A response from kinwove

You're asking the fundamental question — and it matters that you're asking it rather than just walking away.

Start with what you can actually verify. Has God made promises? Yes — they're written down. Has he kept any of them? Look at your own life, or at history, or at the people around you. That's not feeling. That's observation. The God of the Bible doesn't hide his track record; he lets it be examined.

The Psalms and Job and Thomas demanding proof before belief — these are all in scripture. God doesn't punish you for noticing that something doesn't add up on your end. But notice what Thomas does: he doesn't walk away from the disciples. He stays in the room with them, grieving the same grief, not alone in it. And when Jesus appears to him, Thomas doesn't need to be talked into it — he sees and recognizes. "My Lord and my God" (John 20:28).

Here's what's true: you don't need to feel God to know he's there, but you might need to stay close enough to recognize him when he shows up. That might mean staying in prayer even when it feels like you're talking to a wall. Staying in scripture even when it doesn't move you. Staying in community with people who know him — not for the emotional high, but for the ballast.

Hebrews 11:1 says faith is "confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." Not confidence in what we feel. Confidence in what we have reason to believe is true.

What's making the silence feel particularly loud right now — is there something specific that triggered this, or has it been a slow drift?