When You Don't Desire God

Its been a week (or more) of life in the deserts; parched, dry and crusty. When God has so ruined you, and have set your heart on fire, you can smell ‘lukewarm’ a mile away. It’s just never the same without His manifest presence; life is too much of a drab if His word doesn’t move you, as it should.  Like a withered plant wishing water would come sooner, or a burnt out forest despising its bareness, I too have felt the pain of seeking out, and not being able to find. But since this isn’t about me, or my feelings, I endured and held my ground. I will love Him in spite of (dot, dot, dot). I carried on with my spiritual disciplines; but I felt estranged in my prayers and halfhearted in reading the Bible.  

Pride tells me, “You’re okay, you’re still on fire for Him, look at the other Christians, they don’t read the Word as much nor pray like you do. You’re fine”. Complacency retorts, “This is just a season, a dark night of the soul. Just sit back and wait till it’s all over.” Then my flesh shoves every thought aside and whispers, “Why wait when you can always gratify yourself now? You have the right to look to other loves, He stopped fulfilling the longings of your heart, so go find another lover then.” 

Sadly, I’ve given in to some of the many requests in my head; which made me obviously more miserable. That’s a no brainer. Sin has this way of deceiving you, offering a kind of satisfaction only He could give. But every believer knows, that not only is it counterproductive, it also leads to death (Romans 6:21).

But something happened in my heart yesterday. I became so militant in this whole dry spell I am in. Empowered of course by the Holy Spirit, I began to really seek Him out, violently. I realized that I was too lethargic when the truth of the matter is this is warfare! So I gird up my loin and began to battle it out with the devil, and the even greater enemy, my flesh.

It was only a matter of time before I got my breakthrough—a sweet victory indeed. I pulled up Dana Candler’s book and it read,

  “When we feel that He is far from us, before we come into the conclusion that this is His discipline, let us ask if He is in fact near, and yet we do not know. Surely the Lord is in this place and we do not know it. (Gen, 28:16). Communion with God is the place from which we were brought forth and the place to which we will return, for we were made to commune with the living God and to desire such.”

So true! God is so ready to pour of Himself to me, but I was not hungry enough for it…. He was here all along and I got too busy, too worldly to even notice. Last night I sat on the couch and opened my Bible. Romans 6 just sealed it for me. My heart was weeping as I read through verses I thought I’ve already memorized. The Holy Spirit made my heart so tender for His word, and filled me with the knowledge of God. My soul felt so alive last night and till this very moment. I haven’t had this kind of personal revival for sometime now…  I love it! Thank you Jesus!

So if you’re reading this and you have no desire for God, or have lost that appetite to read His word (yes I see that hand), then blessed are you! Because if you let it, the dry season may cause your roots to go deeper in search of that Living Water... in that desperate pursuit you will find Him. That is if, you be militant about it. Alright soldier?

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.(Hebrews 12:1)