On a ministry trip overseas a couple years ago I experienced prolonged jet lag that wreaked havoc on my sleep and I experienced a sudden loss of sensing the presence of God in prayer. In times like this I simply have to walk by faith and not by sight. Thanks to the grace of God I made a choice to fix my attention on praising God even though I did not have the feelings that God was near. After the ministry trip concluded and I had returned home I found myself still suffering from the loss of awareness of God's presence in my prayer. This dragged on for more than two months after I had come home. I got to the point I felt exasperated and began to wonder if God was angry with me but that He hadn't told me so. I was grasping for any explanation for why I felt so miserable. In God's own good timing He revealed to me that He was certainly not mad at me but there was an important lesson for me to learn. The Lord gave me a mental picture of Jesus and me playing the children's game Hide and Seek. The Lord said we began to play this game while on the ministry trip. Jesus was the one who hid and I had gone looking for him. He and I played the game in the dark. I could not see that I had gone straight to the place where he was hiding but because of the darkness I did not realize that he was there and how close I was to him. Jesus told me later that he was pleased that I had come directly to him but the rules of the game did not permit him to speak until tagged so he kept quiet, waiting for me to discover he was right there. Unfortunately for me, I could not see Jesus, so I did not know how near he was. The game went on a long time and I got tired and sat down on the ground only inches from where he was hiding but, again, I did not know that I had been beside him practically the whole time. In the end he broke the silence and revealed himself to me because he saw that I was so upset. For the Lord does not hide himself to tease us. From time to time we all need to be reminded that God does not tease us. I invite you to listen to Pieces sung by Steffany Gretzinger at the OneThing 2015 conference.
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AuthorI am a retreat leader and author. I teach on the blessed hope, prayer and the spiritual life because I am passionate about seeing people grow in holiness. Archives
August 2016
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