Over the past few weeks… probably more like months if I’m being real about it… I’ve had a dry spell with God. Part of it was simply rebellion, but part of it was also pealing back another layer of junk in my life and my mind. Thanks to Celebrate Recovery, I’ve come to learn that I really had just repressed a bunch of stuff from my past instead of truly letting them go. I said the words “its yours God”, but in reality I just stored them away and repressed all of the stuff that went along with them. All of this has made me a co-dependent, which basically means I gain my identity from what others think of me… not what God has to say about me.
I’ve worked through a lot of this, but as the layers come off, I see different issues pop up. My latest… which isn’t new, just was overshadowed in the past… is the expectation of being let down by others. I basically expect the worst from people. I learned this trait at an early age… my extended family thought nothing of stabbing each other in the back… my dad always thought he was going to get hosed over by everyone… my “friends” even deserted me or treated me poorly. This continued on into my life… coworkers trying to make me or others look bad… leaders in church playing favorites or just simply not being real… more “friends” being selfish and not displaying anything that resembled “love”. So back to this dry spell…
There have been a series of events occur since last summer that slowly pulled me away from my walk with God. Various friends “freaked out” due to things going on in their own lives and basically disappeared… others became so involved in ministry that they disappeared. I’m still struggling with my job being a source of identity… and that identity is more and more of a downer every day. My daily Bible reading stopped… then my prayer life dropped off. I basically regressed into a point of futility and constantly asked “why is everything so hard? Am I doing the wrong things?”. This all resulted in a lot of anger and an attitude of “what’s the point”. This attitude and I have a long history… an old friend that likes to visit me often.
I’m fighting off the desire to resign myself to mediocrity and just exist. I’m lead to find another job… may not leave this one until 2014, but since it requires certs, etc., I need to prepare. This scares me because it would be a huge pay cut… it’s really hard to walk that path and trust that God will make it happen. I’m lead to sing… but self-doubt creeps in often. Again, it’s hard to stand firm in the quality of my voice and that I’m in the right place. I’m lead to get my body back into shape… but I keep getting sick and having pain. Once more, it’s hard to stay motivated and not just give up. Some of my ministry efforts seem to be pointless and are stressing me out. It’s all overwhelming and my natural tendencies are to just walk away and do nothing.
So this is where I my time in CR has paid off… thanks to a couple friends, my wife, and my own ability to see my errors, I realized that I have fallen of the cliff. I’d love to say that I flipped a switch and whalla… I’m fixed!!, but that’s not the way it works… at least for me. I’ve had to pick up the phone to my buddies a few times to talk about things that have tweaked me and the struggles I’m facing. My wife and I talk constantly about some decisions I need to make (job, singing, etc.) and how I can’t make any decision until my prayer life is back in order. I now recognize my old tendencies to do the wrong thing (isolation, anger, self-doubt, etc.) and I’m using my tools to get better (prayer, reaching out, talking, reading, etc.)
Today was the first time in about 3 months that I’ve felt some real peace. Frankly, its not the deep down peace that I’ve experienced in the past, but its growing with every character I type on this blog. Please pray for me as I take this next step. I truly believe that this is a pruning season… that God is taking me to a higher level and as long as I’m obedient, He’ll get me there.
