I often find myself sitting to write when God has revealed
something new to me, when the Spirit has helped me through a hard time, or
after I have come to new understanding of an old truth. Not so today.
I write today because I feel that God is far from me. The metaphor of the desert—of being in a ‘dry
and thirsty land’—is more real to me now than it has been in a long time.
When I pray, I feel I am talking to myself. When I read the Scriptures, I feel completely
disconnected from that world. When I attend
worship, I feel like an outsider. I hope
beyond hope that I’m not the only Christian to feel this way. And, as I intimated above, it’s not the first
time….
But wait. There IS
good news in all of this. How? Well, it all comes down to the “I feel…” element
of my confessions. I have often told my
students that we simply cannot trust our feelings…that our feelings change more
frequently than the weather. (Oh, feelings aren’t bad; we just tend to put too much emphasis on them.) How often
have we gotten out of bed smiling in the morning, glad for a new day…but leave
the house or apartment scowling just an hour later as we head to work? Or, how often have we been feeling down, beat-up,
worn…and a phone call comes—from ‘him’ or ‘her’…and suddenly we’re all happy
and smiles and “all is well with the world”?
Fickle—that’s what feelings are.
How many times have I heard people say upon leaving a
worship service, “Well, I just didn’t feel the Spirit there today….” I’ve heard supposedly “mature” Christians
(I’m beginning to think that means they’ve lost their ‘child-like’ faith!) talk
about how they “feel the Lord moving them” in this direction or that. Feelings--don’t trust ‘em.
I learned long ago not to rely on feelings…and at the same
time, I learned the importance of spiritual discipline. In one of our classes in the seminary in Mexico,
my students and I decided to develop a practical, imaginative definition of
‘spiritual discipline,’ and here is what we came up with: Spiritual
discipline is the constant preparation of the spiritual soil—weeding, plowing and hoeing
in expectation of the coming rains; it’s putting one’s self in that path or
road that Jesus usually walks so as to increase the likelihood of an encounter. The spiritual disciplines of prayer,
Scripture reading, worship, fasting and the like involve doing what is good and
right and necessary to prepare the soil of our lives, to put us in that
spiritual place to receive God, to hear God…even to be Christ for others in
their moment of need. It means praying,
reading, worshiping, singing, listening—whether we feel like it or not.
Whether I “feel” God hears me or not, I pray—I speak the
words of thanksgiving, of care, of need.
Whether I “feel” a part of the Biblical conversation, I read—I open
myself to words of life, words of hope, words of grace and guidance. Whether I “feel” the Spirit or God’s
Presence, or not, I gather with other Christians for worship—I receive
communion, I sing the songs (sometimes only softly, under my breath!), I hear
the Word read and proclaimed. And I may
walk away from all of these feeling unheard, disconnected or empty. But, my life of faith is not based on feelings; it is based on what I know. I have the promises: And we
know that He hears us…I will never leave you or forsake you…I am with you always,
to the end of the age…[nothing] will be able to separate us from the love of
God in Christ Jesus….
Meanwhile, I tend the soil…I go through the motions…I do
what I know is good and right, I put myself in God-pleasing places—and I await
the encounter that will refresh me and perhaps even bring feelings to life
again within me.
~Jon~
(Note: Attesting to
the power and effect of writing…the act of writing, I have found a new sense of
faith and purpose for having written this piece! So, when something troubles you, write about
it…and see what happens.)
