Lately, I've been feeling somewhat disconnected from God. When I say lately, I mean just this week, but no matter how long.. It's a pretty awful feeling.
Yesterday I cancelled my meeting with the missionaries in hopes that I could reconnect, or at least clear my mind enough to begin to reconnect.
Honestly, I felt extremely sluggish at first. I just kind of sat around and watched TV when I got off of work, but eventually I snapped out of it and, after listening to a podcast about the gospel I started to feel more motivated to take on the day. So I set off on probably the longest, and most agonizing bike ride I've ever been on. I'm pretty sure it was pushing 17 miles (I'm no athlete), not to mention the cold rain and wind.
The point of this isn't to talk about my day, though. I want to talk about two revelations I had.
1. My bike ride seemed metaphorical to me. (If you follow me on twitter you might have seen my tweet, and here's an explanation)
Here I was, in the beginning of my ride, excited. I love love love cold weather and had even hoped it would start raining while I was on the trail. That's how I feel like Christian life feels at times. We get this 'God high' when we're feeling really connected to Him, and even say "bring it" to temptation and hardship, or in my case, wind, rain, and ultimately dry spells from God. That's a great feeling, but it doesn't always feel that way. When the rain and wind actually begin, and we realize how difficult the path in front of us is going to be, we aren't so excited anymore. We become uneasy, and even start to doubt, just hoping to get to the end..
The path begins to feel never-ending, because all we're focused on is enduring. We rely on God and all we want is for Him to help see us to the end. Now, it's definitely good to appreciate and rely on God during tough times, but instead of only focusing on getting to "the light at the end of the tunnel," maybe we should spend some time figuring out how God could use us in these situations. Ask yourself, "How can I glorify God in this time?" and/or "What can I do to experience joy from God during this situation?" It's a way of seeing positive in the negative.. You know, glass half full kind of shtuff.
But then we get to the end! For me, it was the beautiful sight of my car as I came up that last hill. This is the time where we can breathe, relax, and hopefully have a better understanding. We come out of these dry spells or hardships wiser, with a clear head and ready to meditate on how we were used by God and what we learned. Maybe, hopefully, we are even a happier and stronger Christian because of it.
This leads me to #2..
2. Dry spells with God are normal, you just have to know how to handle them. While on my bike ride, I just so happened to be listening to a podcast by Tim Keller about exactly that. The most moving part to me was when he said, "If nothing else, talk to God." If I feel an absence from God, who better to talk to about it than Him? I shouldn't just 'endure to the end' of it and hope that I'll get over it, I need to be proactive through it!
My "metaphorical bike ride" was necessary and definitely successful. Not only do I feel recharged (if you are an introvert like me, you know exactly what I'm talking about), but I'm also feeling much better about this dry spell. I feel like it's behind me, for the most part, and that's a comforting feeling :)
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