# do you love God? or how God makes you feel?

An episode of [AfterMass](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1823710125), 10 Mar 2026, 15 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO3123075364.mp3

Many people assume that when they surrender to God, peace and clarity will immediately follow. But often the opposite happens.. prayer feels quiet, Scripture feels flat and God feels silent.So what does that actually mean?In this episode we talk about spiritual dryness, why God sometimes removes emotional consolation and the deeper question silence exposes in our faith: Do we love God.. or do we love how God makes us feel?Looking at the Cross, Christ’s cry of desolation in Matthew 27:46 and the quiet fidelity of Mary at the foot of the Cross, we explore why silence is not abandonment but often part of spiritual maturity.If your prayer life feels quiet right now, this conversation is for you.This episode is part of the Lenten series: 40 Days at the Foot of the Cross, where we walk step-by-step through the interior journey of Lent.Subscribe for the rest of the series.Support the podcast and join the community:patreon.com/anamunley

## Transcript

[0:00] Hi friends, and welcome back to Aftermath.
[0:02] If you've been following this series during Lent, you may have
[0:04] identified some attachments that were maybe previously
[0:08] unexamined. You may have recognized where
[0:10] Self Will was operating more strongly than you actually
[0:13] thought. You may have even experienced a
[0:15] kind of clarity after naming what needed to change.
[0:19] But what many of us aren't prepared for is often what comes
[0:22] next. After surrender, there is
[0:23] frequently not immediate consolation of, but silence.
[0:27] That silence can feel destabilizing because most of us
[0:30] carry an unspoken assumption that obedience will be rewarded
[0:33] with reassurance. We assume that if we're
[0:36] faithful, prayer will feel deeper.
[0:38] If we surrender control, peace will immediately increase.
[0:41] If we let something die, God will surely replace it quickly
[0:45] with something better in a way that we can actually see.
[0:47] Sometimes that happens, sometimes it doesn't.
[0:50] What frequently follows surrender is usually dryness
[0:53] instead of consolation, and stillness rather than emotional
[0:57] affirmation. If you're not expecting that, we
[1:00] can interpret it as failure. We may assume something's gone
[1:03] wrong. But dryness isn't the same thing
[1:06] as distance. In the Passion, one of the most
[1:08] difficult moments occurs in the Gospel of Matthew when Jesus
[1:11] says, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
[1:14] That line has unsettled Christians for centuries.
[1:17] Because it almost sounds like a band.
[1:19] Yet the church has always understood that Christ isn't
[1:22] separated from the Father in that moment.
[1:24] He's expressing the full weight of human desolation without a
[1:28] rupture and divine union. The experience of silence is
[1:31] real. The union isn't broken, though.
[1:33] And that distinction is very important for our spiritual
[1:36] life. Because there will be seasons
[1:38] when God feels quiet and prayer feels flat.
[1:40] Scripture won't feel vivid. The emotional warmth that once
[1:44] accompanied devotion may seem absent, but if you equate God's
[1:47] presence with emotional intensity, you'll assume that
[1:50] he's withdrawn. But feeling is not the measure
[1:53] of union. Union is deeper than sensation.
[1:55] Spiritual maturity involves learning to remain faithful
[1:58] without constant consolation. It requires trusting that
[2:01] silence doesn't equal absence. In fact, silence can purify
[2:05] attachment to emotional reward. For example, when someone begins
[2:09] taking their faith seriously, God often allows consolation
[2:12] freely. There's clarity and
[2:13] encouragement, a sense of forward movement.
[2:16] But if that feeling remains constant, love could become
[2:20] attached to the experience rather than to God himself.
[2:23] So at times, consolation recedes, and this is just
[2:27] deepening. It's not punishment.
[2:29] Dryness forces a clarifying question.
[2:32] Do you love God, or do you love how God makes you feel?
[2:35] That question is diagnostic. When emotional reinforcement
[2:38] fades, what remains is decision. Will you continue to pray?
[2:43] When it feels unproductive? Will you remain obedient?
[2:45] When affirmation is absent, will you continue rendering when
[2:49] there's no visible result? The cross wasn't emotionally
[2:52] reassuring. It was humiliating and painful
[2:55] and silent. Yet Christ remained obedient.
[2:58] Silence tests love because it removes reward and leaves only
[3:02] fidelity. This is one reason that many
[3:05] people experience a loss of momentum midway through Lent.
