A Year of Sabbaths (Week 39): Dry

(Highway 50 in Nevada)

Answer me quickly, Lord;

my spirit fails.

Do not hide your face from me

or I will be like those who go down to the pit.

Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,

for I have put my trust in you.

Show me the way I should go,

for to you I entrust my life.

(Psalm 143:7,8)

"He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there Hes is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys." (The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis)

Maybe it is starting to seem a little tiresome.  Maybe I'm just getting a little restless in my resting. I have been at it for thirty nine weeks for Pete's sake! Maybe I just thought I would be further along at this point.

Oh! I still believe that God can do great things when we stop. I still believe that the antidote to our culture's hyperactive lethargiosis is to stop and let God grow us deep.  I still believe in the value of the fourth commandment practiced over time because I believe that for all of our activity, programs, acts of service, and random acts of kindness, we Christians don't really know one another or the God we say that we love with all of heart, mind, soul, and strength.

I do believe in the value of Sabbath; personal Sabbath and church-wide Sabbath.  It has just been hard and not particularly life-giving. Not this last week.  I was in a bit of a funk.

For some reason, that came as a surprise.  I know it shouldn't have.  The mystics spoke of the "Dark Night of the Soul." The desert fathers spoke of, "Acedia."  The Psalm book is riddled with plaintive cries to the One who promised to lead us every day but sometimes seems far away. Spiritual dryness. Spiritual funkiness.

But the funkiness bends us forward and leads us upward, longing to be clothed again with the riches or God's power and love.  The dryness causes our ears strain to hear that distant drum of rain, that still small voice that reminds us of the way we should go, especially when every trace of Him seems to have vanished.

I've come this far.  So this week, I will continue pray funky prayers and fall into God's dessicated but life-giving Word.  I will go through the motions of superficial worship that used to dig deep into my soul. I will continue my half-hearted halting though I'd much rather put my pedal to the metal and get through this hellish Highway 50 in a hurry.

Where else will I go? Whom else will I serve?  Even in the desert, there is the mountain in the distance.  There is the Vast Empty that really isn't empty at all for I know, if I simply pull over occasionally and look and listen, there are lessons that God still wants me to hear.  I know that even when the beautiful things of faith have been removed from sight, God is still good and it is in Him that "I entrust my life."

Church Stopping. Less doing. More being.