faith unfaded

The one thing about going into the cleft of the rock in times of struggle is that you are able to see things more clearly. The Lord’s protection envelopes you like a weighted blanket and the subsequent calming of your spirit allows you to stop operating in the flesh.

But 20/20 vision doesn’t always come with a game plan. Quite often the Lord expects you to proceed while He stays strangely silent.

I don’t know about you but I’d be okay with Him standing beside like a drill sergeant barking my next move into a bullhorn. At least I’d know the right thing to do.

That’s the thing about God’s permissive will though. He lets us decide. Sometimes there’s a clear right and wrong way. Sometimes there’s more than one way to skin a cat, so to speak.

I find myself standing in the gap quite often, particularly in the area of mental health, including cognitive disorders. I do believe in doctors and medication and therapy. But I also believe it’s a spiritual battle requiring fierce prayer warriors willing to do battle for those they love.

It often leaves prayer warriors caught in the crossfire.

Once, in an ER in Pascagoula, I was visiting a church member when a young man I’d never met before came running through the waiting room yelling “I’m Hitler! I’m Hitler!” After the got him subdued and back in an exam room, his grandmother came into the waiting room and started crying. As I was comforting her, she told me she’d been praying but didn’t know what else to do.

“Do you want me to go in and pray with him?” I’d asked.

“Yes, please,” she’d replied.

I went in the room, began praying, and the young man’s head snapped up.

“You think your daughter dying was hard? Watch this!” He then dropped to the floor and began slivering and hissing like a snake.

I refused to move, though I had been thrown by the reference to my daughter. This demon knew me.

I didn’t know whether to be freaked out or flattered.

But there’s a lot of hurt that comes with it, multiple attacks. It’s hard to remember that we wrestle not against flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12) when mean words are levied against you.

I began to worry today that I was in denial about being angry with God in the midst of these attacks. There’s no way I’m mad at Him, I thought. But little things showed otherwise. I’ve been less consistent with daily Bible reading. I’ve been getting angry more and more at random things. My heart was keeping score in the flesh while my mouth was counting it all joy in the Spirit.

I’m trying everything I know to come against wickedness in this world. I’m fighting spiritual warfare, believing in the power of the Holy Spirit to heal, restore, and push away darkness. Quite frankly, I want Him to do for others what He did for me: give them a restored heart and mind. I KNOW He can do it. I don’t know why He doesn’t sometimes.

Even while writing just now He has revealed to me that I am the young child trying to be so good that her parents won’t divorce. But me just being good enough can’t wipe away all physical and mental illness. I guess I’d subconsciously hoped it would.

I read some passages this morning about people who were angry with God. I wanted to understand and see how they found resolution. David in Psalm 22. Habakkuk 1.

The next passage I read was Numbers 11. In Numbers 11:14, Moses cries out “I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me.”

This is the crux of my dilemma. I am trying to bear the burdens of the lost, the hurting, the infirmed. I stand in the gap for those who’ve made it clear they want nothing to do with me. I hold out hope for their healing as they push me away. Am I trying to bear the burdens for those I should’ve walked away from?

Or did God place these burden on my heart because He knew when everyone else walked away that I would remain standing in the gap, because like Him, I have a heart for all?

And I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none. Ezekiel 22:30

Will I be that man?!

This is the question I’ll be seeking the answers to this week in my time alone with the Lord. When to walk away and when to stay, even if it is silently in the shadows. When standing in the gap is right and when you need to move along, realizing you’ve planted your feet on the frontlines of a battle you never should’ve been in.

I know me though. I don’t give up on people that easily. My heart cries to wait it out and endure the pain even as I write. But if I do that, I must do so without becoming angry at the Lord when I lose a battle.

After all, these earthly battles are inconsequential. God has already won the war.