Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Joy in the Pits

There are some days when we just want to shut the world out. No one seems to understand and life just seems bleak. How are those days formed? Where do those attitudes come from? I'd like to know so I can figure out how to annihilate those days all together.

Sometimes it feels like everything that God has been teaching me the last year has crumbled into bits due to my lack of faith. I know God's promises and I hear His word, yet I somehow fall back into the same position I had been in before He moved in my heart. Why does that happen? 
He has shown me that He pursues me, yet I still do not feel pursued.
He tells me that I am His, yet I still do not feel like I belong.
He says He carries me through uncertain times, yet I still feel like I'm dragging along.
Why? I don't really know.

Sometimes, we find ourselves in these pits, and sometimes the question is not how to get out of the pit; Sometimes the question is how to find joy in the pit.
I'm alive.
I am not being eaten by alligators that could have possibly been in this pit.
The sun still shines over the pit during the day, and I can still see the stars at night.
I'm not in the pit with any skeletons or anything, so it's pretty tranquil down here....

Really though, at the end of the day, the pits aren't what make or break us.
However, our response to the pit displays who we are.
What it really comes down to is, God is still God, whether we're on top of a mountain or lost in a cave somewhere. Our down days are still as much a part of who we are becoming as the up days. In fact, the down days are really what shape us. Being pounded against a table may be painful, but being formed into the proper shape is essential.

Sometimes, my problems seem impossible to face, but then I remember that those are my God's favorite problems to take on because it is through the impossible that God's power and beauty is shown.

In all honesty, these posts are the hardest for me to write, because I'm definitely leaving myself very vulnerable. It's ok though, because the "vulnerable" times are just as part of the Christian life as the "on-fire" times.

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