Dry Spell

I've been going through a dry spell.

I feel like God is not near.

I said this to someone when he asked if there was anything he could pray for. His first response to me was, 'Are you in the Word?' I had to say no.

I've been reading the Bible just for the heck of it. I pick up my small Bible and read Matthew. I was inspired to do this by Donald Miller, the guy who wrote 'Blue Like Jazz.' I'm sure it's a good idea and all, but I haven't spent any time studying God's word for three to four months.

So, of the last two mornings, I spent one of them actually studying. I'd love to say that everything is peachy, but of course it doesn't work that way. I do, however, feel like this is what I'm missing.

My wife and I led a mission trip to Mississippi at the beginning of July and I went will all the authority I could muster. AIM does a good job, I think, of letting project leaders know that they have been given spiritual authority over the trip. Throughout the entire trip, even after seeing God work and do cool stuff, I still felt like I wasn't right. I don't mean this in the sense of "I'm right and you're wrong,' I mean this in the sense that nothing felt right. There were a few times when I felt like I was solidly in his will, but, for the most part, I felt like I was on the outside, sort of hanging around for scraps from the table of his grace.

I do not blame God for this in any way. I'm the one who moved. He is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. His will and direction are constant.

Drew, the speaker at my local Bible Study Fellowship (BSF), said, 'There is a difference between being in God's grace and God's approval.' I have felt, maybe since I heard him say that, that I am living in God's grace, not in his approval. Right now, God is being patient and longsuffering with me - this is what I think anyway. I am living only for myself. My focus and desires are only for me.

It's kind of like exercise: I think about it, imagine what it would be like to do all the workouts and exercises that I should do, I imagine eating properly but I never do it. I see myself falling down in my closet and asking God to forgive me for my sloth, arrogance, shortsightedness, and desire to go my own way. But I never do it.

I want to know what God wants me to do. I want to do what God wants me to do. I do not want to have a will of my own. I only want to follow him - to be part of whatever he is doing.