When you lose your joy...

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CatHerder said:
I'll be honest. Right now...and for a while now, I just haven't been feeling it. I'm wondering if I really love the Lord or if I just like him a lot.

Is there anyone else who is in, or has been, in a spiritual funk?
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Sure, I think I can relate to this. *pats Cat on the shoulder*

This scenario always reminds me of something Greg Laurie once said (paraphrased here): Our journey with God doesn't need to be at a constant pace. We can't always expect to be at a sprint alongside Him. Sometimes we'll need to slow our pace, sometimes we'll stagger. It's not a race, after all, but a matter of endurance.

Reading that after typing it...it sounds pretty cliché. Still, every relationship is about endurance, and as Jesus said unto Thomas, "Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”

Hang in there, Cat.
 
Khatru...you care about people.
God bless you brother.

These forums are so self centered at times.

Unbeknownst to the self righteous

The real ones like us Khatru

The real ones that admit they are not perfect.
They are the ones that God treasures most!
Believe me its true.

Jesus died for love for the savin of sinners.

Proud of your post Khatru

I would shout it to the sky...lmho

But I get excited when I talk to good friends.

Im working on my over talking

Lol

Everyday I wake and confess my flaws to Christ
And everyday Christ makes me more beautiful inside

God bless u for that friendship post to catherder

It was REAL lol..and real hearts tend to be far from forums :)

All my love and prayer young brother Khatru

God bless u for not being fake :)
 
Amen and thank you. Going thru same as catherd, yet im sure we all agree, out God and Savior Jesus is SOOO worthy of our praise and worship and love, our all. He saved us and sealed us and promised to never leave us or forsake us. I know all this and am supposed to walk by faith, not feelings or sight, but lately, if im not sensing His presence, i just feel empty. Worship seems phony, prayer seems fruitless, even pointless, as if He really needs me for Him to work His will in this world. Im sure saying all this is sin, so I apologize as I dont want to offend any of you or God, im just saying whats going on inside and I hate it but dont know how to change. When i get like this, scripture is hard to read. The pages seem blank or the passage seems condemning...its either esau, or judas, or some evil king, or lately this ones the worst...if anyone doesnt have the HolySpirit, theyre none of His. If im none of His, then Of Course my prayer and praise seem empty. I ask, O God, for your forgiveness and salvation again and again, inJesus name, for Jesus sake, please dont take Your Spirit from me forever. Help me to KNOW your salvation deep down within, and not just thru facts in my head. Help me to love you as you deserve, help me worship you in spirit and in truth, help me pray in faith and sincerity, help me to trust you even if I dont sense you within or even near, but please, cleanse me and heal me as you and Only You can, and please bless my true brothers and sisters on christianchat and all around the world, In Jesus Holy Name. Amen.
 
sydlit said:
Amen and thank you. Going thru same as catherd, yet im sure we all agree, out God and Savior Jesus is SOOO worthy of our praise and worship and love, our all. He saved us and sealed us and promised to never leave us or forsake us. I know all this and am supposed to walk by faith, not feelings or sight, but lately, if im not sensing His presence, i just feel empty. Worship seems phony, prayer seems fruitless, even pointless, as if He really needs me for Him to work His will in this world. Im sure saying all this is sin, so I apologize as I dont want to offend any of you or God, im just saying whats going on inside and I hate it but dont know how to change. When i get like this, scripture is hard to read. The pages seem blank or the passage seems condemning...its either esau, or judas, or some evil king, or lately this ones the worst...if anyone doesnt have the HolySpirit, theyre none of His. If im none of His, then Of Course my prayer and praise seem empty. I ask, O God, for your forgiveness and salvation again and again, inJesus name, for Jesus sake, please dont take Your Spirit from me forever. Help me to KNOW your salvation deep down within, and not just thru facts in my head. Help me to love you as you deserve, help me worship you in spirit and in truth, help me pray in faith and sincerity, help me to trust you even if I dont sense you within or even near, but please, cleanse me and heal me as you and Only You can, and please bless my true brothers and sisters on christianchat and all around the world, In Jesus Holy Name. Amen.
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Oh dear Brother! Keep pressing in! In those times, I find that if I just pour my heart and my brokenness out to God, he answers and draws me close. I understand how it can feel so distant... and though we're not 'supposed' to walk out our faith through our feelings, we are an emotional creation and we want so much to connect intimately with our creator in that way. Keep pressing in!
 
