"I trust You, but I feel a bit overwhelmed"
I keep a journal of my faith walk.
I'm not the best at reading the Bible, although I try and read a bit everyday. I'm not good at applying myself to extended periods of prayer. I am a fidget. I can't sit still. So I write my prayers down, and follow up with responses. Within my journal, each page describes moments of despair, moments of gratitude, and expressions of my own heart's desires for myself and others, and also for the wider world.
I figured by writing it down, I could keep a record which would provide helpful and remind me of God's goodness and deliverance.
I thought I would share some of those things with you, in the hope that you might glean some comfort.
Isolation has been such a challenging time for people, certainly I have found it a little so, but I have also found in the quiet time, much time for reflection, time to rethink whether how I am choosing to spend my time is the way I wish to continue spending it, and a chance to work on the gifts of music and sharing through writing that I am blessed with. But in fact before isolation, I was already facing challenges ...
I was looking back on one my entries in my journal, which read 'I trust You, but I feel a bit overwhelmed'. In fact, for the last few years, maybe a little longer than that, it is fair to say I have had a few challenges, from family illness, to a death in the wider family, to job insecurity and loss, to thinking I might lose my house, to people letting me down, not doing right by me. I won't go through all of these in this post, suffice to say, there have been times when I have been in mental agony, not knowing what the future held, being down to my last pennies, holding on by the skin of my nails, and pleading before the Lord that He would deliver me from my circumstances.
You can have one thing go wrong, and think 'Well, okay this is awful but I have these blessings ...', but what to do when multiple things go wrong?
And, yet, God had told me to sing through my pain. And, I did. I sang when I had no hope in earthly things.
"Singing and pain are much the same. One helps the other 'til the Lord comes again.'
I wrote this just over a year ago in my journal. And the first part of it felt true, the second part is kind of true. But the fact is, God had never 'physically disappeared', he was always right there even if I wasn't fully delivered of my circumstances. I read or heard somewhere that it is in the dark place that the Lord draws near. Sometimes when there is nothing to illuminate the way, you need the Creator, not the created to help you find the way.
I would say this of difficulty. It teaches you the very practical aspects of the Lord's prayer. When you literally need God to get through each day, you are brought to the realisation of what Father as Abba really means. No longer self-sufficient, you need to Him to give you your daily bread, both literally in terms of finances, and to keep you going mentally, when your circumstances assault you from all directions. These are the times when you think if you left your house and got run over, it wouldn't be a surprise, because everything is hitting you at the same time.
This blog post is for those times and for those people especially.
I want you to know that when the most awful things appear to happen, when your heart is wrought in two, that I have been there - and many people have experienced worse. I have been prayed for when tear upon agonising tear flooded to the ground, when I could see no end - when my circumstances appeared to be without hope.
There is a Light there for you in these times. I want you to know this. This is when your Creator is larger than life, when the intimacy with God can be at its strongest, when your senses are most attuned to every communication between you and Him. His closeness is your privilege in these times, it is accorded to you in double, triple and quadruple portions to get you through. His presence is bigger, and brighter than all the world's gold.
It is an irreplaceable time with Him. It is also your only hope to get through the dark times.
It is also when He displays His mercy, when all you have is Him. When all other things appear to have fallen away, and only He can answer your need, then His displays of goodness take on a vividness and brightness that are your spiritual eyes are heightened to. Often, if you are in the thick of it, they might be small things, but you know that these are signs of goodness from the One who made you.
Hold onto Him, for all He is faithful and He will never leave or forsake you. Hold to him as the earthly things fall away.
I have stories of these times which I shall share in future in posts. But as I was writing this, this music came up, so I thought I should end up by sharing this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7pJb49vVQY
God bless.
I'm not the best at reading the Bible, although I try and read a bit everyday. I'm not good at applying myself to extended periods of prayer. I am a fidget. I can't sit still. So I write my prayers down, and follow up with responses. Within my journal, each page describes moments of despair, moments of gratitude, and expressions of my own heart's desires for myself and others, and also for the wider world.
I figured by writing it down, I could keep a record which would provide helpful and remind me of God's goodness and deliverance.
I thought I would share some of those things with you, in the hope that you might glean some comfort.
Isolation has been such a challenging time for people, certainly I have found it a little so, but I have also found in the quiet time, much time for reflection, time to rethink whether how I am choosing to spend my time is the way I wish to continue spending it, and a chance to work on the gifts of music and sharing through writing that I am blessed with. But in fact before isolation, I was already facing challenges ...
I was looking back on one my entries in my journal, which read 'I trust You, but I feel a bit overwhelmed'. In fact, for the last few years, maybe a little longer than that, it is fair to say I have had a few challenges, from family illness, to a death in the wider family, to job insecurity and loss, to thinking I might lose my house, to people letting me down, not doing right by me. I won't go through all of these in this post, suffice to say, there have been times when I have been in mental agony, not knowing what the future held, being down to my last pennies, holding on by the skin of my nails, and pleading before the Lord that He would deliver me from my circumstances.
You can have one thing go wrong, and think 'Well, okay this is awful but I have these blessings ...', but what to do when multiple things go wrong?
And, yet, God had told me to sing through my pain. And, I did. I sang when I had no hope in earthly things.
"Singing and pain are much the same. One helps the other 'til the Lord comes again.'
I wrote this just over a year ago in my journal. And the first part of it felt true, the second part is kind of true. But the fact is, God had never 'physically disappeared', he was always right there even if I wasn't fully delivered of my circumstances. I read or heard somewhere that it is in the dark place that the Lord draws near. Sometimes when there is nothing to illuminate the way, you need the Creator, not the created to help you find the way.
I would say this of difficulty. It teaches you the very practical aspects of the Lord's prayer. When you literally need God to get through each day, you are brought to the realisation of what Father as Abba really means. No longer self-sufficient, you need to Him to give you your daily bread, both literally in terms of finances, and to keep you going mentally, when your circumstances assault you from all directions. These are the times when you think if you left your house and got run over, it wouldn't be a surprise, because everything is hitting you at the same time.
This blog post is for those times and for those people especially.
I want you to know that when the most awful things appear to happen, when your heart is wrought in two, that I have been there - and many people have experienced worse. I have been prayed for when tear upon agonising tear flooded to the ground, when I could see no end - when my circumstances appeared to be without hope.
There is a Light there for you in these times. I want you to know this. This is when your Creator is larger than life, when the intimacy with God can be at its strongest, when your senses are most attuned to every communication between you and Him. His closeness is your privilege in these times, it is accorded to you in double, triple and quadruple portions to get you through. His presence is bigger, and brighter than all the world's gold.
It is an irreplaceable time with Him. It is also your only hope to get through the dark times.
It is also when He displays His mercy, when all you have is Him. When all other things appear to have fallen away, and only He can answer your need, then His displays of goodness take on a vividness and brightness that are your spiritual eyes are heightened to. Often, if you are in the thick of it, they might be small things, but you know that these are signs of goodness from the One who made you.
Hold onto Him, for all He is faithful and He will never leave or forsake you. Hold to him as the earthly things fall away.
I have stories of these times which I shall share in future in posts. But as I was writing this, this music came up, so I thought I should end up by sharing this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7pJb49vVQY
God bless.
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