[3:08] The initial resolve fades and the novelty wears off, and then
[3:11] this is when your emotional intensity stabilizes.
[3:14] So what remains is steady obedience without dramatic
[3:17] reinforcement. If you expected constant
[3:20] spiritual energy, this phase can feel very disappointing.
[3:23] But this is often where depth begins to form.
[3:26] The tradition of the Church has long recognized this pattern.
[3:29] Dryness isn't failure, it's a part of growth.
[3:31] When God withdraws the felt consolation, he's not abandoning
[3:35] us. He's inviting us to love him in
[3:37] a way that is less dependent on emotional reinforcement.
[3:40] Love that deepens entirely on feeling is unstable.
[3:44] But love that persists in silence becomes resilient, and
[3:48] resilience develops precisely in these very quiet stretches.
[3:52] Silence is difficult enough on its own, but it becomes more
[3:55] challenging when circumstances are also confusing.
[3:58] There are seasons where God feels quiet and life feels
[4:02] unclear. Obedience doesn't immediately
[4:04] produce visible fruit. Faithfulness doesn't prevent
[4:07] difficulty. Prayer doesn't eliminate
[4:09] uncertainty. And in those moments, the
[4:11] temptation is to reinterpret our surrender as naive.
[4:15] We may wonder whether we misheard God.
[4:18] We may question whether trusting him was foolish.
[4:21] We may feel drawn towards something more controllable
[4:24] simply to regain a sense of security.
[4:26] The cross offers perspective. Here, though.
[4:29] In the Gospel of John, Mary stands at the foot of the cross.
[4:32] She doesn't intervene. She doesn't receive an
[4:34] explanation. She just remains.
[4:37] Her posture is one of trust without immediate comprehension.
[4:40] She doesn't have emotional access to the resurrection in
[4:42] that moment. From her perspective, she stands
[4:45] in loss. Remaining when you don't
[4:47] understand is a form of trust that goes so far beyond emotion.
[4:51] Modern culture trains us to believe that understanding
[4:54] equals security. If we can map something
[4:57] intellectually, then we feel in control.
[4:59] But faith doesn't always provide explanation before obedience.
[5:02] Sometimes it provides only presence.
[5:05] Presence is study. Remaining faithful in silence
[5:08] reshapes you in ways that emotional intensity can't.
[5:11] It teaches you that stability doesn't depend on constant
[5:14] clarity. It teaches you that obedience
[5:17] isn't validated by immediate results.
[5:19] It teaches you that trust isn't proven by feeling confident, but
[5:22] by continuing when confidence is unsettled.
[5:25] This doesn't mean suppressing questions or pretending
[5:28] confusion doesn't exist is the right thing to do.
[5:31] It means refusing to abandon fidelity simply because
[5:34] understanding is incomplete. The cross reveals that God's
[5:38] work is often hidden before it's revealed.
[5:41] On Good Friday, there was no visible sign of victory.
[5:44] There was no public announcement that redemption was underway.
[5:47] There was suffering, and there was silence.
[5:50] Yet redemption was precisely what was happening.
[5:53] When you experience silence in your own life, it's easy for us
[5:56] to assume stagnation. But growth is so often hidden
[6:00] before it becomes visible. If you leave every time that
[6:03] clarity fades, your faith will remain shallow because it'll
[6:07] never develop beyond dependence on your own emotional
[6:10] reinforcement. Remaining is the daily decision
[6:13] to pray when distracted, to obey when you're tired, to continue
[6:18] when nothing is impressive and you don't want to.
[6:21] You don't grow in faith by avoiding silence.
[6:23] You grow by remaining in it without panicking.
[6:26] If you're in a quiet season right now, resist the impulse to
[6:29] interpret it negatively. Silence can be invitation rather
[6:33] than absence. And ask yourself honestly
[6:35] whether you'd remain faithful even if emotional consolation
[6:39] didn't return to you quickly. And that question can produce a
[6:42] lot of clarity. It can reveal whether your love
[6:45] is rooted in experience or in truth.
[6:47] If this Lent has felt quieter than you expected, don't rush to
[6:51] manufacture intensity. Just remain and continue.
[6:54] Stay attentive. Allow this silence to refine
[6:57] your motives and strengthen your trust.
[6:59] The Resurrection friction doesn't bypass Good Friday, and
[7:02] silence doesn't negate God's presence.
[7:04] It often prepares us to recognize it more deeply.
