Parked

I was walking to my car after work tonight. I had worked late, so it was about 7pm. It was dark, the night was cool, and the parking lot was almost empty. It reminded me exactly of the night I was walking to my car at A&M, pondering whether or not God wanted me to move out of Texas. I remember looking up at the stars that night and saying something to the effect of "I'm following You, God. You lead me where you need me. I won't stay here for selfish reasons. If you want me somewhere else, send me there." And I remember how I was filled with peace back then.

Cut back to the parking lot tonight. My thoughts were a bit different, along the lines of "Are you really using me Lord? What happened to the way I used to feel? I'm trying to follow You, trying to do Your will, trying to do all the right things, but sometimes I just feel nothing. What is going on here?" I left rather perplexed and confused.

I had started reading "Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home" by Richard Foster. Before going to bed tonight, I read Chapter 2, which happens to be titled "The Prayer of the Forsaken". It talks about how to pray when we feel like we are in the desert. I wish I could quote the whole chapter, because I'm afraid the point will be misunderstood if I just summarize. Foster's point is that, although we can be certain that God is always with us, sometimes He withdraws our consciousness of His presence and we feel forsaken or empty, so that He can grow us more.

A living relationship with God begins and develops in mutual freedom. God grants us perfect freedom because he desires creatures who freely choose to be in relationship with him. Through the Prayer of the Forsaken, we are learning to give God the same freedom. Relationships of this kind can never be manipulated or forced...

If we could make the Creator of heaven and earth instantly appear at our beck and call, we would not be in communion with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We do that with objects, with things, with idols. But God, the great iconoclast, is constantly smashing our false images of who He is and what He is like...By refusing to be a puppet on our string or a genie in our bottle, God frees us from our false, idolatrous images...

Saint John of the Cross says that two purifications occur in the dark night of the soul. The first involves stripping us of dependence upon exterior results. We find ourselves less and less impressed with the religion of the "big deal"---big buildings, big budgets, big production, big miracles. Not that there is anything wrong with big things, but they are no longer what impresses us. Nor are we drawn to praise and adulation. Not that there is anything wrong with kind and gracious remarks, but they are no longer what moves us...

For me [Foster] the greatest value in my lack of control was the intimate and ultimate awareness that I could not manage God. God refused to jump when I said "Jump!" Neither by theological acumen nor by religious technique could I conquer God. God was, in fact, to conquer me.

The second purifying of Saint John involves stripping us of dependence upon interior results. This is more disturbing and painful than the first purification because it threatens us at the root of all we believe in and have given ourselves to... We discover that the workings of faith, hope, and love become themselves subject to doubt. Our personal motivations become suspect... We worry whether this act or that thought is inspired by fear, vanity, and arrogance, rather than faith, hope, and love...

Slowly we are being taken off of vain securities and false allegiances. Our trust in all exterior and interior results is being shattered so that we can learn faith in God alone...

I [Foster] would like to offer one more counsel to those who find themselves in this place. It is this: wait on God. Wait, silent and still. Wait, attentive and responsive. Learn that trust precedes faith. Trust is confidence in the character of God. Firmly and deliberately you say "I do not understand what God is doing or even where God is, but I know that He is out to do me good." This is trust. This is how to wait.

It's good to be reminded that we don't have to have it all together all the time. It's good to know that the Heroes of the Faith who have gone before us have also had moments where they struggled to see what God was up to. It's good to realize yet again that God's ways are higher than our own, and we must wait on Him, for He has the best in mind for us, even if we can't always see it.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I put my hope. --Psalm 130:5