It’s no secret that the race hasn’t been easy for me. I’ve blogged about my unmet expectations for new levels of spiritual intimacy and power. I’ve opened up about how God hasn’t shown up in quite the way I hoped He would.
Honestly, there have been many days where I have felt completely out of faith and endurance. On more than one occasion, I have sobbed to the Lord, with only enough energy to pray, “I can’t do this anymore. I want out.”
But here I am. I’m almost halfway through month four, and so far I’m still here.
How? Why?
Community hasn’t been easy. While I do love my team, I have at times felt betrayed and offended. I sometimes feel unheard and unimportant.
Ministry hasn’t been easy. I’ve been overworked some days and bored and restless on others. I’ve had a contact it hurt to leave and another who turned out to be living a lie and bringing pain, not life, to those entrusted to him.
Cultural differences haven’t been easy. Men constantly stare and shout at us as we walk down the street. Language barriers make the simplest tasks take four or five times as long.
I am often overwhelmed spiritually, emotionally, and relationally. So how am I still here?
Drips of grace.
I was reading a blog post from Beth Moore about a difficult season in her family’s lives and came across this sentence:
“So through many ups and downs, twists and turns, needs and bleeds, we’ve lived these last many months on drips, streams, and gushes of God’s grace.”
Drips of grace.
Oh, how I long for the streams and gushes, but much like David, my soul cries out:
O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
(Psalm 63:1)
I want to feel as if I’m drowning in an ocean of God’s grace, but for this season, I’m surviving on drips.
A teammate notices my heartache, rubs my back, listens, and encourages me.
Drip.
I feed and hug a child in his darkest hour and realize that God brought me here for such a time as this.
Drip.
My team suddenly needs a new place to stay and God swiftly and smoothly provides.
Drip.
People at home hear my pain, tell me they understand, pray for me, and encourage me.
Drip.
I’m in a dry season. I’m not caught up in streams and gushes of God’s grace, but He is ever faithful in providing just the right drip when and where I need it to keep me going for one more hour, day, week.
In Jeremiah 31:2-3, the Lord says:
“The people who survived the sword
found grace in the wilderness;
when Israel sought for rest,
the Lord appeared to him from far away.
I have loved you with an everlasting love;
therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.”
Yes, I am in the wilderness, but I am finding His grace even here. He is loving me with His everlasting love and continuing His faithfulness to me.
I was on the phone with a counselor last night and took the opportunity to ask her a pointed question:
Am I in a spiritual desert because the Lord wants me to be here to grow and learn or because I have failed in some way and He is waiting for me to fix it before He finally reveals Himself to me?
And in a blessed stream of grace, this woman of God began to speak life over me.
She told me of God’s spectacular encounter with Paul on his way to persecute Christians in Damascus and how Paul had done nothing to earn it.
She told me of Job, and how his friends looked to explain his painful season as a result of his own sin, when really it was a time of testing, a time to develop perseverance and faith.
She told me of a time in her own life when God, in His great love, quieted His voice because He knew it was what she and her family needed most in that time.
She told me that God shows up when He wants, how He wants and there is nothing I can do to earn it or rush it.
She told me how God is using each moment of this season to lovingly prepare me for the next.
She told me that God will be faithful to fulfill His promises, that He cannot and will not disappoint.
She told me that even now, He is right beside me, closer than I know, and loves me fiercely.
Sweet streams of grace.
And so, from my dry place, I want to encourage each one of you who also finds yourself plodding through the desert. Look for those drips of grace. Taste them on your tongue. Savor them. Draw strength from them. Know the streams are coming. The ocean awaits. Keep walking forward.
If you know you are currently feeling distant from God because of unrepented sin in your life, then please confess that and turn back to the Father.
But if you do not feel any such conviction and yet still find yourself in a spiritual desert, please hear me say this:
You are not alone. You are not forgotten. God loves you.
He is using this time to grow you, strengthen you, and prepare you.
You are not in this place because you are a terrible person and God loves others more than you.
God loves you so fully that there is nothing you can do to lose it, and there is nothing you can do to earn more of it. All of His love is already directed towards you.
This desert will not last forever. Streams and oceans await. Thank God for the drips of grace that keep you going, and press forward for the joy that is coming.
You are loved. You are seen. Your breakthrough is coming.
And so is mine.
