I’d love to hear what your learned and read from the Scriptures this week. Unfortunately, what I have to share with you, probably won’t encourage you at all, and for that I’m sorry.
I’ll be honest – I’ve felt frustrated this week. To me, sin is like a big mud pit. You may WANT out of that mud pit, but you feel helpless to get out of it. You need someone to grab a hold of you and PULL you out.
I have sins in my life that I want, and need God’s help with. I feel like I’ve been floundering in the same mud pit of certain sins for so long and I feel like a weak, useless person who can’t overcome them on my own. I want to conquer these sins, but I feel like a failure to do so. The problem is, I don’t feel God’s help and I’ve been questioning him about that. I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t want me to overcome these sins and I can’t imagine why I don’t feel that he’s helping me. I guess I just want to know what it is that God wants me to do in order to get out of the mud! As the song says, I want the Lord to “wash me and I will be whiter than snow”.
Has anyone else ever asked God for help, but didn’t feel like you got an answer or the help you need? If so…please share with me.
I’m not including the Bible Buddies link (because it isn’t getting used), I do hope you’ll comment anyway. If you had a “mountaintop” kind of week – encourage the rest of us.
If you had a “valley” kind of week, let us pray for you. It was definitely a “valley” kind of week for me in my spiritual life, so I’d appreciate the prayers.
Hope your Sunday is blessed and restful,
oh Angie…I feel for you…I have not had a mountaintop week, but I’ve not been in the valley either, just kind of a plateau, which is ok with me. let me encourage you with this…you are not alone. Jesus promised that he would always be with you, even if you don’t feel him at the time. as far as your mud pit, God does not want you to stay there, sin causes a separation and He does not want to be separated. If you have confessed to Him, He has promised that He HAS FORGIVEN YOU and cleansed you. Now you just need to make the choice (daily, hourly, minute by minute if necessary) to stay out of that pit. Ask for help from the Holy Spirit, that is why He is there. And don’t condem yourself during your struggle. one day you will suddenly discover that the mud pit is gone. just hold on…
((hugs))
Debbi
–yankeeburrowcreations
I will pray for you, Angie. I have often had those times in my life- times when I wanted to pray but prayed without really “feeling it”. I also have had times when I thought I prayed but got no answers. There were questions that I had that I didn’t even know how to form the prayers for. Sin, repetitive sin, is a horrible thing. It beats us down and even when we try to escape it the escape is sometimes temporary. It is a burden that we can’t seem to shake. Those sins might not be earth-shattering and to some they might not even seem all that bad…but to us that suffer through them they are a blight on our lives.
I don’t know about you but I have a very hard time praying for myself. It is easy enough to pray for others and I do-but when it comes to asking for something for myself (even release) I have a hard time doing it. I feel guilty – or not worthy – or something. I so understand.
Today I am in a good spot and have been for a while-but I remember that pit I was in and how hopeless it seemed and how helpless I felt. I can hear your pain. Know that you are loved and I will pray for you- xo Diana
ps. I am off to bed here now but I will check in tomorrow- xo Diana
Angie, you express well, what for others is often difficult to say (write/type). I too have a sin and struggle that I continue to pray for help with and cannot understand why there seems to be no answer. BUT, I also firmly believe God is always with us and God ALWAYS answers prayers. I don’t know about you but I am the type who wants to see the answer NOW. Over the years I’ve come to realize that some of God’s answers have always been there but I’ve been too wrapped up in my own head worrying over them that I didn’t open my eyes and ears and heart to the answer. Other times, I slowly have come to realize that I cannot force God’s answer right now. He will make it clear when the time is right…not just when I think it is right.
We of faith have to believe the answer will come. To truly believe in our beliefs. Does that make sense? I still struggle daily with “letting go and letting God” take care of my sins. I also know that he has given us choices to make our decisions. If, for myself, it is something that I need to learn to control, HE will most likely want for me to figure it out. That doesn’t mean HE doesn’t hear or answer, but that the answer lies within us.
I pray you have a better week ahead. Find the answers and hear HIS voice and to be washed whiter than the snow. Here where I live, the snow is starting to look pretty dirty and I’m hoping for spring rain to help wash out the dirt from my life. 🙂
Hi Angi,
I’ve been in the same place myself several times. And I’ve read some devotions by Thomas Aquinas and Oswald Chambers that told of periods in their lives when they felt God was silent.
I think these times of silence may be a testing of our faith, a part of our maturing process.
