Sometimes blogging for an audience is hard for me because as much as I want to share things that are true and meaningful, I am deathly afraid to share things that are true and meaningful. Which is dumb and its a fear driven mostly by pride which makes it even dumber. Because its easy to write the stuff that makes me sound smart and discerning and well put together and focused. Its an entirely different thing to write the stuff that reveals where I'm awkward and broken and scared. But its not fair for me to only share the one side. Its not fair and its certainly not helpful. The people I can really relate to and who've helped me the most are the people who haven't tried to hide their broken pieces from me but have rather shared them in an attempt to help me with my own.
So I'll share my messes with you knowing theres a possibility you will no longer think that I'm perfect and you may even start to wonder if I've actually got serious issues and you may decide I'm too much of a mess and you're not really interested in being friends anymore. In the name of transparency, I'll take the risk.
The last few days I've struggled with feelings that I can only describe as a sort of depression. If we've spent time together in the last few days you may or may not have noticed it depending on how I felt at that particular moment. Some of you noticed because I came over to your house and cried, and others of you didn't notice at all and are probably wondering what else I've successfully faked in my life. Sorry.
I'm wondering at this point if it isn't some kind of spiritual warfare because early monday morning at exactly 3am I felt what must have been the lord, wake me up and give me some very specific things to pray for and then certain scriptures that I needed to read. It was weird and I can say that something like that has only happened to me maybe one or two other times. And I don't even remember all the things I prayed for or all of the verses I read but I do know that the two that stuck with me and that I woke up four hours later remembering was a line about speaking truth to your heart and then Psalm 16:9-10
Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
my flesh also dwells secure.
For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
or let your holy one see corruption
Which is both very strange and very encouraging because ever since that morning when I woke was when I felt a really deep sadness for no real reason that I could figure out. But that whole day I was constantly reminded to "speak truth to my heart" regardless of my feelings and also I was reminded that the Lord would not abandon my soul, despite the fact that my soul felt very dark.
So thats been this week so far. My prayer is that it is a passing thing and I won't have those feelings anymore come tomorrow. Because thats just not me.
Ok but...
In the last 3 days the best way I can describe how my feelings toward the lord have been, is that I felt as though I had to fight through all the sadness in order to cling to Jesus. I've felt especially broken and in need of Christ's rescue to bring me joy these past three days more than I probably ever have. I've felt totally incapable of being able to bring myself any comfort at all apart from time in scripture and prayer. And when the distractions were gone, I felt completely dependant on Jesus to keep me from melting down right there in my car or wherever.
In other words... I've been a hopeless sinner in need of the gospel.
In short, I've been a human this week.
And while I'm praying this is just some short lived thing and these emotions won't stay long in my heart, I'm thankful for the ways they have helped me to see where my normal every day living is not as dependant on Christ as it should be. These last 3 days I've "felt" totally incapable of bringing myself any real comfort, but the truth is I actually AM totally incapable of bringing myself any real comfort. Any comfort thats going to last that is.
Because I can say out of my head knowledge, that yeah I'm in a desperate state and completely hopeless without Jesus. But I often have days where I dont feel like im in a desperate state at all. In fact there are days when I think I'm doing pretty awesome and I'm getting so much work done and my life is in order and my friends all think I'm awesome and by golly people like me! And on those days its really easy to skip God and worship myself because eh, I'm not really THAT in need of Christ. Not on a day when everything is going super awesome.
Ok so don't get me wrong. God's main purpose is his glory and our joy. God is all about our having joy. Real, lasting, awesome joy. I don't believe that its God's desire for all of his children to live their lives in a weird emotional sadness. But I will say that I think these last three days have shown me quite a bit about the errors in my heart and how I actually need to feel that level of dependancy on Christ every day, not just the days when I'm emotionally sad.
Its been a good reminder that my hope is never found in my personality or my abilities or my accomplishments but rather its found in the un-relenting grace of my savior regardless of how I am "feeling". Because how can I truly celebrate his grace if I can't even acknowledge how broken and in need of it I really am?
So I'll leave you with these two quotes that really hit home for me on this.
"Living by faith=I live like I believe my condition is as desperate as God says it is and his grace is as powerful as he declares it to be."
Thats all I got.
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