Whenever I talk to people about my blog I usually tell them that I'm not a consistently deep blogger - I generally go for a 1 in 5 or 6 ratio Depth vs Shallow Ramblings. This is an attempt at the '1 in 5'...
The past few weeks have felt like a lot of hard work. I've felt slightly out of it for a while. I dunno if it's tiredness or stress or what. If I'm really honest it's all affected me quite deeply. My relationship with Chell is affected - nothing really bad but it puts us under even more strain than the distance already gives us. I led worship at Youth Councils on Sunday and simply didn't feel up for it, although I did try. It feels like my faith in God is under strain - maybe I'm trying to be honest with where I'm at. I'm quite untrusting of nearly every friendship I have - and I'm feeling a bit jealous of others, not something I'm proud to admit. It feels like I've 'reached the end of my hoarded resources' as that old army song says...
Went to cell group last night...it was fantastic - we talked about love. Three kinds of love as written about in the original hebrew (in Song of Songs. Raya translated as 'Friend or companion. Someone you hang out with', Ahava translated as 'a love that impacts your will. An emotion that leads to commitment', Dod translated as 'the physical, sexual element to a relationship'). It started me thinking about the kind of love I have in my life - the kind of love I have for Chell, for my family and my friends. And what kind of remedy should I seek when the love I have isn't as pure as it should be?
So I read Galatians 5...
'But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.'
I scared myself when I realised just how many elements of that fruit I'm not displaying in my life. Is the life I lead compatible with this? Does stress and tiredness get in the way of a right relationship with God? And each other?
6 comments:
Think that counts as a one in five!
Sorry to hear you're a bit down.
I'll phone you soon for a proper chat.
In the meantime, the answer - as if you didn't know- is prayer.
You can pray for fruit too - fruit is the HS's job not yours. Seek ye first...
We're praying for you matey.
Sorry to hear your feeling out of it. I've got 5 shades of love for you m8. I will be praying for ya.
Hi Matt.
Don't know if this will help, but I was reading this 'bit' in the book Desiring God by John Piper yesterday, and it seems like it may be relevant. Ignore me if I am just rambling though.
"I see three stages of movement toward the ideal experience of worship. We may expereince all three in one hour, and God is pleased with all three - if indeed they are stages on the way to full joy in him...
1) There is the final stage in which we feel an unencumbered joy in the manifold perfections of God - the joy of gratitude, wonder, hope, admiration...In this stage we are satisfied with the excellency of God, and we overflow with the joy of his fellowship.
2) In a prior stage that we often taste, we do not feel fullness, but rather longing and desire. Having tasted the feast before, we recall the goodness of the Lord - but it seems far off. We preach to our souls not to be downcast because we are sure we shall again praise the Lord, (Psalm 42:5), yet for now we are not very fervent. Even though this falls short of the ideal of vigorous, heartfelt adoration and hope, yet it is a great honour to God. We honour the water from a mountain spring not only by the satisfied "ahhh" after drinking our fill, but also by the unquenched longing to be satisfied while still climbing to it...
3) The lowest stage of worship - where all genuine worship starts and where it often returns for a dark season - is the barrenness of soul that scarcely feels any longing, and yet is still granted the grace of repentant sorrow for having so little love...(Psalm 73:22)...Worship is a way of gladly reflecting back to God the radiance of his worth. This is the ideal. For God surely is more glorified when we delight in his magnificence than when we are so unmoved by it we scarcely feel anything and only wish we could. Yet he is also glorified by the spark of anticipated gladness that gives rise to the sorrow we feel when our hearts are lukewarm. Even in the miserable guilt we feel over our beast-like insensitivity, the glory of God shines. If God were not gloriously desirable, why would we feel sorrowful for not feasting fully on his beauty?"
I don't know if that makes any sense out of context, but it just made me feel better about my current state of mind - particularly when it comes to worship, so thought I would share.
Thinking of you.
Thanks for your honesty in this blog Matt. I can empathise with you a little as I have had experiences like this too. I think that tiredness does bring a gap in our armour for the enemy to exploit. This is where, I feel, faith and trust gets road-tested big time. As it is written: "Be still and know that I am God".
Stress and tiredness are what the enemy will use to undermine our relationships, make us question our motivation and even our integrity sometimes. I had an odd experience last weekend, sitting amongst a crowd of people who mostly, I'm guessing, have the same passion about ministry to kids that I do, but feeling really like I just didn't know WHY I was there. In fact, I actually thought, 'Why am I here?'There was a real shift in my perception of, well at that point, everything. I was un-nerved and unsettled. It was because I was really tired and I was tired because I was doing what God has gifted me to do, but I was doing too much of it. Lyndall said at Conference that God wants us to work out of rest - a paradox I guess and something we have to work at - not too hard though:)
I have this image of the undone worshipper. Nothing slick. Real raw. Studying James 1 at the mo. Tells us to be glad in our problems. Well that's so easy ain't it. Easy to say when there are no problems. Someimes wonder how non-christians cope with life. Ignorant bliss or hopeless wandering. Love you both. T'bunnies xx
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