07/23/2022
If we know and serve the Lord long enough there will be a time when we will experience His silence, and feel like He is far away. Maybe sin has separated us from Him, or we have become so used to His presence that we don’t feel His closeness like we once did. Whatever the reason, we know that we don’t believe any less, and yet for some mysterious reason there seems to be a distance between us. We are like a carbonated drink that has lost its fizz… we are flat. So what do we do when we find ourselves in this lonely place? I recommend that we read and pray the scriptures, and seek new ways to serve Him until we realize He is still close, and our hand is firmly in His once more.
“How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.”
Psalm 139:17-18 ESV
Being with someone you love for a long time breeds familiarity, and you begin to take them for granted. It’s not that you don’t care for them, or love them any longer, but simply that the excitement has faded. Over time you have come to know certain truths about them, and the mystery that once thrilled you in your relationship has now become harder to find. Over time we find that if we do this thing, then they will respond in a certain way… without fail. When this happens then our relationship has become predictable, stale, and somewhere along the way we come to realize that the fizz is gone from the drink of life we once shared together… we feel a distance.
“O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.”
Psalm 139:1-2 ESV
Old married couples deal with this all the time, and when it happens then one of two things must occur; they can continue to live in their diminished state by routinely coming and going each day in the now familiar absence of that fizz, or they can work to renew their relationship by reemphasizing what once thrilled them (like my suggestion that we read and pray the scripture) and they can do this by doing new and exciting things together. The love, and other feelings that they had for one another has not changed, but the arena in which they are played out will have grown. Truth, even about someone’s behavior, remains truth, but when we see that truth exercised in new, bigger, and bolder ways, it can become fresh and new again.
“Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!”
Psalm 95:1-2 ESV
A man brought his wife home flowers one Friday afternoon, and upon seeing her excitement, and the loving way she reacted to them, he started bringing them home every Friday. At first she reacted with the same excitement but then it became so routine that her reaction faded into expectation, and if he forgot to bring them she would say “What!? No flowers?” She still loved flowers, but the fizz was gone, and there was no grandness left in this act of love. So, one day he came home and presented her with a single little flower and two tickets to the garden show being held that weekend. Suddenly that old spark resurfaced, and he saw her excitement once again. She still loved flowers, but the arena had changed, and the act of giving her flowers had become creative and fresh. Something similar can happen in our relationship with Jesus. We know His truths, and we know that He will react to them in certain ways, so as we become used to this we too can find ourselves asking “What?! No flowers?”… we feel the lack of fizz as separation… and when this happens we too need to change the arena…
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.”
Psalm 51:10, 12 ESV
When our relationship that has lost its fizz is with God, and Jesus Christ, the future of our eternal life can hang in the balance. God’s promises are always true, and He always does what He says, so settling into a routine with Him is something we can easily find ourselves doing. When this happens we begin to pray without enthusiasm, go on the same mission trip year after year, sign up for that comfortable faith conference we always attend, or go to the soup kitchen every Friday and serve meals beside Jesus. But over time the fulfillment we once felt in these things isn’t all that awe inspiring any longer… it begins to feel less like obedience, and more like an obligation. As people of faith we we call this many things, such as becoming complacent, taking something for granted, experiencing a lack of spiritual emotion, or even something more severe like having a crisis of faith, but through all of this, God is still with us, and Jesus continues to walk beside us. We are becalmed on the sea of our belief.
“At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men who are complacent, those who say in their hearts, ‘The Lord will not do good, nor will he do ill.’”
Zephaniah 1:12 ESV
We punish ourselves when we choose to remain stagnant in our marital relationships, and we especially do so when we remain complacent in our relationship with God, and Jesus. So when we begin to taste our drink, and realize that the fizz is fading away, then it is time to react, and to increase the size of our arena. Are we ready to do this? Are we looking for ways to rejuvenate those relationships that are priceless to us?
Prayer:
Father, thank you for the moments of silence that we occasionally experience in our relationship with you; not for the silence itself, but for how it leads us into renewal, change, and an increase of faith. Thank you for being with us always Lord, even in those times when we can’t see or feel your presence. Thank you for increasing the size of the arena in which we love, and serve you. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you our God who waits on us as we answer your call to come home. We praise your name for the closeness we have with you that can on occasion leads us to become complacent in our faith, but we praise you all the more for inspiring us in new ways in which we can experience you. Merciful are you Father for forgiving the times that we sit in the pews and our minds wander, and those moments during prayer when we lose our connection with you. Help us to resist the temptation of complacency, and call us to new and larger ways in which we can serve you. Your grace is sufficient Father, and covers our inadvertent inattentiveness. Wash us clean with the blood of Jesus, and refresh our faith with a splash of His living water. In this way, judge us worthy of eternity in your presence, and restore our peace, joy, and sense of awe in you.
Rich Forbes