You may or may not have noticed that this blog has been a little lacking in… well… God recently.
After my hiatus I haven’t really spoken much of my spiritual journey and there’s a very simple reason for this:
I’m just going through the motions right now.My blog is a reflection of who I am and where I am. Always has been. It mirrors my ups and downs, when I check out, when I check back in again.
A very smart, very Godly woman asked me the other day if I was just ‘going through the motions’ and I had to answer YES!
Since then, every time I get in the car it seems like the song “The Motions” by Matthew West is playing.
I don’t want to just go through the motions.
Any advice?
I don’t know, Peter. I don’t think there are easy answers and to give one would seem smug or contrived. All I can say is that we love you, God loves you, we see the gift in you and trust God to show you whatever He wants to show you.
I do know that whatever we go through, God wants to show us who He really is and there’s opportunity to see just that. There’s no such thing as going through something “too long.” God is patient and loves us. He’ll make it clear and shows up in the midst of anything.
All that to say- I’ll keep praying for you!
Peter:
I agree with Jason that there are no easy answers. I will pray for you to seek Him and find your way back. The fact that you can be openly honest about it, and more importantly honest with yourself, sounds encouraging.
Take comfort from the fact that He is patient and loving and He wants you with Him.
Wish I knew what to say, Peter. I find myself drifting along in that very same boat, and it’s not a very fun trip.
Not fun is a good way to put it John 🙂 I’ll pray for you. Thanks. Just knowing I’m not alone is a great encouragement.
I want you to know that God hears the genuine cry of His children. The answer is on the wings of angels and the fires of affliction.
This world reeks and tumbles downward, our cherished country of America, is rapidly growing dark under the fiery wrath of liberals that have been surpressed these past 8 years. Am I speaking just politics, or is something most substantial at work.
As of a recent posting from our government, many values that a dedicated Christian stand for has been labeled as extreme and potentially dangerous.
Now then, two things I have heard over and over again this year. One, we the Christians must get out and be a witness for Christ in an increasing hostile world. In this we find faith, challenge, a drawing towards God, loving those who may even hate us.
Number two. The door of adversity and even persecution is being opened to this country. What does that have to do with this feeling “of nothing or drifting along in life?” Everything.
As adversity increases, our cries become very genuine to see God move among us, to see souls saved, to see salvation and outpouring in our own lives, protection, that of the Holy Spirit. An outpouring defines His purpose, producing a clarity of vision, and finally, a cry to see Christ return. We no longer are consumed about us and all trappings that well, trap us.
In that we are ignorant, prideful, inept to advance the Kingdom of God in any shape or form. This view produces a liberty to come away free, the chains of performance fall in the light of His forgiveness and grace. The appropiation of grace to forgive ourselves.
So then, we allow Christ to sit upon the throne, we rest. We advance in faith into the Feast of Tabernacles, the consumation of all things. We position ourselves. We afflict our souls in prayer and fasting as the “Day of the Lord” approaches. We realize that the angels separate the sheep from the goats, not our task.
Consider just a couple of scriptures.
Psalms 119:67 Before I was afflicted I was astray; but now I have kept thy word.
Psalms 119:71 It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.
As in with salvation, we always have choices. Revival begins with “I.” It is a choice of heart.
I say to arise with the full armor of God. This includes the helmet of salvation, a way of thinking! How are we to think?
The answer is simple. We think like Christ. Almighty God is so committed that He sent His Son to die on the Cross for you. What significance. He then sent His Holy Spirit to teach, guide, comfort. God sent, God approached, God performs. We stand back amazed and grateful. God has energy, prpose, drive, nothing nebulous about His purposes and those he choses to use. That would be you and I.
Christianity, by our choice, has been reduced to reading books, prosperity, not harm no foul, mechanical and spiritual aerobics.
Yet, as living stones, it is about relationship, love, an accord of unity that comes from resting from our works, from being soul afflicted, from being God afflicted to the unsaved and those who perish in their faith.
So then, want to move on? Be soul afflicted, the fires of God. This invitation is the seldom traveled road, that of persecution, the road of abandonment in faith to Christ!
@Randy – Well said, an excellent and insightful reply.
@Peter – Before God invited Moses up the mountain, He first had him cross the desert – a dry, arid, lonely and desolate journey.
No, you’re not alone. Many of us have been there or are there. It’s all part of the process – a period of being tried, tested, tempered and finally emerging from the fire, ready to be re-formed and renewed by the Master Potter. Ready to be made useful for His purpose. (Have you considered my servant, Job?)
For anyone who would seek to truly follow the Lord Jesus Christ the journey is not an easy one. It is, in fact, quite often filled with harsh and miserable times that appear to us to be without end. And it seems to take every ounce of our strength just to make it through one more day.
Remember – there’s someone else in the room, whispering relentlessly that we can’t take it, we have no hope, our strength is gone, it’s time to give up.
We can never see the mountain that awaits us. None of us can. It will appear before us – when God ordains it. That’s when we realize that it was worth whatever price we had to pay.
Try not to be dismayed – give Him thanks – He’s up to something.
Thanks Joe. your advice is always appreciated.
I think you and Randy would get on like a house on fire!
Sometimes we simply don’t have the “want to”… I often have to confess that and ask God to give me the “want to” to go on and get back up.
Your in my prayers!
This is one of the greatest songs I have ever heard. It helps me everyday in my spiritual journey with God and I am greatfull everyday that God used Mathew West to create such an inspirational song because I am sure that I am not the only whom this song helps. Thank you!!
Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to leave a comment, Lee!