[7:07] One of the most common and damaging misunderstandings in
[7:10] our spiritual life is confusing silence with abandonment.
[7:14] Emotionally, they can both kind of feel the same, but they're
[7:17] not the same in reality. Abandonment implies a rupture in
[7:21] a relationship. Silence doesn't When we
[7:23] experience silence in prayer, often times our first instinct
[7:27] is to assume distance. We may begin searching for
[7:30] reasons. Maybe I did something wrong,
[7:32] maybe I missed something, or maybe my faith is weakening.
[7:35] The mind starts to diagnose because silence feels really
[7:38] destabilizing. But in your spiritual life,
[7:41] silence often signals transition rather than rupture.
[7:45] If you look at human relationships, that pattern
[7:48] becomes even clearer. Early intimacy is often very
[7:51] intense. There is constant conversation,
[7:53] affirmation, emotional energy, the honeymoon phase, if you
[7:56] will. But mature intimacy doesn't
[7:59] depend on constant intensity. It depends on stability to
[8:02] people who are deeply connected can sit in silence without
[8:06] anxiety. The absence of constant verbal
[8:08] reassurance doesn't mean the absence of love.
[8:11] In fact, in many cases, silence indicates depth rather than
[8:15] distance that can be applied in your relationship with God.
[8:18] Early and serious conversion consolation can be frequent.
[8:21] There may be emotional clarity and strong conviction,
[8:25] noticeable interior shifts, whether you reverted, whether
[8:28] you converted, whether whatever it may be.
[8:31] But if that stage remains permanent, your faith would
[8:34] eventually attach to the feeling rather than to God himself.
[8:38] God isn't interested in conditioning us to depend on
[8:41] spiritual adrenaline. He's forming long standing,
[8:45] durable trust. So that's why silence often
[8:48] follows surrender. 1's self will begins to loosen.
[8:51] God may remove the emotional supports that once accompanied
[8:55] your prayer. It can feel like something's
[8:57] been taken away, but what's actually happening is
[9:00] strengthening. You begin to pray because He is
[9:02] God, not because it feels powerful.
[9:05] You begin to obey because it's right, not because it feels
[9:08] rewarding. You remain because love has
[9:10] deepened beyond your sensation. That shift is very significant.
[9:14] It's also uncomfortable because without emotional reinforcement,
[9:18] our motives are kind of exposed. We begin to see how often we
[9:22] were seeking consolation rather than communion, and how easily
[9:26] our faith was sustained by feeling rather than fidelity.
[9:30] But this realization can also be humbling, and it's also a
[9:34] necessary part of growth. Silence forces us to confront
[9:37] whether our relationship with God has become transactional.
[9:41] If I feel peace, I'll continue. If I feel nothing, I will
[9:44] disengage. That pattern isn't mature.
[9:46] It's common, but not mature. At the foot of the cross, Christ
[9:50] doesn't experience emotional comfort.
[9:52] He experiences anguish and humiliation and silence.
[9:56] Yet he remains obedient. The absence of consolation
[9:59] doesn't alter his fidelity. Silence confronts us with a
[10:03] simple but difficult question. Does my obedience depend on
[10:06] emotional reassurance, or is it rooted in truth?
[10:09] Truth is steadier than feeling. Truth doesn't fluctuate with our
[10:12] interior state. Truth remains intact whether we
[10:16] feel encouraged or flat. When our faith is anchored in
[10:19] truth rather than sensation, silence becomes less
[10:22] threatening. It becomes an environment where
[10:25] love is purified rather than a sign of abandonment.
[10:28] Testing it reveals whether what we believe is strong enough to
[10:31] endure without constant affirmation.
[10:33] Silence often intensifies into something heavier, which is what
[10:37] our faith calls desolation. Desolation isn't merely the
[10:41] absence of warmth, it's the presence of heaviness.
[10:44] Prayer feels effortful. Focus feels harder.
[10:47] You may feel less motivated. The temptation in those moments
[10:52] is usually to quietly retreat. We shorten our prayer time, or
[10:56] we disengage slightly. We distract ourselves more
[10:59] easily. We convince ourselves that this
[11:01] effort is no longer fruitful, so we have to make a shift.
[11:04] Desolation reveals how our faith is structured.
[11:07] If it's built primarily on inspiration, then desolation
[11:11] feels destabilizing. If it's built on decision,
[11:14] desolation is difficult but sustainable.
