Have you ever entered a season where you weren’t able to
feel God’s presence? Or that you couldn’t hear the Lord’s voice even if He were
sitting right next you?
I know I have and
unfortunately I am still presently in the midst of one. I feel like there’s a
thick brick wall, measuring about thirty feet high, between myself and God. As
hard as I would struggle to lift it up, I would always become too weak and too
tried to even try.
In fact, this blog post, much like my walk with God at the
moment, has been really hard for me to complete. This is a quite frightening
thought considering, as many of you may know, how much I am able to write.
From the time I got saved, I have been privileged with the
joy to walk in close proximity with God. All day long, my mind would be filled
with songs of praise and worship each time I felt Him near. I would pray with
Him for hours with little conversations to the point where I would even lose
track of time. Even climbing up a flight of stairs would be a moment of praise
for me, because I knew He had helped me to do it. Each morning from the moment
I woke up, He was the first thing on my mind and when He wasn’t I would start
repenting.
During this period, I felt so eager to pray and my soul would
always thirst for a moment that I could sneak away and be alone with God. I
felt so at peace and in awe that a God, who is so high and mighty, would even
take the time to think of me. To sum up, I grew in love with God.
So when I felt the effects of a dry season coming on about a
few weeks ago, it was all the more devastating to me.
At first, it wasn’t noticeable. I guess like a physically
dry season, it was hot on some days and cold the next. My dullness in prayer
didn’t come all at once. It was a slow change.
Eventually my heart felt a little less focused on God and became more
preoccupied on worldly matters, such as school, work, friends, or family. Soon
afterwards, I finally began to feel the unbearable weight of my weary prayers
and how much I had changed from the month before.
Little by little, I walked into a dry season without even
noticing. It’s weird how we are so easily deceived, if we don’t pay close
enough attention.
As it is written in Mark
13: 35, when Jesus instructs the disciples that they should be ready for
the last days, "Therefore
keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come
back--whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at
dawn.”
Or even 1 Peter 5:8: “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy
the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”
Looking back, there were many signs that I had developed,
which I should of picked up on. I’m not saying that these are standard warning
signs that every one goes through before they enter into a dry season. But here
are a few things I discovered from going through one:
1. I started
praying less:
For me this was the first symptom. I don’t
know exactly how it started. Perhaps it was just from the mere exhaustion of
the day or the need to have a sense of accomplishment. Either way, the results
were the same. I wanted to get on with my busy day and so my prayers got
shorter and shorter. The strange thing was that the circumstances were even
better during this season compared to when I worked two part-time jobs in the
summer while attending school and going through with all-night prayer. Not
trying to brag or anything, but there was literally no excuse for my actions!
2. I started
to read less of the Bible:
When I first started reading the Bible, I had this
mindset that I would get it done in one year. I had simply read many parts of
the Bible, because I felt this need to get it done. I did this out of the
mindset of “I must” so I will remain in God rather than “I want” to, because He
is worthy of my adoration and affections towards Him.
But this led me down a path of starvation
for God’s Word. I knew that the way I had been reading the Bible was wrong and
I did not heed the instruction given by the Holy Spirit to cease this kind of
devotion. I just read it in order to check it off my daily list of achievements
throughout the day.
By no means am I saying that reading the
Bible is boring. I really did enjoy the quiet times during the day when I could
read it on the bus or during a lunch break at work, where mediating on the Word
would fill me. But, by viewing the daily reading of the Bible as a labour, I
ended up feeling more drained rather than taking the time to appreciate the
goodness of God’s word.
3. I felt as
though my prayers barely reached the ceiling:
I knew this without a fraction of a doubt
that something was wrong in the way I communed with God. I can’t describe it
very well, but I felt this lull as I prayed where I didn’t know for the first
time whether the Lord had heard me or not. So I started asking God what was it
that I had been doing wrong and I began repenting for just about anything. I
knew that God would never leave me and so I felt I had done something wrong,
which was breaking our fellowship. My heart felt really tired and I started
putting up this front that surely God would deliver me at any moment, so I
didn’t have to worry. Therefore, I didn’t have to do anything. Like other times
God would save the day and would lift up my spirit from this despondence. Yet,
this was the trap I set before myself that led me deeper into the way of sin.
