@ENKELI @Appleblossom
My sisters, i hear you loud and clear.
And i know that ache you both talk about so well. The kind that starts young — when you wonder why you had to fight to be loved, to be seen, to be wanted. i've carried a rejection mindset most of my life because of it. For more than twenty years i pined after God — after knowing Him, after healing, after something real. So i know what it is to love Him and still struggle to find Him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4tHEwWLMJM&list=RDY4tHEwWLMJM&start_radio=1
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@Lozenge @heartathome @Realness @Shaz51 @MissGremlin
What i want to share isn't about what a good Christian i was — for it certainly was not like that. Rather, this is where i met Jesus in my life. At the bottom — the very place where i had been hurting since i was a child.
The break came when i was completely dejected. i asked Jesus to put me last — to save the whole world before me if He would, as long as He saved those who were perishing. Not because i was holy. Because i was empty. And because somewhere underneath it all, i trusted that He had saved me — and i couldn't stop thinking of those still suffering, who did not even know that God was true. It was then — at my lowest — that His love finally broke through.
i don't have fancy words for what happened. God's love came down into my heart with such glory i thought i was going to die. i had never felt love like that. Never. The father-love i'd been denied all my life didn't trickle in — it flooded in, and filled me to overflowing. i was lying flat on the ground, my flesh literally quivering with delight, and i was sure i would die — and i didn't care at all if i did. I remember asking Him if i could just stay with Him forever.
And then, almost in the same breath, the old voice came: you're psychotic. This is your imagination. It isn't real.
But Jesus made sure i knew it was Him — His Word of truth speaking in my heart: God's love, faith and hope.
A few months earlier, out of hunger and frustration, i had thrown out all my self-taught religion and my worldly education, and told God: from now on, You teach me. i stopped "studying" the Word the way i'd been trained — memorising, analysing, performing — and started reading it the way a thirsty person drinks: when my heart felt the need to hear what God had to say to me. i would just open the Book and read where the Spirit arrested my eye. i read the Word of God like this for years — asking after everything — and let the Word sort out His truth from my lies. Only The Word of God, nothing ADDED or explained about that by others but only The Spirit of truth lived right inside my own heart
For there — in my heart and in my mind — He proved His Word alive. What i read wasn't about a dead past — it was about me — and what lived inside of me. My inner world. My wounds. My way home. The very thing i had just lived on the ground — the glory filling the temple, the Father and Son making their home in a human heart — i found written in Ezekiel 43 and John 14:23. The Word was alive because He was alive, and He was speaking to me. He was teaching me to love God, myself, and others — truly.
So when you're struggling, dear sisters, to feel close to God, or to have a sense of a Father who comforts you and establishes you in your faith — this is the one thing i wish someone had told me: the struggle to be close to Him is not a sign that He is far. When it feels like God is not there, or not answering, or doesn't love you the way He loves others — that feeling is not the truth. It's a fog in front of the truth. i came to call those feelings what they are: anti-Jesus feelings — the whisper that He is absent, or disappointed, or that you must become something first before He'll want you. Or He loves other people more. Or The Word is not true for me. And as long as i believed the feelings instead of His Word, i couldn't experience Him.
What changed everything was small and simple. i began offering those times of blindness back to Him: "i can't feel You right now. i don't believe right now. Take this from me — give me back Your faith and Your truth." And slowly, truly, His good life began to take over my bad one.
That's all i have to offer — not a method, not a ladder. Just this: He is not waiting for you to find Him from above. He is already down where you are — inside the question itself. And the love you already have for Him? That's not your doing. That's His work in you. Let it be enough to keep you asking. The asking is the finding, one day at a time. Consider letting The Word of God Himself grow you a new life. It sure paid of big time in my life living His truth true amidst my life in lies.
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The Living Word Saves
Meeting Jesus in my deepest pit
brought an end to all my inner pain;
through His love, the Living Word made fit
my heart to live and breathe again.
First, like a farmer, He pulled up my weeds,
turned the soil, laid every stone bare;
then gently sowed His life-giving seeds,
tending me with patient, fruitful care.
Yes, the Word's voice in the Spirit of love
drew me near and held me there;
His life now dwelling from heaven above —
a living gift He longs to share.
So from your pit, rise up and come away;
let Him sow His life within your soul.
Find living truth in Him today,
your soul now living whole.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5fwhEOptBI&list=RDZ5fwhEOptBI&start_radio=1
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With brotherly love.
