Shaking, breaking, remoulding. Why does God have to do that to me constantly?
Struggled so hard the last two weeks… only just coming out of it the last few days. God allows it for some strange, unknown reason. Actually, I know the reason: he wants me to grow – and my comfort is a small price to pay for my maturity. Yeah… easier said than accepted.
Two weeks ago I feel really sick. All Friday night I felt food come up the wrong way. Until there was no more food, only black bile. Yeah, thoroughly enjoyable I know. Then for several days my energy went on holiday, leaving me barely able to walk. Initially I calmly accepted it as a time to stop (God’s been wanting me to do that for a while, I figured out!). Just laying in bed I had time to reflect on my lifestyle and pace of living, and just drawing closer to God in the quietness. But slowly I started to find things to alleviate my boredom – television, DVDs, time on the computer. And soon the quietness God had intended was filled with noise and stray thoughts. And the voice of God grew dim. I don’t think that was one of my more brilliant ideas. The book God.net captured what was happening, illuminating my circumstance as I read: disobedience leads to distraction, distraction leads to darkness. Whenever I selfishly ignore God for a period of time, I hunger for something (anything?) to fill the void that is left – usually something entertaining/stimulating/addictive. And for a while, I don’t notice the painful absence of my very best friend. But soon after, the void feels worse. It’s black, the darkness.
Every day of my life I face a spiritual battle. God maintains my attention more and more of the time recently, and the enemy turns up the heat knowing he must stop me at all costs. Spiritual warfare is usually a daily reality, battling negative thoughts and painful memories (and my lazy flesh!). Usually, I do OK at resisting the force attacking my soul, but as I grew sick, my resolve dwindled and my resistance weakened. The lies, clouds of doubt, discouragement and loneliness spiraled out of control as I struggled alone. It was depressing, but still I pushed on alone, hoping that somehow my weak attempts at prayer would be enough to break through this. Surely God wanted to tell me something through this, anyway?
But 13 days later, as I crashed into bed with no motivation to do anything – the guilt, hopelessness, inadequacy, frustration and all the walls that threatened to oppose me closed in with a squeeze. I’m so alone. I can’t see any way out of this. I’ve tried just about everything I know to do. …Except call on other people. I needed to let others know of the battle and call for prayer. So as I weakly picked up my mobile and started a message, 20-30 minutes went by as I stumbled to find words and fighting thoughts of pride and continuing alone. But I couldn’t help myself anymore, I was fully broken. So as my SMS broadcasted to every praying friend, something shook in the heavenlies.