CatHerder said:
What does one do when you don't feel that close to God anymore, and prayer, reading his word, and fellowship with other believers doesn't really do anything?

Can this just be a season through which I remain faithful, trusting that God will change me
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Two things! Count your blessings and care for others, Faith works by love. When I loved and ministered others then I was nearer God. He gives the Spirit to those who obey.

[h=2] GIVING THANKS[/h]
Giving thanks brings us back to our center -

God, out from Whom our life flows
with order and purpose. As we give
thanks, the events and people that make up
our life are no longer its center, but simply
part of the flow of our life.


If we mix up the center with the flow of
life, we are subject to constantly changing
moods, depending on whether we like the
people and subsequent circumstances
which are taking place in this moment.


As we give thanks, faith is acknowledging
and receiving His love. Faith says, “Despite
what my eyes see and my emotions feel,
God is in the act of loving me in this
moment, and so I give Him thanks.”


Giving thanks takes attention from the
evils we cannot change and puts our
lives - our present and future
moments, firmly in the hands of His love.


And where we center our attention becomes
a source of energy to us. To focus on the
evil opens the floodgates to the energy of
that evil. To give thanks to God opens up
the doors of our being to Him and fills us
with the energy of His unconditional love.

​
~author unknown
 
You should never lose your joy- the joy of the Lord is my strength. Oh how many years I wasted letting judge full people take my joy! I am now immune to their judging. Things like my attendance at church isn't perfect, even though I usually go four times a week or more. Or that I am not wearing dressy enough clothes. It's funny how they want to complain but not want to buy me these clothes that I can't afford but they want me to have. So many judges nitpicking throughout my life like swatting at Mosquitos trying to drain the life out of me. But now I have mosquito spray and pay them not mind- because I have only one judge and they are not Him.
 
Absolutely beautiful Kaycie. What shall we then say to these things?
If God be for us, who can be against us?
He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all,
how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?
Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect?
It is God that justifies.
Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again,
who is even at the right hand of God, WHO ALSO MAKES INTERCESSION FOR US. +Rom.8:31-34+ (and read on thru35-39) Praise the Lord! May He bless you greatly!
 
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I've been a spiritual funk for several years now. I just want joy back in my life.
 
These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy might remain in you,
and that your joy might remain full. +Jn.15:11+
There! Now you have it. And I have it, and if we remain in a funk, who can we blame.
Thank you for forcing me to search the scriptures for you, only to get a blessed reminder myself.
Think what Jesus did for us, then gave to us as a gift, and gave us His Word:
Ye have not chosen Me, but i have chosen you, and appointed you, that you should go and bring forth fruit ((love, JOY, peace...))
and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in My name, He may give it to you. 15:16.
If a dad gives a kid a bike as a gift, he doesnt want him to keep in the garage and sulk, he wants him to take it out and ride it around.
God the Father gave us His Joy, (God the Son), as a gift. We do well to go out for a 'JOY RIDE '.
 
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I've been meaning to respond to this thread for days now, there is a ton I want to say. But it's past my bed time so for now, I'll say this: To anyone who feels they're in some spiritual funk, this is a really great book to stir your love back on. I'm reading it at the moment, and it has really opened up some areas of my heart in new ways. It is called 'The Sacred Romance' by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge.

Here is a large section of the book:
Chapter nine - Less-Wild Lovers (At the edge of the abyss):
"What, then, is the way of that less-travelled second road - the road that is the way to of the heart?

