In the past few weeks, I’ve done almost nothing “spiritual.”
When I have, I’ve not gotten much out of reading my Bible, praying, and journaling. Living between two houses, some ongoing relational strife, and other major life transitions for our family have not only impacted my time, but my desire to connect with God. Compounding all of that is an underlying sense of embarrassment knowing full-well that my “problems” could be much worse. Yet I’ve been unable to get out of my faith funk.
Ironically, I often remind my friends, children, and the women I teach that God meets us where we are. He isn’t shaking His head disgustedly when we’re down or unmotivated. He doesn’t shame us for feeling our real feelings. Conversely, we see throughout Scripture God entering people’s struggles with compassion and kindness.
Although my head believes that, for the past few weeks my heart hasn’t bought in. Half of my brain knows God won’t love me less when I’m having a beer and watching House Hunters or punish me for missing church. But another part of my head is constantly trying to convince me that my funk is my fault, and that God is annoyed and disappointed with me because of that.
A few times this week, however, while doing nothing spiritual because I didn’t want to, another voice in my head reminded me Jesus loves and cares about muddied, rebellious, and ungrateful me. Although my heart doesn’t believe or particularly care about that truth, something in me loves hearing the Spirit whisper it to my soul.
Why? Because faith, most often, is merely sitting in the pit waiting for our insides to earnestly embrace that the Bible is true; to trust that we’re loved and wanted despite failures or successes. Faith at its core is not waiting for things to get better, but waiting for our heart to catch up with our head in believing that God’s love and Word are true and dependable, no matter what I do or fail to do.
