As the number of years I am alive grows, something I’ve sadly come face to face with is that life isn’t fun anymore. It’s just so different now. I don’t get to taste adventure on my lips at the start of every day, I’m not eager to find out new things and take detours. It’s just much more practical and getting harder to see the color. I’ve described it to a couple of people that growing older is like losing color.
With this slow tilt to grayscale comes more difficulties getting excited about the not-so-practical – or, the spiritual – in my life. The sad day has come (or just begun) that I’ve been dreading… God isn’t as romantic as he once was to me since life isn’t as romantic. Waking up and living for him is getting harder. My soul isn’t aching with praise, my bones aren’t shouting to joy – they just kind of grumble for sleep all the time. It’s stupid, sad, annoying and depressing. Why couldn’t it be like it used to be? When I was simply in love “with the God of my youth”?
As much as this natural digression is happening, I’m determined to not let it settle. I know I won’t always feed off of passions and convictions as my life becomes less about me and more about others, family, & responsibilities. I’ve already noticed doubts forming because I think too much of my faith was founded in passion and not everlasting, solid truths of who is God. So, over the last couple months, I feel like I’ve had to take it up a notch with God. Try some new things. Get uncomfortable. Discipline myself. And call on God for more than I ever have had to do before. I don’t know if this is “right” necessarily, but a wake up call is exactly what was called for before I slide too far into the dusty drabness I was heading. I hope it continues. I really don’t want to settle for a distant God who isn’t involved in my moment to moment decisions, who isn’t leading me on daily adventures and isn’t asking me to choose faith in every circumstance. I think what I want is my faith to remain salty!
So, as I call on God for more things than I feel like I ever have (practical or no, still large things that wouldn’t have happened if not for his intervention and strength) … He’s taught me some new tips and tricks for remaining faithful as life becomes less about what I can’t see and more about what’s on the to-do list… And here are 3 huge things he’s whispered into my life. (Which is so exciting and I feel so privileged to have a little spark from Him. He’s still there and still so good, so personal, so understanding…)
- You can’t feel faith
- This idea swirled around my life for the past year – I just couldn’t muster the feeling of faith and every time I was faced with a decision to turn to God, I never ever, ever felt like I WANTED to… Surprise! Sinful Elli still exists. There are days when I feel like she’s grown stronger than ever (whether that’s true or not, it’s a challenge.)
- So, I came to the realization that —- DUH: Faith isn’t a feeling. Wait, I think I’ve been saying this for the past 10 years of my life. Why is it just clicking now? Well, it’s “hitting different” as the kids these days would say. When I’m really faced with some terrifying, faith breaking, emotionally draining, physically daunting realities I never had to face before – and then God asks me to choose faith instead of fear… HOW?! Well, Faith isn’t a feeling. It’s a choice. Some people like to swap the word faith for “trust.” Which is a little more concrete. You don’t always feel like trusting someone. It’s scary, hard, vulnerable, and uncontrolled. You don’t know the outcome.
- I’ve been wrestling with anxiety. Nothing crazy, but I think some residue from health issues and fears I don’t know how to process. But this anxiety has taken such a form of its own in so many new areas of my life because I’ve let it. Because it was easier to feel fearful. It made sense to be fearful. My body TELLS ME to be fearful, so I go with it, and the anxiety wins and has been gaining ground. This was a terrible mistake on my part. I forgot how quickly emotions get out of hand and I forgot how much power my choice has in dealing with emotions. God’s asking me to choose faith over fear. To trust him over freaking out in those instances and I realize – it’s not going to ever be the choice that feels natural. That’s what I realize in Psalms (our summer reading plan.) David had emotions, he didn’t “choose against them” to become a stone-face non-person. But what he did was chose IN them. While feeling the fear, the anxiety, the rage, the guilt, the sadness; he presented these before the Lord and then would decide to place them in God’s hands and trust him with the outcome. It’s a CHOICE – will I “identify” as anxious, or as “in Christ.”
- I need to go to God’s Word for conviction.
- Again, too many of my passions about God came from feeling. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, but I know feelings don’t last – they actually fade out of memory very quickly. And are subject to much change over any given amount of time. On the other hand, I think faith should be more like a work out – like in Philippians 2 – “Work out your salvation.” Wrestle with it. Figure it out. God will come into contact with each person differently since each person is different, but God is universally the same and never changing. These concepts require wrestling, taking time to understand, and really grasp not just applaud and wash right through you.
- That means, the essential factor will come straight from God’s Word. The moments I’m weakest are when I drift away from the Bible. Thoughts seep in, feelings I haven’t felt in years, doubts rage uncontrolled – because I’m not constantly getting more information and my mind likes to fill in the gaps with its own ideas.
- And I can’t muster my own ideas about God. Yes; poets, songwriters, authors all have wonderful things to say about him, but you can tell when the heart of these pieces are based in scripture, in what God says about himself. Lofty convictions that come from emotions aren’t going to last long. What does? When God himself tells me about who he is. Which is QUITE funny… if you think about it. I catch myself so often wondering “where is God here, why isn’t he talking to me about it” or even making up ideas about maybe what God would say or do or even just shrugging him off completely… But that would be like having all these questions and talking yourself through these dilemmas about a friend, while they’re sitting RIGHT NEXT TO YOU! Doiiii… Just open the Word. See what he has to say for himself!
- I’ve really seen recently the spiritual battle is just to open the Bible. And then once you’re there, not to rush through so you can literally check off today’s date in your reading plan or feel good for a second about God’s promises, but not actually look deep into your life to see how these Words need to remake your view of God. It’s so easy to skip over, yet I truly believe God wants to talk to us himself, all we have to do is open our Bibles and our hearts to what he has to say.
- Don’t expect some big, deep, awesome, joy-inducing conviction if you’re not in your word. Yeah, we have the Holy Spirit inside of us, so I do believe he convicts, obviously. But the Word has the power to cut through both joint & marrow, soul & spirit… and it even has the power to discern the thoughts and intentions of the human heart.
- Fun, excitement, romance, life always, always, always, always can be found in, when we go back to, if we can simply remember the fact that – Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins.
- What can break through the fog of life like rays of sunshine better than anything else? LOVE! The fact that there is a God of the universe who created all things, who is present in this life, who cheers along his creation not wanting to see them fall, who is ready to give chance after chance after chance, and who greatly sacrificed so that we could live life abundantly. Love.
- Yes, this is where joy comes in the morning. When you wake up and realize the whole why of how I got here – because God had compassion on me. And he ransomed my sin. And he set me free because he loves me.
Today, I get to experience the joy of those who are faithful to the Lord their God, after many months of wrestling with Him, and battling to lift open the Bible day after day – he answers.
There have been some good days & some really bad days, but God remains faithful. The question is: will we?