Son,
The other day you said you were having a hard time “connecting with God”. Let me encourage you to give up trying “to connect” with God—for several reasons.
First, because God has called you to be a man of His Word, you need to simply accept and thank God for the connection He has already made with you. Thank him for cleansing you of all your sin, for crucifying your old sinful self with Jesus on the cross, for accepting you as his son, and putting his Holy Spirit within you. All of this is proclaimed by God’s Word—and I believe you need to choose to stand on God’s Word without any demand for a certain sensation or emotion that makes you feel connected. Choose the truth—reject the lie of the enemy. Take your stand!
Second, trust God to bring the feelings as you need them. Don’t chase them. Don’t wait for God to give you spiritual feelings before deciding to obey Him. Seek first the kingdom of God and trust Him to add all other things (even the feelings of connection and acceptance) unto you. Chase after God through radical obedience—most of which is made clear in his Word and some of which will be God leading you through the counsel of others, open doors, and guidance of the Holy Spirit.
As you pursue God with your whole heart, forget yourself and avoid the pre-occupation with how you are doing spiritually. Resist the temptation to always be taking your spiritual temperature or measuring your progress. Live to see what God does with you each day. Seek the ways you can serve God and others. Forgetting yourself is liberating. Receive the free gift of the Holy Spirit and let him bear his fruit in your life. Just “abide” in Christ and fruit will come on its own.
Third, more important than trying to “connect with God” is to make certain you have removed all obstacles to you enjoying the connection you now have. Here are a few common ones:
- Double-mindedness and compromise. This is tolerating a little sin—or a little of the world and gradually becoming insensitive to words, jokes, thoughts, and entertainment that grieve the Holy Spirit. We need to hate sin and actually love holiness. The pursuit of holiness requires absolute honesty about what for us is sin—or what for us is a temptation God has called us to flee. Choose your metaphor—take the plunge, go whole hog, just die to self, put all your eggs in God’s basket, surrender unconditionally, give-up, give-in, let go and grab hold. Abandon yourself completely to God.
- A “works” mentality. Celebrate the free “gift” and just accept that how well you do spiritually will never give you something to brag about. God is not into building your self-esteem—He is out to kill you so that His life can express itself through the reborn you. I know your self-esteem has taken a beating, but trying to build it back up will continually trip you up. God’s answer to crappy self-esteem is to free us from slavery to self. His answer is unconditional love and an invitation to forget ourselves as we serve Him and others.
- Substitutes: good things that get in the way of the best things. Knowing about God instead of knowing God. Hanging out with people who have relationships with God instead of nourishing your own relationship with God. Going to meetings and doing religious stuff instead of following Jesus personally. Don’t give up the good stuff, just make sure it is a step to the best.
- Sloth. Sleeping late, not having time to read His Word and pray can crowd out our enjoyment of and fellowship with God. Work with joy, hope, faith, and love. Give room for your relationship with God.
- Procrastination. Today is the day of salvation. Today we work out our salvation with fear and trembling because we know God is at work in us. One of Satan’s most effective strategies is to encourage us to have good intentions about what we will start doing tomorrow. Like St. Nike said, “Just do it”.
I don’t know if you will find any of this helpful, but I trust you to ask the Holy Spirit to underline anything relevant to your situation. Trust and rest in God—enjoy Him.
