Your driving down your street on the way to somewhere important. You have gone down this road countless times before, you drive it without a second thought. You round the corner, happily singing along to some tunes, and then BAM- a road block, keeping you from your destination. We all experience that quick second of confusion and anger, even though it is something as silly as a roadblock, tacking on an extra minute to our travel time. "What is this? I didn't know about this! What is going on? I have to get there! What am I going to do?! Oh wait, I'll just take the next street over..."
Lately, I have been experiencing this "roadblock" with Jesus. I woke up a week ago with this absent feeling and all I could think was "UGGGGH. What is going on?" I had been doing so well on my walk with God since I had been back. But now God was silent, I wasn't feeling His presence, and I threw a pity party about it. I moped around in my heart because I wasn't experiencing what I wanted to. Sunday night, however, he laid a few surprising thoughts on my heart.
First of all, a trial is not a set back. When you aren't hearing what you want, or feeling what you want, that does not mean you are taking a step back or doing "bad" with God. All it is, is that He chooses to be quite for a minute. But the lies from the enemy can twist this "silence" into making us believe God doesn't want to talk to us. That is the furthest thing from the truth that could ever be.
Second, I had a choice. A year ago, it was my default to fall back on myself. I would forget my problem and pretend all is well, or I would forget God. Thats what I thought my options were. This time, my options were to ignore the problem, ignore God, or fight through it, and in the end see some growth. This was a chance to see how much I actually trusted Him. To see if I still believed His truth, even though I wasn't hearing it.
Trials are tough and certainly not any fun. We all have them, we don't have a choice with that. But we do have a choice about what to do with those trials. Trials is what builds us up, and persevering through them is what shapes us to be who we are. My challenge to myself is to embrace my trials, to learn from them, to grow in them.
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance." James 1:2-3
Good realizations, Kristi. Whenever I feel like God is silent, I first check to see whether I'm just not listening and then I read a few passages from When the Heart Waits (Sue Monk Kidd- fabulous book about the dark night of the soul) or Sacred Thirst (M. Craig Barnes.)
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