Dull

Starting this blog has made me feel at times like Peter at the Transfiguration. Peter, not knowing what to say, said...

Not much writing lately because I haven't felt like it and I haven't really known what to say. I have not been feeling terribly eloquent - or clever - or creative. I am actually feeling quite dull of brain and spirit.

But, I know that God is still at work in and around me. Sometimes it just doesn't look like it... or feel like it. It comes as no shock to anyone who might be reading this blog to know that even pastors go through times of dryness and distance - when the glory of the "mission" seems squashed by daily, mundane maintenance - when the pleasures of sweet communion seem much more real in theory than experience.

Today, my mind is drawn back to a dog-eared prayer in one of my favorite books by A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God. Here it is (changing "thee" and "thy" to "you" and "your").

"Oh God, I have tasted your goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace. I am ashamed at my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want you; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me your glory, I pray, so that I may know you indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, "Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away." Then give me the grace to rise and follow you up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long."

Isn't that good? This prayer is dog-eared is because I have visited it before. On many occasions - spanning years and years - I have felt the same longing, the same frustration. Is that a shameful thing - that I feel just as needy now as I did then? I hope not, because it seems to be the story of my journey. God seems to teach me dependence, not through success and mission advancement, but through times of dryness, inadequacy and a profound discontent with who I really am.

I am in one of those times.


By the way - the Honduran team had a great trip. They gave away tons of food packs; they equipped a hospital and a clinic with much needed medicine and equipment; they fitted and gave away all-terrain wheelchairs to very eager recipients. Good job. No coffee - but I guess I'll let that slide.