Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you? Psalm 85:6
Last week we started a new Spot of Grace series called Restart, considering personal spiritual renewal in our lives. If I were to summarize my testimony over the last few months, I would use the word tired. There are times when we all go through seasons of discouragement, times of heaviness in our souls, and seasons when we just seem to wander. It might not be because of some major issue. It might be just a slow drift. For me, this season of dryness started when I broke one of my own rules – not to use my devotion time as a time for message preparation. But for a variety of reasons, I slipped into that pattern as I started studying the book of Romans. I soon found I had gone months without feeding my soul. I forgot that I need to invest in my relationship with God. I found after a season that I needed soul feeding. I needed to lean into my relationship with God. I have found this principle to be true in my walk with King Jesus: He doesn’t force feed me, but draws me to Himself.
I have seasons in my walk with Christ when I feel really close to my Lord. I’m motivated to do my devotions. I’m walking in close relationship with Christ. I’m listening to worship music in my car and when I’m getting ready in the morning. Often I find that I experience these awesome times when I’m on missions trips, on vacations, and when things are going well. But I’m not always like that. I have seasons when I feel pretty dry and distant in my walk with God. It seems as though temptation is stronger and harder to stand against. It takes great effort to get up and do my devotions when the alarm sounds. It feels as though my walk with God is more of an obligation than it is a relationship. Often I feel spiritually dry when I get so busy I can’t think, when I’m not eating, sleeping, or exercising well or when I spend more time caring for others than I spend nurturing my relationship with Christ. For me, these seasons of dryness don’t usually come from outright rebellion, but from seasons of just drifting. Drifting results from living independently from God in small ways. I start living to please myself and not in dependence upon Christ.
I want to share with you one of the central passages that has helped me in seasons of drifting:
“I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent“. (Revelation 2:2-5 ESV).
This passage calls us back to our first love. That’s what we will be doing in the weeks to come, God willing.
Pastor Glyn Knight
