Feeling God Doesn't Take Faith. Responding Does.
The Difference Between Feeling God and Responding to Him.
by Pastor Garrett Black
One of my favorite things to hear after church is "I felt God's presence." But if I'm honest, there's something I love even more: watching someone actually respond to it.
Here's the distinction I want to explore, because I think it trips up more of us than we realize: feeling God's presence and responding to God's presence are two different things. Feeling God’s presence does not guarantee that we’ve truly responded to it.
Almost everyone who has spent any real time in church has felt God's presence. It's not a rare occurrence. You can feel it in a worship set, in a quiet moment of prayer, even sitting under teaching you weren't expecting to move you. You can feel it, correctly name it as God, and still miss what He actually came to do in that moment.
Think of it like a doorbell. When you feel God's presence, that's the doorbell ringing. It's real — it's an actual invitation. But a doorbell isn't an encounter. Until you get up and open the door, nothing has happened yet. Jesus said almost exactly this in Revelation: "I stand at the door and knock. Anyone who opens the door, I will come in." Even Jesus frames His presence as something that requires a response, not just a feeling.
Why we don't call it a "service"
Here at Axess, we don't call Sunday morning a "service" — and I know that sounds like splitting hairs, but there is a reason behind it. A service is something done for you. It's the same word we use for getting an oil change: you show up, you receive something, and if you don't like it, you leave a review. That posture — show up, evaluate, leave — is exactly the passivity I think has quietly settled into the Western church. We've been trained to consume church instead of encounter God in it.
That's part of why we do things like drive-through prayer twice a year at Axess Church. It was never just about the people in the car. It's about whether you're willing to hold a sign on a street corner and say, out loud, “I follow Jesus.” That kind of risk does something to your faith that watching never will. It sheds passivity off of you.
Recognize
The first move is recognizing His presence — and honestly, this is the part most of us are already decent at. Even people with no faith commitment can walk into a room and tell you something's different in the atmosphere. You learn to pick up on it the way you'd learn a familiar sound — a door latching down the hall, a specific note in a worship song, a shift in a room you can't quite explain. Some people feel it as sudden joy or tears. Some feel heat, or a peace that makes no sense given what's actually happening in their life. Scripture is full of people responding to God's presence in ways that look almost identical. Recognizing it isn't the hard part. Most of us have already done that.
Respond
The harder part — the part I actually want to teach more about — is responding.
Look at Genesis 18. Three visitors show up at Abraham's tent, and it is not a good time. It's the hottest part of the day, the hour everyone with sense stays inside. Abraham is 99 years old, and he's still physically healing from being circumcised just days before. If anyone had an excuse to stay seated, it was him.
He doesn't stay seated. He runs to meet them. He bows to the ground. He tells Sarah to start baking, runs to the herd himself, and picks out his best calf — not a spare one — for these strangers. Every part of his body gets involved: he bows, he runs, he gives his best.
That's the pattern worth noticing: your posture is part of your faith, not decoration around it. Sometimes you have to move your body — lift your hands, kneel down, actually get up and go — before your heart catches up. You don't need faith to feel God's presence. You need faith to respond to it. That's the whole difference between a spiritual experience and a spiritual life.
Receive
Here's what I almost missed reading this text again this year: when the Lord finally asks Abraham, "Where is Sarah?" He doesn't use her old name. One chapter earlier, in Genesis 17, God had renamed her from Sarai to Sarah. So when He shows up asking for her by that new name, and she answers to it without blinking, that tells you something — Abraham had already told her. She already knew the promise. This visit wasn't really for Abraham. It was for her.
And Sarah's response is achingly human. She laughs to herself, quietly, she thinks, safely inside the tent — because she's ninety, and the idea of a child sounds absurd. When she's caught, she lies about it: "I didn't laugh." It's the oldest move there is — cover the shame instead of admitting the doubt. It's what Adam and Eve did with fig leaves in the garden: a covering that was never going to be enough.
But watch what God does with the shame instead of exposing it further. He doesn't shame Sarah back. He clothes her — not in fig leaves, and not by pretending she hadn't doubted, but with a promise: "I will return to you about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son."
That's the last move I want you to walk away with: God always comes bearing gifts. He doesn't always come at a convenient time. But when He shows up, He's not there to catch you in your doubt — He's there to clothe you in something better than you could have gotten on your own.
Recognize His presence. Respond to it — with your body, your action, your risk, not just your feelings. And then receive what He actually came to give you. That's what it looks like to steward these moments well, together, as a church.
Key Ideas
1. Feeling isn't responding. Recognizing God's presence is the common, easy part of a spiritual life — even people with no faith commitment can walk into a room and sense something different. The real growth edge for most believers is what happens next: the deliberate, faith-filled response.
2. Passivity is the real enemy — not just apathy. Calling Sunday gatherings a "service" (the same word used for an oil change) unconsciously trains people into a consumer posture — show up, evaluate, leave — instead of a participatory one. Naming the language is the first step to breaking the pattern.
3. Inconvenient timing is often intentional, not incidental. God appeared to Abraham at the hottest part of the day, shortly after a painful surgery, at 99 years old. Divine encounters are frequently missed simply because they arrive at moments that don't feel convenient.
4. Body posture is an act of faith, not decoration. Bowing, running, physically showing up and engaging can move the heart into alignment even before emotion catches up — faith expressed through the body, not just felt internally.
5. God's visits carry a specific gift, not just a feeling. The Genesis 18 story reframes God's presence as purposeful. He doesn't show up merely to be felt or admired — He shows up to give something specific, even (especially) to those who don't yet believe it's possible.
Application Questions
Think of a recent moment when you sensed God's presence — in worship, prayer, or somewhere unexpected. What made you recognize it as Him?
Where in your life right now would actually responding to God cost you something — time, comfort, pride, convenience? What's stopping you from doing it anyway?
Is there an area where you've settled for feeling something spiritually without ever taking a real step to respond to it?
Abraham's response wasn't just internal — he bowed, he ran, he gave his best. What's one concrete action (not just a feeling) you could take this week in response to God?
What "gift" might God be offering you right now that you haven't recognized yet, simply because it didn't arrive at a convenient time?
