God's Rest

God is so faithful. Tonight I finally had the freedom in my schedule to just sit down and dig into the Word, rather than the skim reading I've been doing. So I've been reading Hebrews and the writer keeps talking in chapter 4 about entering into God's "rest". I looked at cross-references and dug in and came to find that entering God's rest is entering God's presence. So I decided to get my guitar out and sing. I sang a couple songs, read some psalms, and then I was just HIT by the presence of God. It was amazing and completely real. The only thing I could utter was, "I am not worthy, but worthy is the Lamb." That's all I could think to say. And God was THERE. I haven't felt his presence like that in so long. It brought me to tears and I just sang my heart out to God.

I want life to be like that always. I want to feel His presence with me everywhere I go. There is a danger of worshiping that "feeling" more than worshiping the Lord, but we can't cut the feelings out of worship!!! Worship uses our emotions! As John Piper's ministry says, and is founded on, "God is more glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him." In other words, the MOST WORSHIPFUL way of glorifying God is by enjoying Him and being in His presence.

Now, here's a question: Is it possible to feel God's presence all the time, or maybe more often than not? This is something I have questions about. In Scripture, the authors constantly get to the point that God is our strength in trials and persecution and suffering. Paul says in 2 Corinthians that we are sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, being poor but making many rich, having nothing yet possessing everything. So there's this sense that, in accordance with the world, we are sorrowful, poor, and have nothing. But with God, we have joy, riches, and everything we need.

Maybe this question is better- "Is it okay to be on a spiritual plateau?" Can we just accept that, yes, there will be times in our lives that we read scripture, pray, and just don't feel the presence of God? This past week was like that. I would be cautious to say that 'that's okay'. I don't think that it's okay to NOT feel the presence of God! There's something terribly wrong with that! We need God's presence more than anything else on this earth. So what do we do? We pray and dig in- as much as we can! We don't relent. And God is faithful. He will meet us if we come.

Now, are there purposes for spiritual plateaus in our lives? Of course. God may be teaching us things in these times, though we may not see it. God may be showing us that we need to trust in Him and not our own "works", such as Bible reading and journaling and prayer, to get by. Maybe we need to switch things up...jump to a new part of scripture, go on a walk in the woods, get off of facebook!

God is faithful and will meet us. But we must persevere and continue seeking Him. I'm so thankful for tonight and the fact that I can enter into His "rest".