Image courtesy of Atif Gulzar at sxc.hu
Today is day thirteen of my 40-day journey of reflection, fasting, and seeking through the book, A Call To Die by David Nasser. The book has been everything I thought it would be. I highly recommend it for anyone desiring to go deeper.
I would love to be able to share amazing insights I have gleaned through this journey so far. But I have none. I would love to be able to write something exciting, inspiring or encouraging. But I can’t. I would love to tell you that I feel renewed and more intimately connected to God. But I don’t.
So, I will share with you all what I shared with my prayer partners yesterday:
…It seems like ever since I started A Call To Die and this 40 day fast I have been more irritable, angry, and frustrated than ever. I have felt further from God rather than closer to Him.
…I have come face to face with my sinful heart. I am prideful, selfish, self-centered, self-absorbed, self-gratifying, self-seeking.
…I struggle with desiring respect, recognition, popularity, and praise. I find that I desire to feel like I am significant and of worth.
…My heart is an idol factory. As soon as I deal with one, I find I have only replaced it with another.
…I feel I lack spiritual maturity and wholeness.
…And, currently I am definitely lacking joy.
…I am overcome with my sinfulness.
…I fear that I am under some spiritual attack because my mind is telling me that God has turned His back on me because He is sick and tired of my idolatry and sinfulness.
…I am hopeful that God is busy working on my heart; renewing, transforming, stripping away, pruning. If that is the case, then I am going to feel some discomfort.
So, this is where I am.
And what am I doing about it?
Yesterday morning, as I was getting ready for work and trudging through the battlefield of my mind, one of my memory verses came to mind, “If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all” (Isaiah 7:9b) So, I raised my hand and said (out loud), “I believe: God is who He says He is. God can do what He says He can do. I am who God says I am. I can do all things through Christ. God’s Word is alive and active in me.” (from Beth Moore’s Believing God study)
After that I proceeded to remind myself of God’s truths. I was reminded yesterday of the importance of knowing God’s word so that I can combat the lies. And then after that I began to praise my God. Out. Loud. Like the psalmist, “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” (Psalm 42:5)
I am sure I would have been quite the sight had you been a fly on the wall. But we aren’t fighting just any old battle, we are fighting a spiritual war and I needed to pull out the big guns, so I couldn’t be concerned with my appearance at that moment. (Though it did help that my sweet hubby was not here at the time or he might have committed me)
This has not been a comfortable journey so far. I have come face to face with myself and it’s not pretty. But, I am committed. I am committed to moving forward. I am committed to holding on to God’s truths, no matter what lies fill my head. I am committed to my God whether He feels near or far. I am committed to continuing on this journey through the discomfort and the silence. Sinner that I am, I am committed to my God. Period.
I am so thankful His mercies are new every morning.
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Chrystie Cole
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you have no idea how much I needed to read this right now…sitting on my bed with teary eyes and a heart full of hurt and trudging through my own mind’s battlefield. thank you so so so much for posting this:
“If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all” (Isaiah 7:9b) So, I raised my hand and said (out loud), “I believe: God is who He says He is. God can do what He says He can do. I am who God says I am. I can do all things through Christ. God’s Word is alive and active in me.”
Katy, I am so glad that this spoke to you. Sometimes I think I can endure anything as long as God uses it to benefit someone, or Him and His kingdom. Thank you for letting me know that today it did. I am praying for you!
AMEN! Sista, on the Believing God! I still say that all the time but I usually stop with “God is who He says He is. God can do what He says He can do.” I rarely go to “I am who God says I am.” That’s why I feel defeated so often. I don’t have a problem believing that God is who He is, but I hesitate to accept that I am who He says I am – that even when I don’t feel “lovable” He still loves me more than I can even imagine. There’s no telling what God and I could accomplish if I didn’t spend so much time with a downcast face because I refuse to live in that freedom.
We start Breaking Free the first week of March and I – CAN’T – WAIT!!!!
Wow. Seriously. Wow.
Looks like God’s really getting you lined up for something. You aren’t going to go through all of this and not have Him do something with it. Can’t wait to see what it is!
I know this…
God HAS NOT turned his back on you.
The quiet often stirs things in us that we need to process and deal with. (Which is why I avoid it
You are going to come out of this stronger than you were when you went in.
Saying a prayer for you…right now.
I have been somewhat absent from your blog for a while now, yet I happened back here at such a time.
I hope you won’t mind if I lend my perspective a little. I do tend to look at things differently than some, yet I my goal is to be in line with the Word of God.
Paul wrote many such admonishments as, “Examine yourself whether ye be in the faith” and “Let a man work out his own salvation with fear and trembling.” Another says, let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.”
Am I trying to make you doubt your experience the more or add to your affliction? Not at all, surely if you remember, I have not spoken so to you, but I do know this… a time of fasting and prayer is a time of reflecting on your life and seeking God.
God said, “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves (take off all your professions of who you think you are and what you feel God has used you to do in times past, realize your nothingness before God) and pray (approach God’s throne and make your request known) and seek His face (Wait to hear what God will answer you and what you will say to Him when you are reproved by Him – Habakkuk 2:1 KJV) and turn from their wicked ways (whatever you are doing that is not pleasing to God give it up… abandon it, pray God give you the grace to change your life that it be pleasing in His sight) Then I will hear from heaven (this is what you desire for God to truly hear you and be attentive to your call) and will forgive their sin (God is merciful, He’s waiting to forgive whatever your transgression, He won’t forsake you utterly if you truly desire to please Him) and will heal their land (this is what you desire is it not? That renewal, that spiritual healing, that deeper closer more intimate relationship with God? You can have it if you do as God directs you).
I pray for you that God bless and help you in your journey to seek a closer walk with Him and that He give you the desires of your heart as you delight yourself in Him.
So great to see what God’s doing in your life. Thank you for being so open with your struggles and your journey.