We usually think of the middle years of the Christian life as a time of acquiring better habits and their accompanying virtues. But inviting Jesus into the 'aching abyss' of our heart, perhaps has more to do with holding our heart hopefully in partial emptiness in a way that allows desire to be rekindled. "Discipline imposed from the outside eventually defeats when it is not matched by desire within," said Dawson Trotman.

There comes a place in our spiritual journey where renewed religious activity is of no use whatsoever. It is the place where God holds out his hand and asks us to give up our lovers and come and live with him in a much more personal way. It is the place of relationional intimacy that Satan lured Adam and Eve away from so long ago in the Garden of Eden. We are both drawn to it and fear it. Part of us would rather return to scripture memorisation, or Bible study, or service - anything that would save us from the unknowns of walking with God. We are partly convinced out lives are elsewhere. We are deceived.

"We are half-hearted creatures," says Lewis in The Weight of GLory, "fooling about with drink and sex and ambition (and religious effort) when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

The desire God has placed within us is wild in its longing to pursue the One who is unknown. Its capacity and drive is so powerful that is can only be captured momentarily in moments of deep soul communion or sexual ecstasy. And when the moment has passed, we can only hold it as an ache, a haunting of quicksilver that flashes a remembrance of innocence known and lost and, if we have begun to pass into the life of the Beloved, a hope of ecstasies yet to come.

At some point on our Christian journey, we all stand at the edge of those geographies where out heart has been satisfied by less-wild lovers, whether they be of competence and order or those of indulgence. If we listen to our heart again, perhaps for the first time in a while, it tells us how weary it is of the familiar and the indulgent.

We find ourselves once again at the intersection with the road that is the way of the heart. We look down it once more and see what appears to be a looming abyss between the lovers we have known and the mysterious call of Christ, which we now realise is coming from the other side. Jesus appears to be holding out his hand to us even as He calls us. He tells us He will provide a bridge over the chasm if we will abide in Him. We hear his words, but such language is strange to us, sounding like the dialects of many who have used us or consumed us and then left us along the highway, exposed and alone. We pull back. Many of us return to Vanity Fair and mortgage our heart to purchase more of what is religiously or materially familiar....

Out lovers have so intertwined themselves with our identity that to give them up feels like personal death. Indeed, they have kept us from knowing the emptiness of our heart's cup. We wonder if it is possible to survive without them. We look once more at the journal to see if this sojourner ahead of us can offer any encouragement. He writes:

"But we who would be born again indeed,
Must wake our souls unnumbered times a day
And urge ourselves to life with holy greed.
Now open our bosoms to the wind's free play,
And now, with patience forceful, hard, lie still
Submiss and ready to the making will
Athirst and empty, for God's breath to fill."

We are surprised and somewhat anxious at his words. We had expected him to give us more religious instruction. Instead, he commands us to be greedy in our thirst, to open the windows of our heart to the 'wind's free play'. " - The Sacred Romance
 
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Kaycie said:
You should never lose your joy- the joy of the Lord is my strength. Oh how many years I wasted letting judge full people take my joy! I am now immune to their judging. Things like my attendance at church isn't perfect, even though I usually go four times a week or more. Or that I am not wearing dressy enough clothes. It's funny how they want to complain but not want to buy me these clothes that I can't afford but they want me to have. So many judges nitpicking throughout my life like swatting at Mosquitos trying to drain the life out of me. But now I have mosquito spray and pay them not mind- because I have only one judge and they are not Him.
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Mans religion is the number one thief of our joy as believers, because mans religion causes us to forget that God saved us by grace and in His love...we start the dry trips around the same mountain with the others who are ready to die and because of lack of faith we fail to enter into the promises of God.
 
Acts 17:27 ASV

that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us:
 
Tintin said:
I've been a spiritual funk for several years now. I just want joy back in my life.
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More accurately, I've grown a lot in my faith and as a person in the last few years, but conversely the joy has gone from my life and I feel I'm just praying without seeing physical fruit for myself. When I pray for others, things happen. When I pray for myself, things don't seem to happen. It's incredibly frustrating and I'm angry at God, myself and life in general. So yeah, I'm plodding along in life, trusting God despite everything.
 
