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The Messy Garage
Posted By Melissa
“As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. I thirst for God, the living God. When can I go and stand before Him” (Psalm 42:1-2).
The last few days have been really dry for me spiritually. When I pray, I lose my focus in about two seconds and start thinking about four hundred other things. I hate seasons like this.
I love coming to the Lord with a fresh and ready heart. To spend a long time praying and emerging from my time with Him with total clarity and peace. I get so excited to find something fresh in the Word every single day and meet with Jesus in a powerful way.
But not the last few days.
“Argh!” I yelled out loud from my chair after realizing I had read approximately ONE verse in my lovely NLT Sanctuary Bible and then launched into a ten minute daydream about how to organize the garage.
The garage? Seriously.
But here’s what I know:
- I experience times like this periodically in my walk with the Lord. They do not, however, define my walk with Him.
- The more discouraged I allow myself to become, the longer I will stay in this state of distracted and dry prayer time.
I am learning that I must still constistently seek God even when I have a season in my prayer life where I don’t hear His voice or feel His Presence. I want to be a woman characterized by discipline - “planted by the streams of water (Psalm 1:3).”
There are things that I can do - tools that I can use - that help me in my prayer life when I start to feel chronically distracted. I will start using a more structured Bible reading plan to help me stay focused or I may start a new Bible study with a friend. I may spend some time creating a new prayer notebook - something that I feel excited about when I pray. I may even use a simple tool like my iPod and buy myself a few new worship songs at my favorite online place (the Apple store, of course!).
Regardless of the tools I am using in prayer and regardless of how I feel, I need to keep moving forward in the things of God. I can trust Him to be faithful to me as I seek Him even when I feel dry.
Lord, I long for you. I thirst for you in this dry and weary land where there is no water (Psalm 63). I ask for a hunger and a passion to be in Your Presence this day. And I ask for you to open up heaven and send a freshness to me in my relationship with you. I want more of you in my life, God. I want to hear you more. I want to love you more. More. In the name of your Son, Amen.
Feb 29th, 2008
It feels so good when you finally get to the other side of ” the dry spell”. I, too, experience those times and you’re right- it’s hard. You have a great attitude about it…keep plugging away. Sometimes my attitude is not the same. Thanks for reminding me to press on!
Thanks for your timely post. I have been experiencing a very similar thing the last week or so. The song that I purchased a few days ago (because I know exactly what you are referring to with the worship songs as a motivator) is Calling for a Flood by John Waller. It infuses me with a desire to be bathed in the Holy Spirit. So, if you are looking for a good one, check it out. Thanks again for a great post.
Oh yes - some days there are definitely 4 hundred things floating through my mind! Thanks for the ideas on focusing. I also loved how you said:
1. I experience times like this periodically in my walk with the Lord. They do not, however, define my walk with Him.
2. The more discouraged I allow myself to become, the longer I will stay in this state of distracted and dry prayer time.
“They do not, however, define my walk with Him.” How crucial this line is. The mini-seasons do not define us! So true. I know that no matter what I am going through that I am a child of God and he loves me.
As I look at my children and see their seasons of change, the things they go through and look back on my life I know my Heavenly Daddy looks down on me and encourages me to grow and move on and sometimes I just think he wants me to just spend time on his lap.
God Bless!
I know how that feels..I am a fulltime, working mom of two boys and so often overwhelmed with balancing everything I often get distracted with finding solutions to all my challenges and problems instead of focusing on God..I feel often like I have 5 or 6 dirty garages to clean out in my life!
I need to focus instead on how God has blessed me-I have a wonderful husband and two healthy boys, a job with decent hours (off by 5pm) and a company that allow me to keep my family a priortiy.