Sometimes they bring us to new ways of interacting with God and deepening our relationship. Sometimes they are simply a part of our faith that remains a mystery. But I’m sure they are always temporary. Reading the Psalms has sometimes been helpful to me because the Psalmist also talks of God being silent.
Mystery will always be a part of our faith because we are finite and our wonderful God is infinite. But one thing is no mystery: everything He does is good and loving.
When dealing with my stubborn sins, memorizing Scripture about those sins and repeating it throughout the day has helped. And I’ve been in places where I’ve set an alarm to pray throughout the day because things I was dealing with were so strong and I wanted to repeatedly bring them to God. And there’s times I’ve been in such a pit of despair that I’ve had to ask others to pray for me because I couldn’t pray myself.
Sometimes just knowing these periods of silence are temporary is what we need to hear. Keep seeking…keep knocking…keep creating your lovely images with Scripture.
I hope I don’t sound preachy. I’m right there with you at times. I haven’t figured it all out. But I hope something I’ve written might be helpful.
Gail
Angie, whether you realize it or not, you’re doing just what your supposed to be doing… Waiting on God. It may seem like He’s taking his time, but at just the right moment, he’ll change everything in just one day. Blessings! xo Geneva
Hi Angie….I’ve also had some trials that seemed to happen all in one day…but for some reason God gave me a humorous way to look at it all and it just didn’t seem to get me down. My Ordinary Country Life is my blog and I wrote all about it…:) Maybe we need prayers on looking at our trials through different eyes. I don’t mean to take the serious things too lightly but maybe this will help? I hope you find your answers and peace….have a great day….:)
Angie, I listened to this last week and when I read your blog, I thought maybe it would be helpful to you too. http://vimeo.com/58318290 God bless you.
Angie – you do not walk alone…
Not only is He with you, but it seems so am I on this journey of frustration this week. I’d have a really good day and then a pretty rough one. And today is one where I feel the same as you. I did not serve my fellow man yesterday when called upon to earlier in the week and I feel terrible about it. I need to ask their forgiveness as I my only reason why selfishness.
And I need to ask God’s forgiveness.
I hope this next week is better for you (and me).
Hugs.
My prayers and thoughts are with you.You will overcome your hurdle in God’s time and a lot of times we want it in our time.Keep pushing forward.Have a good evening.
Dear Angie,
The scripture says that when we know the truth, the truth will set us free. And Jesus told us that the two greatest commandments were to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. So love is our greatest commandment. I wonder if you are being hard on yourself or if you are obsessing about your sin. I believe that the mere act of focusing on it can make it difficult to let go of it. But when we focus on the unconditional love of Christ and the truth that there is nothing we can do to make God love us more, and nothing we can do to make Him love us less, we can be free. Remember that God promised that as far as the East is from the West, that’s as far as God has taken sin from you. We all sin, that’s why we needed a Savior. But he has washed us clean and has taken our sin upon himself, has made us righteous so that we can walk free as redeemed people. Remember that even Paul said that he did what he didn’t want to do and didn’t do what he wanted. He recognized his struggle with sin and his wretched condition in his body of sin, knowing that it was only Christ who could rescue him. Maybe you don’t feel like God is doing something for you in this regard because you aren’t acknowledging to yourself that He has already done it. “It is finished.”
Hi Angie, I’m late to Sonday this week, but I feel your pain in relation to wanting to get away from something you know is wrong, but not feeling you have the strength. I certainly can’t give any advice, but Jesus has already. When the woman at the well sinned, Jesus first said that he didn’t condemn her. Then he told her to go and sin no more. He willingly forgave, then gave a command. Turn around and go the other way. Hope you sense first his unconditional love and then the power of His Word which encourages us that it is possible, in Him, to overcome whatever has a hold on us. I know… that doesn’t make it easy. Our sin doesn’t surprise him and he loves us still, more than we can imagine. I hope you feel his loving arms around you and know he loves the you that you are right now, not because you “deserve” it, but because of His GRACE.
Grace, grace, God’s grace, grace that is greater than all our sin… Love that hymn too!
I thank God that His blood does wash us white as snow and it may be over and over. We are also asked to repent and turn from those sins but it’s so easy to fall back in the mud and by His grace he forgives. We can’t live in this fallen world without Him.
I just happened to find you through Pinterest today. Thank you for being so transparent and real. I will pray for you.
I was reading up on fasting and praying to break bondages of sin/strongholds – God is leading me to this and I’d thought I’d share as well. God bless and have a wonderful Resurrection Sunday! 🙂