever. We change, but God's promises change not, and God changes not. 'The word of the Lord endures forever' (1 Pet. 1:25). God deals with his people in a hidden manner; he supports with secret, though not always with sensible comfort, and will be nearest when he seems to be furthest from his children. Present to your soul the nature of God, his custom and manner of dealing, so that you might apprehend his favour in the midst of wrath, and his glory in the midst of shame. We will see life in death; we will see through the thickest clouds that are between God and us. For as God shines secretly in the heart through all temptations and troubles, so should there be a spirit of faith that goes back to him. Christ had a great burden upon him, the sins of the whole world; yet he breaks through all and could know, 'I am now sin, I bear the guilt of the whole world, yet I am his son, and God is my God still, notwithstanding all this weight of sin upon me.' Will we not say, 'My God,' in any affliction or trouble that befalls us? In the sense of sin, which is the bitterest of all, and in the sense of God's anger, in losses and crosses, in our families, etc., let us break through those clouds, and still say, 'My God.'

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
Christ's Sufferings for Man's Sin, Works, vol. 1, pp. 365-66
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