Reason #732
I feel like I am going through a dry spell. Maybe I'm experiencing writer's block. Maybe it's just the time of the year. Boring, mundane, far from exciting. No big, transformational changes are taking place in our lives. Sure, things are changing, like they always do, but nothing out of the norm or expected. We've definitely established a routine, and we've hardly strayed from it. And so it's nights like tonight, nights when I don't really feel like I have much of anything worth saying, that I just want to go to bed. It's nights like tonight when I wonder how I will be able to come up with 268 more days worth of things to write about.
This is where I find myself feeling a little confused. Because, having been out of the desert for quite some time now, I realize that I miss experiencing God in that way. In the totally, completely, desperately dependent type of way. Like when you're pretty much relying on Him to help you breathe your next breath because you just feel like you can't keep going. The way that His peace and comfort overwhelms you to the point of tears. Of being so exhausted in every form and fashion and yet feeling His arms carry you through each day. The feeling of knowing that you are completely helpless in your circumstances, that everything is so out of your control, that you just simply wait on the Lord to move your mountains because you realize He is the only one who can. It's that longing to be at His feet because when you're there, all your worries are forgotten. The cries for His tender touch to ease the aching of your soul and how refreshing and soothing it is to feel His spirit so tangibly fall on you. It's laying on the bedroom floor, face down before Him pouring out your heart's deepest desires and trusting and believing that He'll somehow work everything out. Scribbling pages and pages of thoughts and finding relief to lay your burdens in His hands. It's craving time with God because absolutely nothing else can satisfy your starving soul. It's not being able to get enough.
This is what I miss, and as much as I pleaded for a change in circumstances, this was the thing I didn't want to change. I wanted to experience the closeness of the desert and the drought in the reaping of the abundant harvest. And so I don't want to go back there. I don't want my life to take a turn for the worst. I don't want tragedy to strike again, and I certainly don't want to be devastated. But I want Him. I want to want Him in those very ways. I want a hungry soul, I want a desperate heart, I want bended knees, and I want intimacy. I want to breathe Him in with every breath. To hear Him in every conversation and song. To be overwhelmed with every word of scripture, and to see Him no matter where I am looking. This is what I want.
Today, our pastor said we need to "be a witness in our circumstances." Because circumstances are constantly changing. Good to bad to better to worse. They hardly stay the same for long. And, if you're like me, I feel like my circumstances control my relationship with the Lord. Because I don't find myself crying out in desperation right now. I don't find myself depending on Him for help every second of every day. I've found routine, I've found beauty in the ashes, I've found gratitude and thanksgiving, and I'm finding that this simply won't do. This "thank you for all the good things you've given me" mindset isn't enough. It needs to be more of a "thank you for what you've done, but I need you now as much as ever."
It's so easy to revert, yet it is so empty. God is as faithful, as sufficient, as necessary, needed, and powerful in any and all of our circumstances. In our joys and our sorrows, in the excitement and the anxiety, in the stress and the favor, God is the same. Changing with the circumstances won't do. Experiencing the fullness of the Unchangeable regardless of the changes is what my heart desires.
#732 - For the Unchangeable regardless of changing circumstances.
"Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged." - Hebrews 6:17-18
This is where I find myself feeling a little confused. Because, having been out of the desert for quite some time now, I realize that I miss experiencing God in that way. In the totally, completely, desperately dependent type of way. Like when you're pretty much relying on Him to help you breathe your next breath because you just feel like you can't keep going. The way that His peace and comfort overwhelms you to the point of tears. Of being so exhausted in every form and fashion and yet feeling His arms carry you through each day. The feeling of knowing that you are completely helpless in your circumstances, that everything is so out of your control, that you just simply wait on the Lord to move your mountains because you realize He is the only one who can. It's that longing to be at His feet because when you're there, all your worries are forgotten. The cries for His tender touch to ease the aching of your soul and how refreshing and soothing it is to feel His spirit so tangibly fall on you. It's laying on the bedroom floor, face down before Him pouring out your heart's deepest desires and trusting and believing that He'll somehow work everything out. Scribbling pages and pages of thoughts and finding relief to lay your burdens in His hands. It's craving time with God because absolutely nothing else can satisfy your starving soul. It's not being able to get enough.
This is what I miss, and as much as I pleaded for a change in circumstances, this was the thing I didn't want to change. I wanted to experience the closeness of the desert and the drought in the reaping of the abundant harvest. And so I don't want to go back there. I don't want my life to take a turn for the worst. I don't want tragedy to strike again, and I certainly don't want to be devastated. But I want Him. I want to want Him in those very ways. I want a hungry soul, I want a desperate heart, I want bended knees, and I want intimacy. I want to breathe Him in with every breath. To hear Him in every conversation and song. To be overwhelmed with every word of scripture, and to see Him no matter where I am looking. This is what I want.
Today, our pastor said we need to "be a witness in our circumstances." Because circumstances are constantly changing. Good to bad to better to worse. They hardly stay the same for long. And, if you're like me, I feel like my circumstances control my relationship with the Lord. Because I don't find myself crying out in desperation right now. I don't find myself depending on Him for help every second of every day. I've found routine, I've found beauty in the ashes, I've found gratitude and thanksgiving, and I'm finding that this simply won't do. This "thank you for all the good things you've given me" mindset isn't enough. It needs to be more of a "thank you for what you've done, but I need you now as much as ever."
It's so easy to revert, yet it is so empty. God is as faithful, as sufficient, as necessary, needed, and powerful in any and all of our circumstances. In our joys and our sorrows, in the excitement and the anxiety, in the stress and the favor, God is the same. Changing with the circumstances won't do. Experiencing the fullness of the Unchangeable regardless of the changes is what my heart desires.
#732 - For the Unchangeable regardless of changing circumstances.
"Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged." - Hebrews 6:17-18
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