Why Does God Feel So Far Away? The Veil Torn From His Side

“Are You there?”

You say it to the ceiling at 5:40 in the morning, from the green chair by the window, the one you bought because it was the right height for reading.

Two years ago you couldn’t get through a psalm in this chair without stopping. You’d put the Bible face-down on your knee and just sit there. Your coffee went cold most mornings, and you didn’t care.

This morning you’ve read Psalm 23 three times. The words lie on the page like a grocery list.

The furnace kicks on. That’s the only answer in the room.

The short answer: The distance you sense is not a report on where God is. When Jesus died, “the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom” (Mark 15:38), and Mark uses that word for “torn” only one other time: when the heavens tore open over Jesus and the Father spoke (Mark 1:10–11). The barrier was opened from His side, not yours. So you do not have to work your way back to Him. You can “draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Hebrews 10:22) on the quiet mornings too.

The Curtain Between

God gave Moses exact instructions for it. “You shall make a veil woven of blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine woven linen. It shall be woven with an artistic design of cherubim” (Exodus 26:31).

Picture it hanging. Heavy. Embroidered with cherubim, the same figures God placed at the east of Eden after He drove the man out (Genesis 3:24). Behind it, the ark. In front of it, everyone else. And God named its job plainly: “The veil shall be a divider for you between the holy place and the Most Holy” (Exodus 26:33).

For centuries, that is what the people of God looked at. A wall made of cloth, with God on the other side.

Torn at the Jordan

Mark opens his Gospel at a river. Jesus wades into the Jordan, and John baptizes Him.

“And immediately, coming up from the water, He saw the heavens parting and the Spirit descending upon Him like a dove” (Mark 1:10).

The word Mark uses for “parting” is schizō, “to tear, to split.” Not a door eased open on its hinges. A tearing, the way cloth gives way. The sky over the Jordan split, and then the Father spoke through the opening: “You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11).

Hold on to that word. Mark is going to use it one more time.

Torn at the Ninth Hour

Fifteen chapters later, it is dark in the middle of the day. “Now when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour” (Mark 15:33).

Then Jesus prays out loud, and the prayer is the one you said to the ceiling, only harder. “And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ which is translated, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’” (Mark 15:34).

A little later, “Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and breathed His last” (Mark 15:37).

And the very next thing Mark writes happens in the temple: “Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom” (Mark 15:38).

There it is. Schizō, torn. In the whole Gospel of Mark, the word appears only these two times: the sky over the Jordan and the curtain in the temple. The first time, the Father’s voice comes through: “You are My beloved Son.” The second time, a Roman centurion standing opposite the cross says it: “Truly this Man was the Son of God!” (Mark 15:39).

And Mark tells you which way the tear ran. From top to bottom. It started where no hand in that room could reach.

What the Torn Veil Means for the Quiet Mornings

Mark names no priest who pulled that curtain down and no hand that cut it. The opening between God and His people was made from His side, at the moment Jesus breathed His last.

The writer of Hebrews tells you what that means for you: “Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh,” and then, “let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Hebrews 10:19–20, 22).

So here is what you can stop doing. You can stop trying to work your way back through a curtain that is already torn in two. You can stop reading the quiet in the green chair as proof that you have been moved back outside. The furnace running and the ceiling saying nothing is not the veil going back up. He tore it from the top, and no one has rehung it. “For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’” (Hebrews 13:5).

That is also why hearing Him is closer than you think. If the curtain is down, you are not listening for a voice from the far side of a wall. Here is more on how to hear God’s voice, and on what it means that Christ lives in you.

When the Ceiling Says Nothing

He used to be right here.

You think it at 12:15 in the cab of your truck, parked at the edge of the line yard with a turkey sandwich on the dashboard. The windshield still has sawdust in the corners from last week’s job. You’ve climbed poles for twenty-six years. For nine of them you’ve taught the men’s Bible study on Thursday nights, and last Thursday you taught it with your notes from 2019 because nothing new had come in a long time.

You pull your phone out of your vest pocket. You open to Mark 15 and scroll past the darkness, past the cry, to verse 38.

“Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.”

You read it out loud, to the windshield.

“You tore it,” you say. “I’m coming in.”

The dispatch radio on the dash crackles with somebody’s call number. You finish the sentence you started anyway, and you tell Him about your daughter’s tuition bill.

One Verse, Then One Sentence

Here’s the one thing to do tomorrow. Go back to the place where it’s gone quiet: the chair, the truck, the edge of the bed. Read Mark 15:38 out loud, then Hebrews 10:22.

Then say one sentence to Him as someone already on the inside: “You tore it. I’m coming in.” After that, tell Him one true thing about your day, the way you’d talk to someone sitting across the room. Don’t stop to check how it went. You’re not testing the curtain. You’re walking through where it used to hang.

Scripture to Keep When God Seems Far Away

• “Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.” (Mark 15:38)
• “You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:11)
• “let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Hebrews 10:22)
• “For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’” (Hebrews 13:5)
• “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?” (Psalm 139:7)

A Prayer for When God Seems Far Away

Father, I have been talking to the ceiling, and it has been quiet for a long time. But You tore the veil from top to bottom when Jesus breathed His last, and You have not hung it back up. I will not try to earn my way back through a curtain You already opened. I am coming in. Here is my day, and here is what is on my heart. In Jesus’ name, amen.

If you want to learn to hear the One who already lives on this side of the veil with you, The Mystery of Christ was written for that.

I heard “Are You there?”, child. I’m here. I was here before the furnace kicked on. I tore that curtain from the top, and I’m not hanging it back up. I said I’d never leave you. I haven’t. Come in. Sit down.

The veil was torn from His side. You are not standing outside it.