The Darkness

We must first peer into the darkness, feel strangled and entombed in the hopelessness of living without God, before we are ready to feel the presence of His living light. -Abrahan Joshua Heschel

The darkness, the distance, we sometimes feel from God can offer a much needed balance to our relationship with God. Maybe this distance is self induced, or a divine corrective due to our worship of that which is not God. There are times that we allow good and valuable things to step out of their rightful place in our lives and give them a place of prominence only rightfully reserved for God. So our journey in the wilderness is one that often comes from our own misguided trust in that which is not God.
If God were to immediately pluck us out of these situations we may never have to fully trust in God for direction, because there would be little consequence for us in following our own way. So the stuckness that we often experience is not necessarily divine judgement for our stubbornness or stupidity, but rather Grace working deep within us to bring life from that which would otherwise suffocate the faith within us.