Change at Last

So, so long since I have felt like I had any thoughts or insights worth sharing.  Months upon months I have spent feeling distant from the Lord and trudging through the disciplines of reading, praying, and worshiping. I had almost become resigned to the idea that I would never feel connected to God again. Emotions aside, the truth is that I am in reality always connected to the Lord and loved by Him. However, I missed the feeling of communion and the amazement of hearing from Him.

A consistent frustration of my Christian life has been navigating the tension between what I do and what God does. In this dry spell, I have battled anger at the Lord at why He didn’t just do His miraculous work and fix whatever was between me and Him. I have been annoyed at people telling me all the things I should do to bridge this gap. I have been frustrated at my own inability to figure out what the problem was and make it go away.

A few weeks ago, through no act of my own and no fireworks, the Lord changed something in my heart. My husband and I had had an emotional talk about some hard things, and I was also battling a fog of perimenopausal PMS hormones. As a result, I didn’t sleep well. But, when I awakened, I prayed, and God opened my eyes to see how selfish I had been lately and how I had forgotten the whole focus of following Jesus. He used my husband’s words to remind me of what I’m supposed to be doing:  Believing that God is at work where we are. Having faith that He will lead and guide us. Loving others without expecting love in return. Believing the best about people. Forgiving. Walking in love and faith.

The Lord also brought to mind something He had showed me when I was a part of Beth Moore’s “Believing God” Bible study. I have always struggled with understanding what it means to have faith. During that study, I had the epiphany that faith is “simply” believing that the Lord is at work right now, in everything that is happening in my life, and that He is working it out for good, and I can trust that He is here and active.

God did this change. In the middle of the night.  As I was awakened. When I wasn’t even trying. I did nothing other than wake up and listen.

I am reading through the Bible this year, and recently began the book of Exodus. The Israelites are enslaved to the Egyptians, they cry out to the Lord, and God hears them:

  “. . . and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.” (Exodus 2: 23-25)

Yay-God hears them, God sends Moses, the people will escape and be free. Not so fast. God heard them. Then He has to convince Moses to go. Moses comes and tells the people that God had heard them and will deliver them.  Then the pharaoh makes their jobs even harder and their lives more miserable. The people have been told that God is going to deliver them, but it is not immediate. They endure ten plagues. They flee through the desert and are almost overtaken by Egyptians. Finally, they are free from Egypt, but it is still years before Israel as a nation inhabits the Promised Land.

I am already free from sin because of salvation. However, on this earth, the day-to-day deliverance is often not instantaneous. Sanctification is a process. I can grit my teeth and pursue God even when I don’t feel Him and don’t hear Him, and I think there is some value to that. Ultimately, however, it is God who changes hearts and who, at just the right time (usually way later than I think it should be) breaks through to us and shows us what we need to know and more of who He is.

I am thankful to feel connected again. I am thrilled to read the Bible and have verses leap off of the page as relevant to me and my life. The grace of God is the only catalyst and cause of this revival.  Do I yet know why there was such a season of drought? Not yet. I am purposing to believe that there was a reason—maybe simply my own sin and inability to see it. I am grateful that, as 1 John 3:19-20 says: 

“By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.”

I am thankful that the God whom it all depends on is much, much bigger than my human heart. 

Silence

Hello?? Are you still there?? Yeah, I know. . . I've been gone for quite a little while. . . When I started this blog, my aim was to write to share what God was showing me. Lately, I haven't been hearing from God. Which then leaves me without thoughts to ponder and words to write.

If you've been a Christian for any length of time, you've probably heard about "dry spells": When you are still doing what you do (reading the Bible, praying, going to church), but you feel disconnected from the Lord. I've been in a dry spell, I guess. I am reading my Bible (trying the chronological approach to reading through the Bible in a year. Not loving it). I am praying. More or less. Sometimes less than more, but praying. Going to church is a bit tricky, because I'm between churches right now for longer than I ever have been, with it being summer and traveling and simply not being in town to visit churches to see where I need to be. I have been going to churches when I can, but as a visitor.

I don't like feeling disconnected. I don't like feeling helpless. I know that God is still there. I know that it's usually me that has stepped away, or has something going on in my head or heart that's blocking the connection. But I haven't known what it was. My recourse: Just keep praying that God will show me what it is and keep doing what I know to do. Keep trusting. Keep walking.

There is an excerpt from C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters" that I always think about during those dry times:

Sooner or later, [God] withdraws, if not in fact, at least from [believer's] conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature [that would be us] to stand up on its own legs--to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. . . He wants [believers] to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hands; and if only the will to walk is really there, He is pleased even with their stumbles. (The Screwtape Letters, p. 39)

I have learned that there is really nothing I can do to "fix" it, much as I would like to. I got some insight about a week ago, totally out of the blue. The thought came to me that I was angry at God. I was frustrated and mad (again) about being single and childless when I have desired my whole life to be married and a mom. It's not like God and I have not wrestled, argued, and cried about this before. We have. Numerous times. For me, part of peace with the Lord is sharing all my emotions with Him, bad ones included. He already knows what I'm thinking, and only by telling Him exactly what I am thinking and feeling can I clear the path to intimacy with Him. Which sounds great, except that it usually involves pain and tears, which are not my favorite way to spend an evening.

So, knowing what I now need to do: spend some time and go to that place and bring it to God, I finally sit myself down to do it. And I do. And, lo and behold, this time the whole spectre of singleness was NOT really the problem. Turns out I was mad about something else. Turns out I didn't appreciate being obedient in a hard area and feeling sure I was following the Lord's direction only to feel all alone and left out. So, we dealt with that. Which equaled me feeling a little bit better because at least I knew WHY I was feeling like I was.

I still don't feel very connected. At the end of that evening, the one thing I was reminded of was the basic truth about Jesus in my life:  I am not alone. Felt or not, He is with me always, as He promised in scripture: And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:20)

I also had a song running through my head, "There You Are" by Carolyn Arends (whom you've probably never heard of, and I don't know if she has anything recent, but she is one of my favorites): 

 Carolyn Arends - There You Are

Powered by www.Mp3Olimp.net


And so I will keep walking. And trusting. And, eventually, the connection will return:

So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:6-7).