When I am On My Knees

I can't seem to journal or write. My blog is growing dry. My prayers feel like they're stopping at the ceiling. Everything is wearing out and feeling old. There are people I really do want to care for, but I don't know how to love them well. Bitterness is sitting inside my stomach. Tiredness is swelling under my eyes. Nothing seems to be getting done. What do I do?


Have you ever felt like this?


In the dry times of our lives, it is most certainly difficult to know how to honor God. When the Bible seems like a dry land rather than the satisfaction of thirst, it becomes more difficult to read. When praying becomes religious (ritualistic), it becomes a duty - not a delight. How do we keep ourselves from falling away from the faith?


A few nights ago, my Mom took me out to Kohl's and bought me some dress clothes. Now I don't know what it is with me, but for some reason I love getting clothes. I love dress shirts. I love ties. There are few greater feelings (for me) than putting on something professional-looking and going out into the world - chest out, shoulders dropped, head high - being someone. It makes me feel like a businessman, like I'm important.


This is just one example, and there are many more. But my point is that the clothes I brought home on Sunday aren't helping me here on Tuesday. The Dr. Pepper I drank yesterday is in a sewer somewhere. Even the discipline - yes, discipline - of getting into bed last night seemed to be a worthless exercise as I tossed and turned, cringed and wrestled on my bed, pounding my pillow a couple times.


This is a fallen world. Life seems pointless at times. Direction is easily lost, and purpose oft times seems null. When I succumb to these hardships, I find that I lose joy far too easily. But I find that some of the greatest joy I have ever felt has come when I've been on my knees. When I fight against my own resistance of the word and just sit down and draw from what God says, I find rest. There is peace. There is comfort.


And in a world of sorrow, brokenness, hardship, oppression, guilt, evil, resistance, sin, and curse, we can take heart - because Jesus has overcome the world.