Dear Ray,
What happens when you turn toward the Lord and feel nothing?
No warmth.
No clear sense of His presence.
No inward movement that assures you your prayer has reached anywhere.
I think we need to speak about those days without making people ashamed of them.
We can become so occupied with spiritual experience that we quietly make experience the evidence of our union with Christ. When the feeling is present, we believe we are near. When it disappears, we assume something essential has been lost.
But Christ does not become our life only when we can sense Him.
Colossians 3:3 speaks of our life being hidden with Christ in God. Hiddenness is not the same as absence.
Our attention changes. Our bodies become tired. Grief alters the texture of a day. Sometimes the inward life feels inaccessible because almost everything feels inaccessible.
We should not immediately turn that condition into an accusation.
The absence of a feeling does not prove the absence of Christ.
Nor must we manufacture a feeling to demonstrate faithfulness.
We can speak honestly.
“Lord, I do not sense anything. I do not know what to say. I am here before You.”
There is nothing impressive in that prayer.
Perhaps that is part of its freedom.
We are no longer presenting an experience. We are bringing the person we actually are.
Romans 8:26 speaks of the Spirit helping us in weakness when we do not know how to pray as we ought. Our inability does not leave us outside His care.
We do not need to resolve the weakness before we can be received.
I also think we must let other members come near on these days. When we feel inwardly empty, the care of another person may become part of the Lord’s practical supply.
Someone sits with us. Someone listens. Someone helps with an ordinary task.
We should not reject that because we expected a more inward or extraordinary answer.
Christ can reach us through His body.
And if numbness or despair persists, seeking appropriate help is not a confession that our union has failed. Our bodies and minds are part of the actual humanity in which we live.
The Lord does not require us to conceal their need.
Ray, I want to stop measuring spiritual reality by the intensity with which I can experience it.
Peace is precious. So is joy. But I cannot make their felt presence the condition upon which Christ is permitted to be my life.
Zoe is already ours in Him. It does not come into existence when we feel it or disappear when we cannot.
On the day I feel nothing, I can still refrain from pretending. I can still receive kindness. I can still bring my weariness before Him without demanding an immediate transformation of the atmosphere.
The branch remains dependent even when it cannot feel the movement of the sap.
Let that be enough for today.
Your brother,
Brent