4. I became
restless and not focused in spending
time with God:
When I stopped reading the Word as often
and began to pray less, my heart started to wander off and find other things to
do in order to fill this empty space of time. On top of taking a full course
load and doing a part-time job, I started looking for other projects or
volunteer opportunities to be apart of. Before, I was absolutely ecstatic in
just getting a minute of God to myself. It as if it was just me and Him and the
world around us would fade. But now I had hours to do other work and was
utterly miserable in toil.
5. I missed
church for a few weeks due to other commitments or disagreements about false
teaching:
When my heart began to become more harden
towards abiding in the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I began to miss a few
services at church. However, I do have to provide a bit of context here as to
why I missed church in the first place.
Over the past few months, I have been
having a few on-going debates with my mother over the subject of theology and
false doctrine being preached in her church. As much as I respected the pastor
of that church, the sermons only reviewed one verse in Scripture (Genesis
12:2). This same verse has been examined for nearly a year now. I’m not saying
that this is wrong. Since every word in
Scripture is weightier than the next and great knowledge can be attained
through the study of just one verse. Unfortunately, the messages that were
delivered always had greater emphasis on the teaching of prosperity. Anyways, this
caused reluctance in me to go to church and instead I was always striving to
find a new one that I could attend.
But, nevertheless I should have attended
these services out of respect for God rather than staying at home to pray. No
matter what season I am in, my soul always feels incredibly thirsty if I miss
church. Since the Holy Spirit is filling and even fills me more when I am in
the presence of the body of Christ.
6. I felt
miserable and just about anything made me tick!
When I had finally reached the deepest
stretches of the dry season and endeavored through all the symptoms, the joy in
my heart from Christ began to leave me little by little. I became more tired,
more irritated, more embittered, and more unloving! I started to become more
like the world and slowly drifted away from conforming to the image of Christ.
I absolutely despised this. Once I tasted
of the Lord’s joy, there is nothing like it and filling my life with
meaningless things, like school or work, made it all the more difficult to come
back to Him.
The
Breaking Point:
This is when I finally reached my breaking point.
Suddenly people just became so intolerable to be with and I slowly started to
lose my patience in almost every situation I encountered. Even some of my
friends began to observe the drastic change in my attitude towards them.
Despite their gentle nudge to calmly point out my own faults, I would take
their comments in offence and would soon become indignant towards them.
Normally, when I was in the place of prayer before God, forgiveness would come
so readily. I wouldn’t have this urge to wait around or calm myself before I
faced that person again. That’s when I knew that even the fruits I bore where
not even comparable to the ones that Jesus desired for us to produce.
I gradually began to feel really sad and I wanted to be
alone all the time. I thought I must have had depression or maybe I was taking
on too much responsibility. Then to add insult to injury, the circumstances in
my life just seemed to progress into a state of complete chaos and utter confusion. I was having problems with my supervisor over
job-related issues at work that I thought I would never commit in my life. But
the difficulties didn’t stop here. They just seemed to trickle down into all
aspects of my life. The worst was at home, where it actually came to the point where
I couldn’t even stand to be in the presence of my own mother!!
And My Breakdown:
Then it finally happened. I just broke down before God.
Thankfully, Jesus gave me the grace to have this moment at home rather than on
a subway or at work. I cried out to God for mercy and to forgive me for my
idolatry and idleness in delaying my time to consecrate myself before Him. I
ultimately confessed to God that I didn’t have anything to offer Him, but my
heart and asked whether He was willing to accept the offering from a beggar
like me. I said my flesh is so weak and my heart fails within me. But that my
only hope is in the sacrifice you made at Calvary for me and in your Spirit to
guide me back home to you.
I wish I could say that I felt this new profound feeling
of praise and joy right after that moment, but I didn’t. In fact, I started
crying for days and I couldn’t stop. Especially at night, my pillow would be
stained with tears. This was so weird for me, because I didn’t even cry at my
grandmother’s funeral! All I knew was that I have never lamented like this
before. Each time when I humbled myself and began to put aside my selfish ways
or desires in order to pray, I would start weeping and I have to say it was extremely
refreshing.
