Thursday, December 31, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Dark Night
Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of His servant? Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God. Isaiah 50:10
I've been in a strange place lately. I've been crying out to God for breakthrough in all the areas I feel stuck or see other people stuck, where I see glimmers of the Kingdom that are hugely encouraging and make me hungry for more - more of God's presence, more healing, more intimacy, more freedom. I believe there is more. What I have seen is already so much more than I used to believe or expect; it makes me believe it all. And I hear stories from around the world of the "more" that Jesus is up to. But we're not seeing it yet.
As I am waiting, I am finding myself in a darkness that feels, at times, like I have lost my way. While my conversations with God are as lively as ever, I don't sense His presence or hear from Him like I have been. Especially when I am in a place to pray for someone else, I have the deeply disorienting sense of having nothing to offer and not knowing how to pray AND not having faith that God is going to "show up" when I do. I realize that the ways I have learned to pray, which have been life-giving, have the potential (along with all prayer) of being formulaic or technique. I think God is stripping me of that, which is good because it gets me back to He is the Vine and I am a branch and apart from Him I can do nothing. We have been saying for some time that we want to walk in total reliance on Jesus, who did nothing of Himself but only what He saw the Father doing. How else to do that but to be in utter reliance?
The hard part is that whatever is going on doesn't feel very good. It is depressing and out of control. Is it time to press in or to simply receive the Kingdom like a little child?
I've been in a strange place lately. I've been crying out to God for breakthrough in all the areas I feel stuck or see other people stuck, where I see glimmers of the Kingdom that are hugely encouraging and make me hungry for more - more of God's presence, more healing, more intimacy, more freedom. I believe there is more. What I have seen is already so much more than I used to believe or expect; it makes me believe it all. And I hear stories from around the world of the "more" that Jesus is up to. But we're not seeing it yet.
As I am waiting, I am finding myself in a darkness that feels, at times, like I have lost my way. While my conversations with God are as lively as ever, I don't sense His presence or hear from Him like I have been. Especially when I am in a place to pray for someone else, I have the deeply disorienting sense of having nothing to offer and not knowing how to pray AND not having faith that God is going to "show up" when I do. I realize that the ways I have learned to pray, which have been life-giving, have the potential (along with all prayer) of being formulaic or technique. I think God is stripping me of that, which is good because it gets me back to He is the Vine and I am a branch and apart from Him I can do nothing. We have been saying for some time that we want to walk in total reliance on Jesus, who did nothing of Himself but only what He saw the Father doing. How else to do that but to be in utter reliance?
The hard part is that whatever is going on doesn't feel very good. It is depressing and out of control. Is it time to press in or to simply receive the Kingdom like a little child?
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