Dry as a Desert

What would you say if I told you that I hadn't opened my bible in over a year?  What would you say if I told you I hadn't been to church more than once or twice in over three months?  What would you say if I told you that I rarely pray?  What would you say if I said I had only limited involvement in bible study or church groups?  Would you have a response?  Would you shake your head and walk away thinking it was my problem to deal with?  Would you discuss it further with a genuine concern for my spiritual life?

Chances are you would never know because it would be rare for me to share those things with anyone for fear of judgement.  I mean how in the world could I call myself a Christian if this is how I live my life, right?

But guess what?  All those things are true, brutally so.  Do I think I'm really a Christian?  I mean how dare I call myself one if I don't live like one.  Honestly, I don't know. Maybe I'm not a Christian.  I belong to a church, prayed the prayer to accept Christ as my Savior and truly do believe there is a God who loves me. 

In fact, I am confident in that.  Do I necessarily believe God is all that I have been told?  Probably not, but that's why I don't consider myself a mature Christian.  I suppose my confidence lies more in believing that God knows exactly how I feel right now.

Maybe it's just a phase people go through, I'm not sure.  Nobody really ever talks about this part of being a Christian much, so it's hard to know if I'm the only person to ever feel this way or not.

My bible has been in a case floating from room to room and being tucked into places with the occasional dusting of the cover, but hasn't been cracked open in a year.  In fact, it is a very nice study bible and I think it's been open maybe a dozen times in three years.  I like to use the excuse that nobody ever explained to me how to use it.  But the truth is more that I know what to do with it.  I can open it to a page and read, but the words aren't going to make sense to me.

I can give you many, many excuses about why I don't go to church.  I'm not sure any of them are valid enough to skip out for the past several months.  If you know much about me, you might have some understanding of the constant battles in life I face.  But it's a special kind of battle that usually starts on Saturday night and follows me into Sunday.  I have more than a resistance to church.  Repulsion is probably more like it.  The few times I have gone have been absolutely fruitless and I was not able to take in one word of what was said and log it to memory...let alone apply it to my life.

The same is true for bible studies.  This is probably the one area where I continue to show up even if I don't feel up to it or know it's not sinking into my thick head.  It's rare for me to make it to the various bible studies around church, but I have managed to pick up some privately.  I really do try in those times and continue to do so, but there seems to be a wall that just won't crumble for me.

I have left or just stopped going to any and all small groups I was once involved in at church.  To show up for those only makes me feel like a hypocrite when I constantly bail on everything else.  Why not be consistent, right?  As much as I love singing and being in choir, I can't bring myself to go to that either.  Why go when I'm not there on Sunday.

That brings me to prayer.  I'm not convinced that prayer is of any help at all.  If God is truly sovereign, then what place does prayer have in a Christian life?  I wish someone would explain that to me.  Why bother asking when God's going to do what God's already planning to do?  What makes me think that my words or thoughts would have any influence over that?  Well, I don't believe they would.  Prayer is something I certainly don't understand and the common, "Do it because it's the right thing to do," answer doesn't really work for me.

Yes, my spiritual life is like a dry desert full of dust covered sand and the remains of what was once a growing land of trees and grass that has long dried up.

Don't get me wrong, everything I've written in the past I fully believe to be true.  And, I don't necessarily believe God has left me.  Although I do think I'm a million miles away and continuing to head even further.  That brings this song to mind and I think is very fitting of how I feel right now.

Maybe I've left Him.  Not because He had nothing to offer me, but maybe because I didn't know how to get what I needed.  It's way easier to give up and move on than to figure out how get what you need.