But these moments of penitence were just little
splashes of relief that God would allow me to possess. He would give me sips of
water for the long journey ahead, but it never compared to the jug of water I used
to consume when I felt God was with me. I finally understood the verses that
David poured out in…
Psalm 13: “How
Long, O Lord?”
“How long,
O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I take counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,
4 lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,”
lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.”
steady the knees that give way
4 say to those with fearful hearts,
“Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
he will come to save you.”
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
6 Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert.”
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I take counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,
4 lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,”
lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.”
steady the knees that give way
4 say to those with fearful hearts,
“Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
he will come to save you.”
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
6 Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert.”
3 Consider and answer me, O Lord my God;
5 But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
And that’s exactly what I did. I asked God to examine the
content of my heart and to remove anything that led me to stray away from
Him. Like always, God was faithful to me
and allowed all of my deep-seated issues to rise to surface of my heart, where
they had finally been revealed so that I could repent of them.
Hard lessons:
One of the main obstacles that I had been struggling during
this season with was that I was searching for this “feeling” to acknowledge
that the Lord’s presence was near me.
Not only had I been neglecting the daily devotion of absorbing in His
Word, but I also kept on trying to go back to a position where I “felt” right
with God. Oftentimes we are too quick to place our intimate relationship with
God into the category of mere human emotion and this is a grave injustice. It is something WAY beyond our comprehension.
To understand the ways of an infinite and most High God, like ours, with our
limited capacity of knowledge would be an insult to the Lord!
What I learned was…
1. The fact that I don’t feel God’s presence
doesn’t mean that He is not there. God is and always has been there, whether I
am too blind to see it or not. He is omnipresent, meaning He is present
everywhere and at anytime! My emotions soon became an idol that I had clung
onto in order to understand the ways of the Lord. However, you see, we cannot trust our
emotions, because they are always subject to change. Particularly, this occurs when
our present circumstances seem to oppose us and nothing seems to work in our
favour. It is usually at this time when
the devil takes notice and begins to attack us in more ways than we can count.
Believe me, Satan has watched you for years and so he knows what makes you
tick.
I was reminded of a verse that put all my
anxieties and fears to rest. It’s from Isaiah
40: 12:
“Who
has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his
hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or
weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance?”
God literally holds the universe in His
hands and how comforting a thought it was for me to know that I didn’t have to
worry about a thing, because God is always in control. My emotions meant
nothing since it even says in the Bible in Jeremiah
17:9, that are hearts are dreadfully deceitful that no one can ever
understand it. So good riddance to emotions and prepare to hear the truth of
God’s Word!
I would always refer to James 2:26: “As the
body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.” in order to
justify that I needed to work in order to maintain my faith. Unfortunately, I
had taken this entire passage in James 2:14-26 out of context to almost create
a works-based system of righteousness.
Like anytime I would pray, I would ask God,
where’s my reward? Where’s the plaque that I can hang up on my wall saying I have
fasted for you? Or served as a leader in my fellowship…have I earned more of
your love or will I be showered with more grace?
But all work is vanity if it’s not done for
the glory of God! Yes, indeed it is true that faith without works is dead.
Since the lack of righteous deeds that we commit reveals an unchanged life or a
spiritually dead heart. Many verses in Scripture can attest for this notion
that true faith results in a regenerated heart, which compels us to preform
“works” that can testify for the working of the Holy Spirit in us. Therefore, if
our faith is in Jesus, then we will naturally be inclined to do work and live a
life that serves to glorify His name. I think Heather Lindsey, the founder of
the Christian organization called Pinky Promise, puts it best, “How we live reveals what we believe and
whether the faith we profess to have is a living faith. Works
are not the cause of salvation; works are the evidence of salvation”
Again it says in Ecclesiastes 2:11: “Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and
what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the
wind; nothing was gained under the sun.”
