These dismal days,
When I cannot sense Your presence
I know You are with me,
But I cannot feel it
I seek You but You do not respond
I cry out but You do not speak
And then it becomes so difficult
To even cry out
Difficult to seek
Prayer is a labor
And apathy seeps in
Lord you know how I hate apathy
And yet here it is
Right there in my soul
Help me to remember
All the times past
When I felt so alone
Yet You were there
I just could not see
Nor feel
But I believed
Faith is the substance
Of things hoped for
The evidence of
Things not seen
I know this truth
Yet to feel You
Makes me so alive
And to not feel You
So dead
Lord reach down
And touch my soul
That I might feel
Your presence.
Break my heart
With the things that break Yours
Crush the apathy
For it is better to be pushed down
By the sorrows of others
Than to feel nothing
Such a divided soul I am
Crying out that the burden is too great
The suffering too much
Oh to not feel for the sufferings of others!
And yet when it leaves me
I am lost without it.
Oh Lord return to me
Rip out this human heart
And restore to me Yours.
And then come along side
And bear the yoke with me
One more hill
As my son would say.
I have found the Christian life to be one of valleys and hills and high mountain tops. On the hills He is a constant presence, as if He were walking right there with you as a friend, on the mountain tops His presence so strong and holy that you cannot even stand before it but must fall on your face and tremble at His power and majesty, but then there are the valleys where you find yourself walking, seemingly alone, crying out to Him, Lord where are You? I have walked many hills, stood upon many mountain tops and trudged through many valleys. He never leaves you. Even in the valley, even in the silence He is there. Trust Him.
Many wrongly assume that His absence is because something has gone wrong, this is not the case. In truth He is not absent at all, He is merely silent. Think of Joseph, sold into slavery, wrongly accused, imprisoned......I imagine he walked through some very deep valleys. Yet all the while God was working, moving, building and bringing about a great work.
I feel the valley today, it's not a deep one, but it is there. Prayer comes hard right now, everything is a struggle, for some time now I have felt His presence so strong, so sure, so certain, and today scares me a bit. How long Lord? How deep this valley? I pray it is but a short one, perhaps a day or two. None the less, enough has passed that I know my Redeemer. He has not left, He has not stepped out, He is but silent for a time.
http://www.faithgateway.com/when-you-cant-feel-god/#.VsyYH-TSnIU