September 7, 2010 - 8:44am - Tuesday - at the Overlook
My heart is discouraged beyond words. I am in such a beautiful place - full of wonderful, God-fearing people, yet my flesh insists on doubting.
I legitimately feel like Jeckel and Hyde. One second, I'm praying to ask You to help me to trust in You, the next I'm despairing over the vanity of life and seriously questioning my belief in my creator.
As I look into the valley, something within me (Your Spirit) delights and whispers joyfully: "How can it not be true? Surely He is the LORD. Just look at His creation!" Yet this heaviness weighs down on me. It suffocates every joy, every delight in the day's simple treasures.
"My heart pants for You - oh God - the living God! As a deer pants for water, so my heart pants for You my LORD." Help me to take these doubts captive. Do not forsake me. Do not give me over to be conquered by fear and discouragement.
Enable me to seek You this day even amongst the many assignments. I beg of You, Father! Grant me rest in Your Spirit! Bless me with encouragement and cause my heart to love You new and afresh. Mold me into the woman You desire me to be. You are my savior, my boss, my reason for living. May all I am, see, do, think, feel be in line with Your precepts.
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Now, almost a year later, I can see Jesus sitting with me there on the overlook, holding my stone-cold heart in the palm of His hand. He is delivering me from myself and my doubtful mind. I still have days, but He is teaching me to walk in assurance and joy. If you are in a similar place - doubting His reality, battling anger or depression - know that He is at work and will never allow you, as a believer, to be snatched from the palm of His hand. Don't go through it on your own! Find another believer you can talk to and be encouraged by. Blessings to you, immense blessings, beyond what you can ask for or imagine.
"Blessed be the LORD, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me when I was in a besieged city. I had said in my alarm, "I am cut off from your sight." But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy when I cried to you for help."
Psalm 31:21-22
