My Weird Morning With God!

This Morning I had the weirdest time with God, I nagged about everything and He had an answer every time I opposed Him. God being God, I found out in the end, He had a purpose in mind, so this weird time with Him was needed.

I have been feeling like a mess lately and in my mind there is so much clutters about my walk with Him, I felt so tired and basically drained of all my energy. I attributed the whole thing to the fact that I was so sick with this bad flu that I am just getting over and the throat and ear infection that I did not take any antibiotic on purpose for various reasons.  The past few weeks I was able to post on my blog because I did not really have to think since I only wrote about things that I lived out with Him, but I was always aware of being light headed and not being able to think properly at all.

So, I was reading October 16^th Oswald Chambers devotion, the Holy Spirit told me to write my post on the subject. I got upset because I know from experience that today’s devotion would be very cumbersome to write about for two reasons. First, it took God years to walk me through the process to acquire the mind and the attitude that Oswald Chambers is talking about in this devotion. Secondly, I had such a hard time letting go of what I thought was so noble and used to bring me so much satisfaction and joy, to embrace Christ’s point of view when it comes to mission and works done in His name. I fought Him every step of the way and He put a lot of work in me to teach me what Oswald put into few words on a page. So I told God that I was tired of writing what He has done in my life, I said it seems like I am making it about me, so how can that be right in your sight? His answer was “why do you think I went through the process of teaching you everything step by step through experiencing me? Why do you think you cannot express yourself unless you go through things step by step?

When I realized I was not going to win this argument with God, I said what about Oswald Chambers, I can tell you put Him through the same training, why is it you are okay with the fact that he wrote only for other Christians who are on this path with you, couldn’t you entrust him to write things step by step as well? He said to me, never mind Oswald Chambers he is not your business, and it is not up to you to question me. I said God I am so tired, overwhelmed and drained that I feel if I do not get out of it I am going to be depressed and useless to you.  

During that time, my Bible was opened on my lap, I glanced at it and saw something I wrote on June 2008  it goes this way “Lord teach me how to be like Paul living each day as a new day with anticipation forgetting yesterday and moving forward toward the goal.”  When I read that, I said to God, I can’t believe I was this person in 2008 and now I am failing you. Strangely, I admitted to Him that I have lived the past few weeks on “past grace” instead of fresh grace every day so that my mind could be renewed. Yet, I still did not realize that God was leading me to an examination process that I have been avoiding.

I said to God, “so much for me wanting to be like Paul.” I not only feel I have let you down but after fifteen years of Christianity I am nowhere to being like Paul. God answer to me was “you are a human being it is normal that you go through this phase once in a while and I fully expect that, He continued with, Paul felt this way too, I had to get him out of those depressed times, yet, he is the same man who later on wrote Philippians 3 that you love so much.”.

I tried to go back to the Bible again, suddenly I was craving talking to my friend, the one God had forbidden me to see when I wrote “A melancholic day on April 2^nd and April 18 posts” I know I have craving seeing my friend for the past few weeks, and at times, I had to force myself not to take the phone and call. But, today the whole thing came crashing down, I wanted to see my friend, I wanted to get away from it all, and I needed a break from all those godly stuff in my mind. I could see myself trying to remain seated to avoid going out. I felt like a junkie I need of the next fix. Then God told me, do you see why I need to protect you against yourself?  I said to God, what does that mean? Is that even Biblical what you are saying?

He said well, read 2 Peter 2:7-10. After I finished reading those verses I still did not quite understand and I remained quiet trying by myself to decipher what He was trying to say to me. Of course He knows I was struggling to understand, then He told me, there is a part of me that longs for this ungodly relationship that corrupt my mind and spirit, and it is all against His purpose for any child of His.  

It is so strange when we are not thinking soberly with the Holy Spirit. When I found clarity of mind, I knew it was ridiculous of me to hold myself at such a high standard because when Paul wrote Philippians he was a Christian for few decades where I still have five full years to put in, before I can say I have been a Christian for two decades. But, God was not concerned about that, He was concerned that I was being too hard on myself and needed me to understand what I was going through was part of the path of becoming this person He wants me to be. God is fine with our shortcomings and failures He does not hold them against us nor that He defines us by them, but AS LONG AS WE ARE ON THE RIGHT PATH WITH HIM. Like God taught me, if we are going south and He is going North, while we love calling ourselves work in progress, but in reality, as far as He is concerned, we are not truly work in progress.

Someone I love dearly made a decision a few weeks ago, but when he called me to tell me what he was about to do, I told him, this decision will affect the rest of your life and that he might never recover from it. He said I do understand I am going complete opposite direction from God’s way. But this is what I need to do. This person said something like he is hoping that God will somehow make things right for him and eventually forgive him. He was doing what felt right for him because he could not fathom the idea of trusting God and make a decision that would have been painfully hard now, but over time would pass. This person could not take the pain that we all encounter when we decide to allow Him to work Salvation in and through us. Yet he still somehow hopes that God would follow his footsteps. It is hard to talk to someone who is that far from God, someone who is only counting on God’s goodness and love to make it. While God can still salvage us when we defy Him and chose our own path, but we are playing with fire and saying that we are a work in progress would not do.

I know I am a work in progress because through His grace I maintain the path. Yet I have a long way to go, and yes I hash things out with Him all the time. I do it when I do not understand, I do it when I am overwhelmed with life and tired of the waiting process, and so on. But the frame of mind that I am in, the attitude, my intention, my heart and my disposition are all geared toward following His path, His plan, and His purpose for me. Just like when you read the psalmist, you can see how David hashed things out with God, but in the end, he knew it was about His will for his life and nothing else. It is about maintaining a state of mind where the heart is always open to the Holy Sprit helping us mature spiritually while learning to continually practice His presence as we put away all unchristian habits.

It turns out, after God talked to me about my ungodly relationship that corrupt my mind and spirit, He showed me the reason that I have been so overwhelmed lately, and why I had all the clutters that made me feel I was a prisoner in my own mind, is because in the past, I never dealt with the issue with Him. Instead I chose to use my ungodly friend to feel emptied out and I would come back to Him willing to continue the path. Then He said to me, the reason that you need a break even from your spiritual life with me is because you are not learning to put into practice to find your rest in me when your practical life become cumbersome with all the small things. 

While you have learned to rest in me for the big things, you have to do the same with the small ones as well. I broke down, I dumped the whole load that I was carrying, at His feet and while crying I was able to feel so emptied out, so light that I took a deep breath from deep down, then all of the sudden all clutters disappeared. Now I know what I have been doing wrong and I will be diligent to keep resting in Him for little things as well. But the truth is, I needed God to tell me that because I had no idea what the remedy was and why I felt the need to get away from Him sometimes.

Another thing that God showed me as well, is that unless I learned to rest in Him for little things instead of running to an ungodly friend, I will stunt my spiritual growth and in order to take me further I have to learn to get to that hump that keep me stumbling.