As most of my other blogs have started out, let me begin with a story.
It was the first day of our 5-day debrief in Brasov, Romania. We were staying in a hostel (basically a hotel for travelers) and we had a morning session in the basement. The session consisted of singing worship and then a message from our squad mentor, Kacie. Her message was titled “Continually Saying ‘Yes’ to the Lord.”
Unintentionally, I quickly lost interest. I wrote down 3 one-sentence notes and managed to zone out for the rest of the message. I don’t remember anything from it other than the three notes that I took.
That’s when I realized something was wrong. I didn’t know what it was, but something wasn’t quite there.
The connection had just disappeared.
We continued to have sessions every morning and night. More worship, more messages, more of God. Everyone around me would get emotional and feel His presence but I would sit still and seemingly feel nothing. Without fail, for every single session, I managed to zone out for the majority of the time. I didn’t understand it.
Now fast forward to our third day. We were scheduled to have our normal morning session and then free time until later in the afternoon, where we had something labeled “All-Squad Fun Time!!” on our schedule. After morning session, however, Kacie told the group that she wanted us to get together and do ATL instead of having “fun time.” ATL is an acronym for “ask the Lord.” ATL is where we listen to what the Lord tells us to do for ministry (or other things, but primarily ministry) and follow His commands. Kacie wanted us to do ATL and then go out into the streets and talk to the people that the Lord leads us to.
Yes, in a foreign country where we don’t speak the language.
For this ATL, we split up into our teams and we did something called “listening prayer.” Listening prayer is about clearing your thoughts and letting the Lord fill your heart and mind with His words. We did this at training camp and it went incredibly well. The Lord told us so many things and we all felt His presence. It was supposed to go the same way this time.
And it did…for the most part.
My team gathered together in a quiet place and we opened with a word of prayer, asking the Lord to fill us with what He wanted to show us and who we should talk to out in the streets. We sat for a few minutes before some of my teammates began saying what the Lord was showing them. “Red shoes.” “Circle.” “Gelatto shop.” My teammates were feeling the Lord tell them these things about who we should talk to.
I felt nothing.
Not a word, not an image, not even the slightest idea. My mind was as blank as a brand new sheet of toilet paper.
Have you ever had that moment when you look at a light and then you see those little spots in your vision for a minute or so? That was me for the entire time we did listening prayer. With my eyes closed, it was nothing more than a black abyss filled with those little spots floating around. I asked God to just throw something into my mind.
Nothing. Not even a drop.
We finished listening prayer after about four or five minutes and wrote down everything that we heard from God. We took to the streets and began looking for people. We eventually found a few people (who thankfully spoke some type of English) and talked to them. We shared the Gospel and talked with them about Jesus but nothing life-changing happened. The entire time I felt nothing from God. I even participated quite a bit in the conversations about Jesus with the strangers on the street, but my connection with God was still kaput.
We came back to the hostel and told stories about our adventures. Everyone was cheering and praising the Lord so I just went along with the crowd, although I didn’t feel anything.
The next day we had one-on-ones. One-on-ones are opportunities where you can sign up to spend time with one of your squad leaders, a coach, or your mentor, for 30 minutes and just talk about life or God. I signed up for a one-on-one with Kacie and I didn’t plan on talking about anything in particular.
We got to talking about life in general and we were having a good, friendly conversation. Nothing special, nothing out of the ordinary.
Then she hit me with the golden question.
“What has the Lord been telling you lately?”
Ha, ha, right. Good one Kacie. That’s a great question.
In that moment I went from a defensive, sarcastic mood to an open, vulnerable one. I was honest with her. I told her that I hadn’t felt the Lord at all lately. I described everything that I’ve said so far in this blog. She asked me how I’ve felt connected to the Lord. I responded with “I haven’t. I feel like I haven’t connected with Him at all. I feel like the connection is just gone.”
She looked at me and told me, “Zac, that is incredible self-awareness. It is a great thing that you know that your connection is missing. Now I challenge you to fix it.”
At this point I’m thinking to myself, “Well that doesn’t help at all. If I knew how, I would’ve fixed it a long time ago.” But she continued on by saying, “I challenge you to continue seeking the Lord out and He will show Himself to you. You are a son of God and He loves you so much. I want you to pray about it and seek Him out.”