[11:17] Inspiration carries us. When energy is high, decision
[11:20] carries us. When energy fades, cross isn't
[11:23] inspirational in a conventional sense.
[11:25] It's steady. It's chosen.
[11:27] Christ doesn't remain on the cross because it's fulfilling.
[11:30] He remains because obedience is truth.
[11:33] When we continue to pray in dryness and attend Mass without
[11:36] feeling any emotional intensity, and confess our sin without
[11:40] dramatic interior experiences, we're participating in that same
[11:45] steady obedience. It feels ordinary, but it's not.
[11:48] In many ways, fidelity and dryness is purer than fidelity
[11:52] and consolation because it's less attached to any emotional
[11:56] reward that we may feel. Consolation can subtly reinforce
[12:00] our egos. We begin to identify ourselves
[12:02] as someone who feels deeply in prayer or experiences these
[12:06] strong spiritual movements. When dryness removes all of
[12:10] that, what remains is simple obedience, and simple obedience
[12:13] is powerful because it's stable. Desolation tempts us to retreat
[12:17] because retreat feels like we're protecting ourselves.
[12:20] It feels safer to lower our expectations than it does to
[12:24] remain vulnerable in silence. It feels easier to disengage
[12:28] gradually than to continue offering attention when nothing
[12:31] seems to be happening. But repeated retreat builds
[12:35] distance. Repeated remaining builds depth.
[12:38] Remaining isn't passive, it's an active trust.
[12:41] It's the decision not to reinterpret silence as
[12:44] rejection. It's the refusal to equate a dry
[12:46] season with failure. It's continuing to show up every
[12:50] single time in prayer, even when you feel like it's not making
[12:54] any sort of difference. Effort is not necessarily a sign
[12:57] of spiritual weakness. It can be a sign of growth.
[13:00] When muscles strengthen, resistance increases, and that
[13:03] same patterns appears in our spiritual life.
[13:05] If prayer feels more demanding now than it once did, it can
[13:09] indicate that you've matured rather than declined.
[13:11] You're no longer being and carried by emotional
[13:13] consolation. You're learning to walk by
[13:16] decision. Walking may feel less dramatic
[13:19] than being carried, but it's way more stable.
[13:21] The deeper invitation in silence is learning to love without
[13:25] constant feeling. Modern culture equates
[13:27] authenticity with emotional intensity.
[13:30] If you don't feel something strongly, it must not be real.
[13:32] But Christian love has always been rooted in the will.
[13:35] Christ's love on the cross isn't sustained by emotional comfort,
[13:38] it's sustained by fidelity. So when you love God in silence,
[13:42] you imitate that fidelity. When you remain in prayer
[13:44] without immediate feedback, you choose him rather than choosing
[13:48] sensation. When you continue obedience
[13:50] without visible fruit, you align yourself with truth rather than
[13:53] outcome. That alignment reshapes you over
[13:57] time. It reduces anxiety because
[14:00] you're no longer demanding this constant reassurance.
[14:03] It deepens humility because we're recognizing our
[14:06] dependence. It stabilizes our identity
[14:09] because we're no longer defining ourselves by spiritual
[14:12] experience, but by knowing we belong to Him.
[14:16] Belonging doesn't fluctuate with feeling.
[14:18] We belong to God. Whether prayer feels powerful or
[14:21] flat. We belong to Him.
[14:22] Whether Lent feels dramatic or quiet, We belong to Him, whether
[14:25] consolation is present or absent.
[14:27] When belonging becomes a foundation of our faith, silence
[14:30] loses its power to destabilize us.
[14:33] It becomes part of the process rather than evidence of failure.
[14:36] If you're in a quiet season right now, resist the impulse to
[14:39] interpret it negatively. Don't rush to manufacture
[14:42] feeling. Don't assume that we've done
[14:44] something wrong simply because prayer feels less intense.
[14:47] Stay and continue. Allow silence to refine your
[14:50] motives and strengthen your trust.
[14:52] What's being formed in you during the season is steadier
[14:54] than emotion and more durable than inspiration, and that kind
[14:58] of trust can endure far more than fluctuating spiritual
[15:01] intensity ever could. That is all I have for today.
[15:04] Thank you so much for being here.
[15:06] If you have any questions or comments, you can leave them
[15:08] below or you can send me an e-mail to
[15:10] theaftermathpodcast@gmail.com. Your host Anna and I will see
[15:14] you guys after mass.

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