Renewal!!

A couple of weeks ago, a dear friend and co-worker of mine revealed to me that he was feeling discouraged with himself and his walk with Christ. So I wrote back trying to ‘stir him up’ with a spiritually dumb macho question like … ‘where is that spiritual man I knew that was full of fire and zeal for the Lord?’ He wrote me right back and said… “Sometimes I wonder where that man went too!” This post is dedicated to him and all of us who … sometimes feel just like him.

I also want to tell everyone exactly where those men and women of fire and zeal went… they went to the emergency room with acute adrenal fatigue!

The problem grows when those men and women get to feeling better they again try to drum up that zeal … so they can light up that fire again… so they can…. can … revisit the spiritual emergency room again! Each time they come to the spiritual ER they stay in recovery longer and longer, till one day they refuse to leave and stop serving God all together. The weary inwell doing becomes the weary of well doing.

Over the last two years I can finally say … something else is beginning to happen within me. I am beginning to experientially understand what the scripture means when it says … it is God who both causes me to want to do His will and then empowers me to do it.         

First of all I want to remind him and everyone else… that every one of us actively engaged in the service of the Lord at times get discouraged and depressed. From the greatest to the least of us, we sometimes feel defeated, spiritually bankrupt and sometimes even completely abandoned.

Most all of us already know that. Most of us even know that passing through those things are necessary for spiritual growth. Those situations and the feelings they cause are actually part of the advanced training for Christ’s disciples. Though knowing those things doesn’t make one feel any less terrible, knowing what’s happening to us, can help us not miss the benefit going through such things offers.

Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.   (Heb 12:11)

Even the Apostle Paul, concerning himself and the men who served with him, stated at times they felt as though the yoke wasn’t easy, the burden wasn’t light and they wanted to give up…

For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia: that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life.   (2Co 1:8)

Like Paul, sometimes we feel worthless ….

... We have been made as the filth (excrement) of the world, the offscouring (scum) of all things until now. (1Co 4:13)

Like Paul, sometimes we feel exhausted, distressed and even afraid…

For indeed, when we came to Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were troubled on every side. Outside were conflicts, inside were fears.  (2Co 7:5)

And sometimes like Paul, we feel very alone…

This you know, that all those in Asia have turned away from me, among whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes. (2Ti 1:15)

And again…

….for Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world, and has departed for Thessalonica—Crescens for Galatia, Titus for Dalmatia. (2Ti 4:10)

Yet none of those situations and the resulting feelings they brought, stopped Paul from being in, or doing the will of God. Whether he was actively engaged in the work of God or seemed to have been placed ‘on the shelf ‘…didn’t have any bearing on their pleasing God.

Paul came to know, like all of us must come to know, that all their determination, all their zeal and all their strength to do God’s will, had to come from God working in us and not us working for Him. Sometimes feeling useless, depressed, discouraged, or even abandoned is not synonymous with being out of His will.

Whether what we are doing involves speaking to kings in front of thousands, or watching someone tear down everything you worked so hard for….it all requires the same thing… it takes grace.

Whether ‘on fire for God’ and doing some ‘great work’ for Him or suffering the depressive onslaughts of the enemy in a cold, dark, damp jail cell, feeling deserted… the determination and strength to remain faithful... comes from God.

…for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. (Php 2:13)

 I formerly knew that it was Him who gave the grace (power) to do His will … but I never really considered it was Him who even created the desire within me to do His will as well. In other words my zeal and determination comes from Him and not from me.

Everything we need; the desire, zeal, and strength has already been given to us … and is already inside of us. We just need practice in learning to be still and believing in what we can’t see or feel.

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness,           (2Pe 1:2-3)

It’s His divine power, and not my ‘drumming it up’ that I need to believe in.

…for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.  (Php 2:13)

Peace will come as I believe that the state I presently find myself in is all part of His training program.

Every so often every single child of God uses up his allotted amount of zeal, strength and even willingness to go on. When that condition occurs, I am not ‘out of His will’ or spiritually dead…I just need to be renewed. Renewal is part of a disciple’s life and its not just starting over its being … recharged.

                             Recharged

When cell phones first came out the batteries needed proper maintenance to function properly. Every so often, you had to let them run all the way down and then be fully charged. If you just plugged it in every time it was a little low, it ‘got used’ to being charged at that level and started to lose its capacity to hold a full charge. I’m not an electrician but I think that’s a close approximation of what really happens.

We, as disciples of Christ, are very much like that. If God were always ‘plugging us back in’ the moment we got a little low we would lose our capacity to endure. Sometimes, for our own good, He lets us … bottom out.

I have discovered that these times of waiting on the Lord, while I am fully discharged, makes me ready to be fully recharged. The promised recharging will come and then just like the ‘EverReady Battery Bunny’, each time we are recharged we last a longer time.

But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.   (Isa 40:31)

And that recharging will not just help us run faster…. It will enable us to fly.

StoneHouse Ministries International
SMI Nakuru, Kenya