For those of you who don't know. I've been in Nashville since Friday morning, for the National Youth Workers Convention. - Its a gathering place for thousands of youth workers to come together in community, fellowship and to go on a journey of the Spirit together. I've gone to this for the past 3 years; Cincinnatti, St. Lousi and now Nashville. With each year I learn things and grow in my walk, and this year is no different.
For probably about the past year I have been in this funk. It has felt like my God whom I love was absent from me. I felt like I was alone, and reaching out in all the ways that I knew how, and He wasn't there. I felt abandoned. Prayer was unfulfilling. Scripture was dry. Worship was routine. My walk was stuck in idle, and I didn't know what was going on.
Throughout the convention, there are large community "sessions" - that is, times when we all gather together for a "message" from a speaker and worship. As well as smaller seminars about different topics that we deal with as youth workers. They try to make the seminars fit into a series, so that if you are looking to go deeper into a topic ie. middle school, post-high school, theology, whatever. There was a series this year, its available each year, called Soul Care. I went to most of theses sessions, because I thought that maybe my soul wasn't right, and that's why I felt abandoned.
Yesterday afternoon the seminar in the series was taught by Mark Yaconelli, an amazing man in his own right, he spoke about "the Dark Night of the Soul: When God Feels Absent" ---- Could it have been more of a Godsend? I think not.
So I go to this seminar and I'm listening to him speak and everything that he is saying is just resonating in my heart and the deepest parts of my soul. I realize that God has been absent. That sounds weird to say, but it is so true. the dark night of the soul is when God is obscure. When you can't see Him. --- The whole idea of the dark night of the soul, is that this is a time in your life where God is retooling you. He is taking you apart and rebuilding the things in you that He wants. - So often we find ourselves walking in routine. Just "repeating" our practices and we lose focus of that God that we were so in love with. (This is exactly where I am)
He even backed up this idea biblically. Look at Saul. Saul was on a mission. Jesus came upon him and blinded him. While Saul was blind Jesus worked in him, he rebuilt him and made a new creation, Paul.
Even Jesus was in this darkness. On the cross when He took on all our sin he felt as though God had abandoned Him. "My God, my God why have thou forsaken me?"
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The big kicker is that there is nothing that we can do about it. We cannot free ourselves from the darkness. The only way to get out of this darkness is to Surrender yourself to it, to allow Jesus to rescue me and rebuild me and teach me to love Him once again.
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I am so happy to be in the darkness. I'm trusting that He will walk me out the other side a stronger and better man.
For probably about the past year I have been in this funk. It has felt like my God whom I love was absent from me. I felt like I was alone, and reaching out in all the ways that I knew how, and He wasn't there. I felt abandoned. Prayer was unfulfilling. Scripture was dry. Worship was routine. My walk was stuck in idle, and I didn't know what was going on.
Throughout the convention, there are large community "sessions" - that is, times when we all gather together for a "message" from a speaker and worship. As well as smaller seminars about different topics that we deal with as youth workers. They try to make the seminars fit into a series, so that if you are looking to go deeper into a topic ie. middle school, post-high school, theology, whatever. There was a series this year, its available each year, called Soul Care. I went to most of theses sessions, because I thought that maybe my soul wasn't right, and that's why I felt abandoned.
Yesterday afternoon the seminar in the series was taught by Mark Yaconelli, an amazing man in his own right, he spoke about "the Dark Night of the Soul: When God Feels Absent" ---- Could it have been more of a Godsend? I think not.
So I go to this seminar and I'm listening to him speak and everything that he is saying is just resonating in my heart and the deepest parts of my soul. I realize that God has been absent. That sounds weird to say, but it is so true. the dark night of the soul is when God is obscure. When you can't see Him. --- The whole idea of the dark night of the soul, is that this is a time in your life where God is retooling you. He is taking you apart and rebuilding the things in you that He wants. - So often we find ourselves walking in routine. Just "repeating" our practices and we lose focus of that God that we were so in love with. (This is exactly where I am)
He even backed up this idea biblically. Look at Saul. Saul was on a mission. Jesus came upon him and blinded him. While Saul was blind Jesus worked in him, he rebuilt him and made a new creation, Paul.
Even Jesus was in this darkness. On the cross when He took on all our sin he felt as though God had abandoned Him. "My God, my God why have thou forsaken me?"
------
The big kicker is that there is nothing that we can do about it. We cannot free ourselves from the darkness. The only way to get out of this darkness is to Surrender yourself to it, to allow Jesus to rescue me and rebuild me and teach me to love Him once again.
-------
I am so happy to be in the darkness. I'm trusting that He will walk me out the other side a stronger and better man.
1 comment:
Good on ya Chuuy. I'm glad that God is working in you through the darkness. It is only too true that some of the times that he works in us the most is through the hardest times in our lives...the dark times...the times when we feel he has up and let us--when in reality he has never left us, maybe we have been slowly stepping backwards while he stands still. This is an exciting time for you right now. Embrace it and move forward in the grace of God. I love you man, you are going to do great things in the kingdom of heaven. ::LOVE::
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