God Speaks in the Valleys

God speaks mostly clearly and most meaningfully to me in the valleys and the tough times. I think this is true for most people. That God speaks most powerfully in their dark times, not when they are on top of the mountain. 

Why though? 

Perhps becuase when we are on top of the mountain we are so consumed with ourselves and the thrill of the moment, the thrill of the accomplishment that we look to self, success, status or some other idol in our life and not God. 

And when we are in the valley we are most desperate to hear God speak, becuase all of our other idols that we serve have let us down and left us. And we are most desperate for God. 

It's funny though, when we are in the valley how we seek to get out of it as soon as possible rather than be open to what God is speaking to us or doing in us. 

Embrace the valleys.... 

Dark Night of the Soul

Dark Night of the Soul

I've never read the book, but I've experienced this before and feel like I'm coming out of one again.

It's described as a time when you have no desire to do any spiritual exercises that bring you closer to God. Like prayer, reading of scripture, spending time with God. Many people's dark night starts from different reasons or becuase of different hurts, maybe something happened to them, maybe they experienced burnout.

Mine was a hurt from ministry that made me bitter, angry and withdraw from God. I ran from God  and couldn't bring myself back. The interesting thing is that during this time in my heart I still felt like I needed to get back on track, to get un- stuck I kept telling myself tomorrow i'll get back on track tomorrow I'll start praying again, tomorrow I'll spend time with God. And I knew i needed too and I knew that God was speaking that to my heart.

But I kept running , for about 2 weeks. I would listen to worship music to try to get me back in the right mood. But nothing did. I don't know why I couldn't shake the thoughts of wanting to get back and re connected with God. I think part of it was becuase I really wanted to. But I think the other part was perhaps that I believed it was up to me to get back to God, to get myself out of this dark night, to break out of this rut on my own and the only way I could think of was by doing, acting, doing spiritual stuff to get back to God. That it was up to me.

When I read about the dark night of the soul I read an interesting thing. It said something about when we are unable to to outward things that get us closer to God such as prayer, time with God and reading scripture it seems really dark. But what happens on the inside is perhaps worth it. It purges us of religious duty and thinking. This makes sense in some ways and in others I'm not so sure.

But let me share this. This is the one thing I know for sure. The only thing that was capable of breaking the darkness I was in was the power and light of Christ. I did not break out of my dark night on my own. But Christ broke into my dark night. He encouraged me, He spoke truth into my life, He had already broken this dark night on the cross. I have a victor, he is victorious, almighty warrior fighting for me. His name is Jesus.

So while I am still coming out of my dark night, I know one thing for sure, it was Christ who brought me out, not my own efforts. It all comes back to Jesus. He never stops loving, even when we run away, even when we avoid Him, still speaks. When we can't help ourselves out of darkness he breaks into our darkness. His love never fails, it never gives up on me.

The power of Christ is what is powerful, not my own will to love God, but Gods love for me first.

Religion can not save, it only keeps us in our darkness. There is no hope without Christ. Without God loving first