Running from God: Understanding Avoidance, Distance, and the Decision to Re-engage

By Carrie M. Allen PhD

Most people who distance themselves from God do not do so intentionally.

Not through rejection.
Not through a loss of belief.
But through patterns that develop quietly, and over time.

Running from God examines what happens when belief remains intact, but engagement changes.

This is not a book about abandoning faith.
It is a book about understanding disengagement.

Over time, individuals develop patterns in how they relate to God. These patterns are shaped by experience, reinforced through repetition, and maintained through conclusions that feel both reasonable and necessary. What is less frequently examined is how those patterns function-and what they do to the relationship over time.

This book provides a structured framework for understanding:

how distance develops without being consciously chosenwhy avoidance often functions as an adaptive response rather than resistancehow control, disappointment, and expectation reshape engagementthe shift from participation to observation-and why it is difficult to recognizehow disengagement becomes familiar, and therefore unexaminedwhat it means to re-engage without requiring immediate resolution

Rather than offering simplified solutions, Running from God focuses on clarity.

It examines how disengagement is formed, how it is sustained, and how it can be interrupted in a way that is both intentional and sustainable.

This is not a book about producing a specific emotional response.
It is about understanding the structure of your engagement-and how that structure can change.

Stopping is not defined by eliminating distance.

It is defined by no longer allowing distance to determine the direction of the relationship.

* A CONNECTED FRAMEWORK

This book is part of a broader framework exploring the relationship between experience, interpretation, and engagement:

The Stewardship of Pain - how pain shapes perception and developmentWhere Is God When I Suffer? - how suffering is interpretedRunning from God - how those interpretations are expressed behaviorally

Each work stands on its own, while contributing to a more complete understanding of how individuals relate to God over time.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GZ7274B3
• ISBN13: 9798195039875
• Release Date: April 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 54 Pages
• Weight: 0.19 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.1" x 6.0" x 9.0"