I have felt in these past few weeks as though I am standing on the blank page of an author´s ´writer´s block.´ I am reaching in the dark for a voice, direction, or some hint of zeal or emotion. Yet, I find myself empty handed and I must make my way towards Him. Has He drawn me to Himself to be silent? Has He called me to the desert to not speak?
I find this season best summed up in the words of a devotion for today. Oswald Chambers writes,
´´Yet God has to knock the bottom of your experience as His saint to get you in direct contact with Himself. God wants you to understand that it is a life of faith, not a life of emotional enjoyment of His blessings. The beginning of your life of faith was very narrow and intense, centered around a small experience that had as much emotion as faith in it, and it was full of light and sweetness. Then God withdrew His conscious blessings to teach you to ´´walk by faith´´.
I have never tasted this so strongly in my life. This year has been a year of blessing beyond reason. I have truly experienced the tangible hand of God in my life. I have seen His provision in miraculous ways, I have heard His audible voice, I have witnessed people healed, and I have felt the power of His Spirit surge through my body.
Yet now I face a desert season that is just as real and just as tangible. God´s hand is withdrawn from my senses and I must learn to walk by faith.
It is quite honestly the hardest season I have ever encountered. I can hardly call it a dry season for the fact that I have cried enough to create a river. I find myself crying out in ways I do not even understand. My Spirit and heart cries out for Him, for His voice, His touch. My flesh longs for my family, my friends, my home, any familiar thing to make up for the illusion of abandonment.
And God stays silent.
Yet in His silence He is teaching me endurance. He is teaching me how to seek Him when I cannot find my bearings.
Can I stand on His Word alone, or do I need experience and emotion to propel me into His arms? Can I seek Him not based on the proof that He gives good things, but on the revelation alone that He is good!
Please pray that I learn faithfulness and devotion.
Pray that I walk in trust in Him and not in my own experiences.
Pray that I am not one that shrinks back, but one that pleases Him and believes on Him.
Pray that I do not learn to push harder, but that I learn more of His character.
Pray that I would embrace this season with every fiber of my being.
Pray that faith is an active verb that is worked out in my life.
