Struggling

I'm feeling distant from God.

This has been a development over the last few months, perhaps even as much as the last year - which is about the time that I moved. I'm not sure what is driving it, except that I feel unenthused and unenthusiastic.

My prayer life seems - let's be honest, is - much less than it used to be and when I do pray, it feels...forced. Dead. My prayers are pedestrian, and even making those seems like a huge burden.

My time in the Word is in some ways better - I seem to be paying more attention - but even in that I am missing a sense of the communion with God through His Word.

Some Sundays it's been a huge effort to get out the door to church, which is something that is inconceivable to me a year ago. It's not that church is bad - I just get lazy and feel like it's too much effort, although it's no more distant than Old Home church was.

What is wrong with me? And more importantly, what do I do about it?

As Chuck Swindoll would say, it's as if your driving a car and see the "Check Engine" light go on. You don't take a hammer to the light and keep driving - you pull over and see what's wrong.

I can start with the easy things of course: What sin is in my life? What have I not given over to God? How am I acting at counterpurposes with His will?

But a sense of something else permeates my soul, nags at my mind like a dog worrying a toy.

About a week ago I had a dream which is probably significant. In it, I was kneeling before Christ. I've no idea the why-to's or what-for's, but there I was with Him. His question for me was "Have you served me?" "No Lord, I have not" came my response. He nodded, we both acknowledged the truth of the situation - and then like that, I was banished from His presence.

The odd thing is that I feel no less outside of His will than before - after all, the fact that we ended up in New Home at all is a sign that He acted, as this was the only opportunity that came in. The ease of finding a new home, of a new school, a new church - all these speak to me of God sovereignly acting in my life to bring us here.

But now, nothing.

"Create in me a clean heart,
And renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from Your presence
And take not Your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of Your Salvation,
And renew a right spirit within me."

- Psalm 51: 10-12