This video
pretty much sums up what I have been learning throughout this dry season. Though
I’m not a guy (despite the fact that I often times act like one) and most of
this stuff doesn’t really apply to me, like having a wife or kids. I still feel
it’s a good lesson that we could all take in and learn from. It’s a spoken word
by Jefferson Bethke about “A Man & His Idols”. If you have the time, I
would highly recommend that you check it out:
Some Lotion during the Dry Season:
I’ve been reading this book recently called “Surviving Your
Wilderness” by Dan Kolenda. He is a missionary evangelist as well as the
President of Christ for all Nations, which has allowed him to have massive
campaigns in some of the most dangerous and remote locations in the world. I
would really encourage you to read it if you have been feeling the burden of a dry
season. Plus, unlike this blog, it’s really short!
Here are a few tips I got from the book that I think are
worth noting:
1. Don’t
panic!
Refuse your natural tendency to let your
imagination run wild and let your Spirit be still to know that Jesus is God.
Jesus is always in control. Take a deep breath and remind yourself of who God
is, His character, and that your identity has been established in Christ.
Recall all the moments in your life when you witnessed God’s faithfulness towards
you and stay alert, because this is when the enemy will fill your head with
lies about God’s love for you. Like it
says in 1 John 4:18: There is no fear in
love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.
The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”
2. Assess
your situation:
Take stock of the resources that God has
given you for the journey and use them. Also, examine the kind of wilderness
you are in, such as if your in a season of promotion or opposition. This will
help you better understand how to navigate through it.
Ø
Above all, we have the Word of God on our side! When our circumstances and problems seem
to overwhelm us, we must rely on the truth contained within Scripture to
sustain us. This is especially true when the enemy tries to take advantage of
our wilderness and fill our head with lies and temptations. An example I always
look toward is Jesus and how He dealt with His temptation in His own
wilderness. He responds to the devil by quoting Scripture. In Matthew 4:4 it says, Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man
shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of
God.'"
Ø
Fellowship
of the saints: Since we are all members in the body of Christ, we grieve as
one body. If one of us gets hurt, we all do! In Ephesians 6, in verse 18 it
states, “And pray in the Spirit on all
occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind,
be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.” After
reading this book I learned that in the entire passage it mentions protecting
everything, but our backs! That’s because we are supposed are supposed to be
looking out for one another and defending each other in battle. Particularly,
during a dry season, we have to surround ourselves with brothers and sisters
that will pray for you with purpose and perseverance.
3. Find
Shelter:
Know that God is present to you now more
than ever, and hide yourself in Him. God works in us the most during a dry
season when we are at our weakest.
4. Build
a Fire:
Continue
to make time for God. However little it may be, just talk to God as if
you are talking to your closest friend. He longs to hear your voice, no matter
how faint it is. Set yourself before Him with passionate worship for protection
against the enemy and for sanctification. As it says in Romans 12:11: Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit,
serve the Lord.”
5. Drink
Water:
Pray at all times and be comforted by the power
of the Holy Spirit, which is said to be the place of living water. The Holy
Spirit is “groaning” with us when we are “groaning within us”. It knows our strengths, weaknesses, and
teaches us how to operate in God’s will when we can’t figure it out. In Romans 8:26 “ In the same way, the Spirit
helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the
Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groan”. So He knows how
to help us and walk us through the dry season.
6. Find
Nourishment:
Live on God’s word trough intense meditation and be
obedient to what the Holy Spirit reveals to you through it. If it convicts you
to cut certain things out of your life, abide in it. I’m still struggling with
this and have a long way to go. But pray and trust that the Lord only
disciplines those whom he loves and know that He will help you do it.
Anyways, that’s all I have to say. I know, like my last
post, this blog sadly has turned into yet another novel. But I try to do it all
for the glory of Christ’s name. So hopefully, this helps anyone going through a
dry season. Remember that Jesus is faithful and He will never give us more than
we can bear. All of this is done in order to do a greater working in our lives.
Thus, God alone may be glorified in the lives of those who dare to dwell with
Him in barren places.
I always hold onto this promise from Isaiah 35:3-6:
steady the knees that give way;
4 say to those with fearful hearts,
“Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
he will come to save you.”
5 Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
6 Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert.
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
6 Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert.
So take courage! Press in and maintain fellowship with God!
The pain of the wilderness may be too much for you right now, but greater is
the significance it has in your life. I
hope that the Lord continues to be with you and gives you the strength you need
to bear this season.
In Christ’s love,
Sas