I can relate. Have you read your own sig. Is.43:19? I often feel I can encourage others or find the right verse or passage to help someone, but cant find or apply same to myself. Frustrating, but maybe God wants it that way to allow others to help me, and I have to be humble enuf, and get far enuf out of my own way , to let them. To God be the glory, great things He has done! ...and is doing, and will do, in...and through...and for...YOU!
 
Tintin said:
More accurately, I've grown a lot in my faith and as a person in the last few years, but conversely the joy has gone from my life and I feel I'm just praying without seeing physical fruit for myself. When I pray for others, things happen. When I pray for myself, things don't seem to happen. It's incredibly frustrating and I'm angry at God, myself and life in general. So yeah, I'm plodding along in life, trusting God despite everything.
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Metallurgy is little bit of an interest of mine; more specifically the refining of different metals and how it's done and so on. Like iron for instance is just smelted from the rock ore and along with a few reducing agents like coke or charcoal and enough heat, all the oxygen is removed from the ore where all the by products of the ore - or the slag - can be kinda break off leaving molted iron. Pour it in a form, let it cool, file an edge and you have a handy sword to kill your enemies with. Lots of them.

Now that's smelting - not refining. There's calcifying too and that's not refining. The ancients would smelt and produce lead then would melt the lead with bone ash (and they had a lot of bone ash I guess with all the sacrificing they did) and then they'd take a baffle and blow across the surface of the melted lead which oxidized it and very very slowly a little bubble like thing would appear on the surface looking and having the characteristics of mercury. Only it wasn't mercury - it was pure silver. All the while, the lead would need to stay at a constant temperature for if it was too warm it would melt away and too cool, would similarly disappear and the small bubble of silver represented a huge amount of melted lead.

It was called cupellation. It was refining or a process that usually required constant and long term heat and tedious almost imperceptible force (a baffle blowing air) to produce a valued metal King Solomon adorned his temple with.

I think many of us - like me - are smelted iron. A fast process that produces a good product for the army of Christ. A strong sword and one of many, but maybe expendable. A few of us - like you maybe - have longer trials of fire because your soul is valued for greater things.

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[TD]so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ - I Peter 1:7

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kenthomas27 said:
Metallurgy is little bit of an interest of mine; more specifically the refining of different metals and how it's done and so on. Like iron for instance is just smelted from the rock ore and along with a few reducing agents like coke or charcoal and enough heat, all the oxygen is removed from the ore where all the by products of the ore - or the slag - can be kinda break off leaving molted iron. Pour it in a form, let it cool, file an edge and you have a handy sword to kill your enemies with. Lots of them.

Now that's smelting - not refining. There's calcifying too and that's not refining. The ancients would smelt and produce lead then would melt the lead with bone ash (and they had a lot of bone ash I guess with all the sacrificing they did) and then they'd take a baffle and blow across the surface of the melted lead which oxidized it and very very slowly a little bubble like thing would appear on the surface looking and having the characteristics of mercury. Only it wasn't mercury - it was pure silver. All the while, the lead would need to stay at a constant temperature for if it was too warm it would melt away and too cool, would similarly disappear and the small bubble of silver represented a huge amount of melted lead.

It was called cupellation. It was refining or a process that usually required constant and long term heat and tedious almost imperceptible force (a baffle blowing air) to produce a valued metal King Solomon adorned his temple with.

I think many of us - like me - are smelted iron. A fast process that produces a good product for the army of Christ. A strong sword and one of many, but maybe expendable. A few of us - like you maybe - have longer trials of fire because your soul is valued for greater things.

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[TD]so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ - I Peter 1:7
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I've exhausted myself with tears of frustration and anger. I really needed to hear those words of encouragement. Thanks so much, dear brother. I really mean it. Thank you. Thank you.
 
Everyday is a gift. That is enough to celebrate and be joyful. Snap out of it and grab your joy back before its too late. Life is short and you only live once to waste time feeling empty.
 
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