unreal ginger meet unreal desert

 

Have you ever felt like you were in a “desert” with the Lord? In Christian culture we seem to throw that idea around a lot. I can name dozens of moments sitting around with a bunch of well intended Christian people claiming that they are in the “wilderness” with God, and claim to not hear Him, or that He is somehow distant from our current lives and situations. I saw this because for the past few months, I have TOTALLY been that girl. I have sat around in many bible studies, late night phone calls, or over casual dinners with friends saying how alone I felt cause I was just in this season where I was in the wilderness and God just was not talking to me.

 

I work for an organization that THRIVES on the idea that God speaks and we can actually hear Him and His voice speaking to us. Personally, I am responsible for telling our 100+ pool of leaders how important it is, teach it to them, so that they can turn around and teach it to our 5000 participants this summer. At the end of every single mission trip we run, if each person does not believe that God still has something to say to them, and that they can actually hear it and act upon it, then we didn’t do our job as leaders. That is the most important thing to us! You have the power to hear from God. I have the power to hear from God.

 

So now I am going to say the thing that you’re not supposed to say…

These past few months, I have believed the lie that God wasn’t speaking to me. Yeah, I know right. That sounds terrible and shocking and wrong. But I would beg you believe that I am not the only one who has felt that way. In fact, I would go as far to say that many people believe this, by passing it off as normal:

“Oh yeah, its just a quiet time with you and God.”

“Oh yeah, deserts are totally normal.”

SO wrong!

And here is the wrong part about it:

 

I refuse to believe that my loving and compassionate God would chose to stop talking to me. I know He is like a father figure, and sometimes they have to do things for your own good to help you to understand, but the silent treatment? I’ve never had someone do that to me because they love me and want to help me. But I have given the silent treatment to someone else before. Oh yeah! I stop talking to someone when they make me upset. Or I would pretend that they are not speaking to me, when really I was just ignoring them or tuning them out.

 

Oh. dang.

So there is the truth. Maybe it is not God putting me through the wilderness and a desert, but maybe I just created a desert for myself by my refusal to listen to my Abba. Maybe instead of God “no longer talking to me” I filled up my ears with false teachings of earthly things I thought would comfort me, but actually just pushed me further away from Him. But isn’t it so much easier to blame God? To say that God is mean and not hearing my desires and the Lord is not answering my prayers… instead of the truth: I am not listening to Him, I am not working on my relationship with Him, I am the one growing distant and quiet.

 

I made up this wilderness to make myself feel better about shutting God out of my life. Claiming that I could not hear Him, because I turned up the noise on stupid stuff in my life. God didn’t stop talking to me. He’s great. He loves me no matter what. I am the silly one who thinks that He doesn’t know best.

 

So take my advice: don’t give God the silent treatment and refuse to listen to Him.

He is not going to force His way or His opinions on you.

He just wants to talk it out, walk it out with you.

And even more seriously, stop believing the lie that a desert is “okay” and “normal” somehow. Don’t think for a second that God will ever refuse to talk with you or want to engage in a relationship with you.