Good Morning! Woke up at 430am today after an extreme pain day… It always causes an insomnia and an overwhelming emotional drought.
However, I know when God wakes me up in the wee hours of the morning, when everything is quiet and holding onto hope for a new day, He has something to say.
I read a letter to the Saints written by my Father, Steven Scheffler … In all that I gathered, one tiny little sentence brought me to my knees and caused an outpouring of emotion on my part. When I gathered myself emotionally and chewed on the substance of the club that just hit me on the head; I realized I had stopped looking forward to anything!
In recent months, I have been living day by day and moment by moment. I have not looked to the past as it has been incredibly painful and looking to the future has seemed violently uncertain. I have tossed dreams, aspirations and goals down the drain because it has seemed that in my most recent years, nothing of what I have intended to do has come to pass. But one thing has remained clear, God is with me.
Through our maturity in Christ, one thing becomes a mainstay… It’s not about us. None of this is about us! It has always been and will always be about Christ and God’s ultimate Love for us as His people. Grasping that idea in a shadow of death isn’t always easy to implement in our daily living. So we find ourselves living in a drought of mindless actions, following only what we know, only to lose passion and zeal for what is to come. Some call it depression, others blindness, but I call it a loss of Hope.
It’s not that I have lost Hope in my Spirit because I know that Eternity is coming to me and that speaks volumes of Joy into me everyday. But I have lost a sense of Hope for this existence here on Earth. I have been growing, learning, maturing in Christ for so long now that I have lost all sense of this reality and for that I am sorrowful.
My days are spent laboring or sleeping. I don’t have time to stop and smell roses and for that matter, I haven’t seen roses in a very long time. I do not find Joy here on earth in anyway shape or form! I have forgotten the smell of the sea, the rustle of the trees on a cool summer evening breeze, I have forgotten the happiness in a cup of tea, or the smile a child brings.
I have been going thru the motions. Fighting to take on the next battle. Marching on in the depths of the trenches. Seeking to find Spirit. Holding onto Truth. And all that I find speaks to my next life in Spirit and not to the one I am existing in now. I am battle-worn. My boots have holes in them. My body aches and moans for rest. The years of becoming a Saint in the Lord is taking its toll on all the facits that I call my personality and I have rooted to a simple existence of being alive. Serving the tasks at hand and idly watching time pass. It is a grave place to be emptied of the man. This is why it is called Death.
But something leapt off the screen to me as I read this piece today. “What God destroys, He restores!”
Tears and sufferings exploded from my soul as the words resounded between my ears! I bellowed out a sobbing that was lingering beneath my surface for so long. I couldn’t speak or move, just weep. The innermost being of me cried out for that word, restoration. Water, Living Water and Daily Bread! I realized how utterly spent I was.
Gathering myself into a composed unit once again, I decided that I had let out something innate, something natural and something real. In the quiet yearnings of rest, I found I was still seeking the first thing I sought when God called me by name. Restoration.
So, what has these past few years of horrendous struggle brought to me then if it all is anguish and death? Life. But Life in God rather than Life in myself. The tearing of TOKOGAE from Flesh is not an easy one to bear. But it is in that tearing that we find Spirit and Truth!
I don’t know what God has in store for me and I’ve honestly given up the idea that I will ever know in this life. And though I had dreams and aspirations, I have given them up to in order to leave room for what’s to come in Christ. But here we see Paul encourage the Saints in a unique way even admitting to the very thing I am speaking of!
Philippians 3:13-14
13. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
So, now I pray for God to show me where that Hope lies here on Earth in this existence. What is it here that I can look forward to? What is it that causes us to strive another day? I have been living on the Hope of Eternity, but that comes with a wish for physical death which is not what most humans desire to be a daily goal. So, what is it that causes us to breathe one more day in this place? What keeps our minds focused on the prize without causing us to hope for death? What is it?
I obviously have so much more to learn about my Heavenly Father and His ways. I pray that I do find something more than what I have as it is a mere existence instead of living. In Salvation we find our Hope. But God must destroy us in order to rebuild us in Him rather than ourselves. However, I ponder how much more destruction I can take before even a rest near the streams of Living Water will come. When My Rod will comfort me. When I will eat amongst my enemies with the great Joy of the Lord.
For now, I will admit, I am tired. Exasperated moreso. But I will keep going thru the motions. I will take another step, because in all of this, I have learned one thing, with time comes change and although there has been very little change that has brought restoration to my weary soul, it has brought change to my Spirit. I am not who I was when I joined the Army of God and I suppose I am not even now who I will be. But in all the passing, there will be restored Hope one day. For now, it is one boot in front of the other… But how I long for sandals.
My Hope is in the Lord. I will be restored. The Battle has been won, only by the Son. He has gathered up the souls, weary and burdened and Tied up their feet with golden sandals. The war has just begun. And where we stand is not our battle, but in Heavenly Wars we grind thru the matters. Between Heaven and Hell we shout out our Praises. God is with us, and this Battle is done!
KEPT COVENANT 