We all go through the seasons of the testing of our Faith, times when things seem far and God seems beyond our reach… No matter the intensity of our prayers our hearts are never relieved of their burdens…. We feel stricken and rather heavily pressed…. Fear appears to have the upper hand and we are reminded of our immense weakness as a human being…. The walk of the Christian is always one of overcoming…. I often wonder how it is that I survived all these years… I often feel that I am not strong enough to hold on to the promises of God… I feel that I will succumb to the temptations of the world and I feel that I will never satisfy God…. I most often feel like I was born to hurt him…. I can never be the person that He wants me to be…. I struggle with a lot of doubts and confusions…. And never does a day go when I don’t war with the longings of my flesh …. But something pulls me through… despite my massive tendencies for self sabotage and self pity… Somehow I am renewed whenever I approach the throne of God… Despite my weaknesses… Despite my flaws… Despite every bit of me that convinces me that I am just another ordinary, average and forgotten individual…. Something within me positively glows and keeps me warm…. Pushes me on… Despite my need for confirmation in the divine sense, I realize that I am never deserted… My moods tend to draw me to dark pastures filled with the hurts and the failures of my past, the endless memories of disappointment and the unpredictable reminders of my foolishness…. I am only human… Every day I set out with an open mind eager to understand the nature of my own heart… But I realize that my emotional nature is too vast and almost imperceptible to be totally understood or comprehended… They like the climates and the seasons serve their purpose unconsciously…. I wonder how I can lean on God when my own nature is at war with what He represents…. I wonder how I can be faithful to my Saviour when all my thoughts uncontrollably blame Him for all of my problems… And most of all I wonder if I am worth the love that he so freely offers….? A part of me desires, even hungers and thirsts for God… and another side wants me to follow my own path…. To search for my own glory and to do whatever my heart desires…. Life certainly is complicated and rather complex…. And feelings seldom seem to reveal their reasons…. And my troubles with sadness often re-emerge and I am cast into a bleak and murky world of despair and guilt…. Which I feel represents the sadness of my soul…. And in those moments of hurt and sorrow I wish that my savior was there to wrap His arms around me… I wish that I can see Him who holds my destiny in His palm… And these expectations fuel certain anger related feelings within me that I have not let go… And I become angry like Job and Jonah… The life of the self is filled with all forms of deceit… The life of human nature is filled with unpleasant realities…. The nature of life is quite hard to engage in, maybe that’s why we repress or rather oppose certain facets of reality, and choose our own version of reality to exist in… And all through these problems my soul calls out to its maker… Yahweh…!! Lord God Almighty… Where art thou when I need thee the most…??
And so many times my answer is silence, my heart is not relieved of its burdens… I don’t pray , I am so enamored of my own complex dialogues that further excavate reasons to move my heart further away from the most High… I remind Him that I am not like other Church goers and Believers…. I tell God that hardly has a day gone by when I have felt comfortable in the depths of my own skin… I am determined to tell the one who knows everything there is to know about me that I am done… I am finished…. And I do these things in order to feel the pain that my existence too often makes me feel… I see the world and I see incompleteness… I see vulgar materialism… I see everyday violence, I see deep seated apathy, bitter hatred, prejudice and inequality… And these are all the traits of a life without God… I know that despite my own complaints, I know deep in my heart that I am trying to rebel against the ways of God …. All my life I had been on the other side… The side that looks from the outside at the Christian Faith… But now that I have accepted Christ into my heart and my life has become so free and effortless…. I am rebelling against God in an unconscious way, I ask Him unwanted questions… Who am I to be saved…?? There are so many wonderful people in the world why haven’t you reached out to them Lord….?? My questions make no sense, and I am glad they don’t…. Because truth be told… For the first time in my life I feel perfect, unconditional love and despite my over the top addiction to it… I am plotting out ways to complicate my life since following Christ removes all the complications and reveals the truth… Even when I hurt, I realize that I am the one who is hurting me and by default allowing Satan entry into my heart, and his vicious taunts and spiritual weapons know the greatest weaknesses that I suffer from…. I have forgotten the fact that Christ removed all of my chains and has cast them away… I have forgotten the fact that I have a refuge to run to when I feel sad and suffer….. I have forgotten the fact that Christ dwells in me , that I have asked Him to live in my heart and to live through me, I entertain the meaningless questions that all men suffer from, the questions that are mere words in some ways but filled with all the venom of doom and persecution…. And these questions are pushing and driving me away from the author of my Faith… I know my words in this post have not been linear or well planned… I ask that you forgive me… I write this fresh off a major debacle, I write this after I had fallen down briefly this past week, and after I had convinced myself that God would have had enough of me, Even the prodigal son returned and after that He lived beside the Father…. But I was relentless on having my own way…. And though it has not satisfied me and I have realized the error of my ways… I wondered if I had burned all bridges with God… Maybe I would die as a friend of mine recently did( in a major road accident) or suffer some major catastrophe… Maybe God would desert me…. I was giving up, a part of me was… I believe that he was the outer man, the one who was giving up was external… The inner man knew the way… He knew that He had to run back, that no matter how faraway God seemed He was only one step back… The ways of God require great sacrifices… And though I love Christ with all of my heart… And have been faithful for the past two years… Satan has been beating me down through certain questions and circumstances and defeats….And the intense spiritual wars have left me feeling drained and exhausted …. I wonder how much more I can take..!
But then I leave my own stupid reasons and their high sounding ideologies and go for the real thing, I got to the rock that is higher than I…. I run ….I run back to my Master, my sins with their insidious nature were doing their best to rip away my bridge to my Savior…. I have heard through the testimonies of many Christians that whenever they were on the verge of giving up God intervened… I wanted the same… But maybe I was too caught up in testing God that I did not realize that humility, perseverance were far more worthy than merely whining like a small child… And that was not me… I have never been one to whine or complain… Acceptance has always been my thing… But I realized that I wanted more out of God and in some misguided ways I was asking something that was unnecessary… All the scores of improbable Prayer requests which had been answered , which included 3 consecutive nights of shooting stars, The championship trophy for my favorite basketball team The Miami Heat, An aunt who was diagnosed with Cancer and increasing writing frequencies to name just a few…. I tended to retain the feeling of loss when my prayers were unanswered… And I tended to brood away hurt by the so called rejection… But I realize that I enjoy my Faith…. That these small distractions afford me a chance to find a deeper more fulfilling Faith in my Savior… I remember too clearly that when I take these problems in prayer instead of struggling to control and resolve them through my own will and determination…. I feel them fade, I feel the relief offered by the companionship of my Savior… The Holy Spirit bridges my heart’s anguish and suffering to Father and speaks what I struggle to convey… And that is when I am offered a peek into the massive almost infinite amount of love that the Father pours out into my spirit… All my troubles vanish… The Sovereign Emperor of all Creation, of all creatures and of all mankind… The creator in his divine mercy and grace helps me realize that no matter what He would always love me… And He would never stop and He never will… If only I stop torturing myself and yield to His will… Obeying and waiting on Him in prayer… He is in charge and in command… I need to stop fretting and learn instead to rely totally on Him, He reminds me gently … And I feel His love heal me… Gently embracing every hurt and wounded inch of me in His warm strong arms…. And I return to life again.