**The Following is a part of a series of posts on Blah Faith. Have you felt this way about your relationship with God? Follow this series and read the other posts here.
I’m afraid that I sometimes chase after a feeling. We can’t live on feelings alone and our relationship with the Lord won’t stand on feelings alone, either. It is during the times of blah faith or feelings of disconnect with Jesus that we must turn to Truth rather than what our flaky feelings say about where we stand with Him.
Truth: When I feel like I’m not connecting with the Lord, when I feel like the passion is missing, God is always initiating the relationship with me. God pursues that loving connection regardless of my feelings for Him at the moment.
Revelation 3:20
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.
If we feel blah it is because something is keeping us from hearing that knock, that special invitation to join Him in abundant life and faith. Have you placed a do not disturb sign on your door with out realizing it?
Diagnosis: Ask yourself these questions…
~Have I lost the desire to hear His voice?
~Has something or someone distracted me from my desire to commune with God?
~What events led up to this blah state of faith…a sense of pride that I’ve got my life under control?
During this time of feeling disconnected it is only our perception that God abandoned us. We must stand firm in the truth of His Word when He says that He is waiting and knocking at the door — the knock might be a faint and quiet tap at the moment, one barely audible to the disconnected ear. Regardless to the perceived loudness or softness, He IS knocking…He IS pursuing a love relationship with you today.
What are your thoughts?
I love this, Sarah!! and I love the idea of pushing past “blah faith” by focusing on God’s truth instead of our immediate emotions. Thank you for sharing your heart on this!
Brittany,
I’m so grateful for your constant encouragement. Thank you friend!
Needed to hear this. I get distracted by so many “things”.I have found that when I believe I can handle life on my own, I tend to let my quiet times with the Lord slide. This sets me up for mega distractibility (is that a word?). Thanks for the reminder that God always knocks…wanting to be let in…knowing my wandering heart – but still wanting to claim it as His.
Amy,
I love how you phrased the last sentence “knowing my wandering heart-but still wanting to claim it as His.” Distractions are so common!
Thanks for sharing!
God’s timing is always so perfect. I know I have said this before, but to back it up, I would like to share with you a journal entry from this week. I don’t usually share my journal but I feel that the timing of this is so perfect and it coincides so well.
“The people and the things in my life that keep me from having a full relationship with God hold me back, but I do not know how to let them go. My mistakes and heartaches are so many lately and I don’t know how to move past them. Intervention of the divine form is crucial here but I feel so out of tune with You, God. How do I get back to You fully? How do I even begin to ask forgiveness when I PURPOSELY have sinned? And how do I even begin to forgive myself?”
While this post of yours did not give me necessarily the answers I need, it helps so much to know that others struggle as much (if not more) as I do. It is very comforting.
LyTysha,
Your sweet thoughts remind me of Romans 7 and how Paul writes that even HE can’t keep himself from what he knows he shouldn’t do. I encourage you to take a look at that chapter. Your comment has given me some more to write about so stay tuned and I will try to address your thoughts in the near future. I so appreciate your candor and willingness to openly share your journal entry. You are absolutely NOT alone in those feelings, that is for sure!
love,
sarah
LyTysha,
I know I am late to this convo, but something you said in your comment reminded me of a sermon my pastor gave a little while ago. He was talking about forgivness, and, more specifically, forgiving ourselves, as you mentioned in your comment, and I was instantly alert and eager to hear his thoughts on it. I, too, struggled (and still do, at times) with how to forgive myself. He totally surprised me with a powerful statement that I had never really thought about before and completely changed my understanding of forgiveness.
He said, “not one single time in all of God’s word does He talk about us forgiving ourselves. Not once.”
His point was, of course, that we are only free through Christ’s forgiveness, not our own. We have absolutely nothing to do with being or feeling forgiven. It is when we fully surrender to Christ and understand His forgiveness that we are free from guilt/shame/whatever binds us, but it is not because we have forgiven ourselves, only because we understand He has forgiven us (which is something to celebrate!)
I like to think about it like this: if you read a secular self-help book that’s not based on God’s word, you will probably read a lot about forgiving yourself. That’s because the world likes to make us think that we have total control over our happiness, but we don’t. Our happiness is in Christ because our forgiveness is in Christ.
God’s design is so beautiful: we don’t have to work on forgiving ourselves before or after we ask His forgiveness. We are already forgiven (while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us!) And it is a forgiveness that we have nothing to do with beyond accepting it as truth. There is such freedom in this!! I hope it helps ease your pain a little, just as it did mine.
Brittany!
I couldn’t have said this any better myself. Thanks girl!