Delights of the Dry Season

I had Chinese food tonight and I opened my fortune cookie. To my alarm, I didn’t find a fortune inside it. This seems to be a theme. Not even my fortune cookie will speak to me.

I say it like this because God has been quiet lately. I have been “doing” all the right things in asking God to search my heart. Perhaps there is an offensive way in me because of a hidden “cherished” iniquity. All I’ve been getting are little hints and whispers along the way. One instance was a man’s ringtone in a class going off that was David Crowder’s “How He Loves”. That made me smile like a giddy schoolgirl (pun intended, I suppose), but nothing else seems to be resonating. No worship song seems to be smacking me upside the head, and even the Word of God, though it has been blowing my mind, seems to leave my heart completely alone.

“God, are you there?”

I am reminded in this season of dryness that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8) A little tip from my training to sell books is the idea of the “emotional curve” that exists in life. I won’t expound too much, but the main point is that facts remain a steady straight line, and emotions ride up and down along it. Now in times of this I’ve been tempted to pull away from Jesus. I want to watch one more episode of Frasier instead of doing my Bible study. I have done that a couple times too, but then I am reminded that I KNOW the truth. I know all the facts and I know if I keep seeking Him I will find Him (Jeremiah 29:13). I trust these truths are the same in the high mountain top experiences like Moses had, as well as the low points where we wonder why we do the things we do. Like, why do we lift our hands? Why do we sing? Why did God choose us to glorify Himself? Weren't the angels enough?

I know why, and I was reminded in worship this morning. JESUS CHRIST IS WORTHY OF ALL PRAISE! I don’t care if I don’t feel like it, I don’t care if I have a bad hair day (very likely) or I’m mad because someone cut me off in traffic before getting to church. I need and will worship Him because I KNOW what He has done for me. I know and I have been seized by a great Affection! I will keep pressing. I will keep seeking God because a long time ago He showed a little girl how much He loved her, and wanted to know her personally.

Until then, I will wait.

“My lover spoke and said to me, ‘Arise my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me. See! The winter is past; and the rains are over and gone.”—Songs of Solomon 2:10-11

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