I will rail against this most perverse aspect of Alcoholics Anonymous until the cult is dismantled for good.
The wretched "Blue Book" (because in no way is is a BIG BOOK) tells us that if we get resentful, bitter, angry, that it shuts us off from "the sunlight of the Spirit."
That is a total lie.
God is not a fiction or a creation of our minds. He is not something that we conceive of, and then hope that He will be there for us when times are tough.
For the longest time, I felt that God was thousands of miles away when I felt bad. For years, I was convinced that I had to "feel love" or "feel warmth" in order to know that God was present.
If I felt bad, felt weird, or I was not focused on Him for whatever reason, I believed that God would go away and I would have to struggle to bring Him back.
That is a total lie.
In fact, when we are hurting, when we feel sad, we sense deep hurt or rejection, we can trust and know that He is near to us!
"The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit." (Psalm 34:18)
God does not disappear or go away when you feel bad, mad, or sad.
That is a total lie. In fact, you can know that He hears you and cares for you in your most dire straits, no matter what is happening around you.
I grappled with a very painful conflict a few days ago, and I had this sense that the pain was too great to bear, and that there was no way that I could resolve this problem. I grieved from a sense of betrayal which I had suffered, and I felt that I was all alone.
"I felt ..."
And that is the operative word, and the operative problem.
It's always that we feel abandoned, or that God is far away, but our feelings, our thoughts, our sentiments on the matter have nothing to do with God's nearness in our lives.
He is CLOSE to the brokenhearted. When you feel the most abandoned, that is the point when we must know and believe (not feel) in His love for us (1 John 4:16).
When Elijah wanted to kill himself, the Lord Himself came to Him:
"5And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. 6And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again." (1 KIngs 19:5-6)
Shame on AA for teaching hurting souls this horrible lie, that God goes away when we feel bad, that He is not near, taking care of us through all things!