After our one-on-one I still felt nothing. I prayed about it and felt nothing. For the rest of our debrief in Brasov I felt nothing. I almost started to doubt that God was existent.
Now we’re in Ukraine. This is where the story improves.
Yesterday we were planning our English lessons for our ministry here in Rivne, Ukraine (see previous blog post for more details). After working for about an hour and a half, I needed a break. I walked around our 4-room apartment and looked for something to do. Naturally, I went straight to the kitchen to look for some fresh Nutella. We were out, so that plan failed. I walked throughout the rest of the apartment and found nothing.
Then I saw it, sitting right there. My Bible, fresh off the counter. In that moment, God said “Read it. Right now.” Of course, I wasn’t going to ignore this one. I picked up my Bible and went to our room and closed to door. I opened the book of Acts and read chapter 3, where the lame man is healed by Peter and John through the Holy Spirit. The man then stands up and rejoices in the Lord (Acts 3:8).
It took me approximately 3 seconds to realize that I have been that lame man.
Let me explain…
On April 13th, 2016, I tore my ACL at a basketball practice and couldn’t walk. Two weeks later, on April 27th, I had surgery to repair it.
In case you don’t know much about athletics and surgery, an ACL reconstruction for a competitive athlete needs at least 6 months to fully heal if the athlete wishes to return to competitive sports, in which case I did want to continue playing basketball. After my surgery, I sought the Lord every day. I grew closer to Him every moment. Even though there were struggles and fights, I felt the Lord through it all.
I returned to competitive basketball in 4 months.
That’s waayyyy too early for anyone to return from an ACL surgery, especially at the level of competition I played at. Everyone told me I was insane. My therapist told me I wasn’t ready. But I felt no pain. I felt fully able to run, jump, all the good stuff. I constantly praised God for it. Whenever anyone asked about my story, I told them that it was straight from Jesus.
After reading Acts 3 yesterday, I realized that I was that lame man. I couldn’t walk. Then, seemingly out of (relatively) nowhere, I was healed. I gave God all the glory for it and told people about Him. I was on a spiritual high and had a great connection with Him.
Then I looked at my current-day self and asked, “Why don’t I have that same connection as I did before? What happened?”
I heard the Lord tell me, “It’s because you have doubt.”
He was right. I did have doubt. I felt like Peter in Matthew 14. When Jesus commanded him to walk on the water, Peter had faith at first. He walked onto the water and has his eyes locked on Jesus. Then, he felt the wind and was scared, losing faith and starting to sink. Jesus stretched out His hand and grabbed Peter, pulling him out of the water.
Jesus took one solid look at Peter and said “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:31)
Translated to modern English, Jesus said “Bro, what are you doing?? You literally were just walking on water. That’s, like, unheard of. But then you had all this doubt and stuff because a lil’ bit of wind gave you the chills and you got scared. Why’d you do that bro?? What was that for?”
I know that feeling. I know what it’s like to have doubt. I feel how Peter felt. It was easy to start strong and feel Jesus’ presence at first after my ACL surgery, but as life went on and I started to experience troubles, my faith began to fall apart and I crumbled away from Jesus.
As all of this came crashing down on me in a 25-minute span in our room yesterday, I just fell down and started praying. I asked God to remove all doubt from my heart and fill me with His presence.
I felt Him in that moment. It was real. My doubt is gone. I know that Christ is real, no matter how much trouble might come my way, God’s always here.
As I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve been listening to music. The song “Whom Shall I Fear” by Chris Tomlin just came on, and the lyrics couldn’t be more perfect.
The chorus says:
I know who goes before me
I know who stands behind
The God of angel armies
Is always by my side
The one who reigns forever
He is a friend of mine
The God of angel armies
Is always by my side
There’s also a line right before that and it says:
Whom shall I fear?
Whom shall I fear?
This is so powerful and it’s exactly what the Lord wanted to tell me in this moment. He is here, He is with me, and I have nothing to fear or doubt. He loves me with everything He has and it is never ceasing.
God has a plan for me, He knows my heart, and He will always want a connection with me, even if sometimes I feel like it’s nonexistent.
Connection_With_God.exe has been restored.
