Tag Archives: Soul

A Holy Experience

Something happened to me on Monday. It’s hard to describe. I think the best way to explain it would be to say the Holy Spirit moved in me.

During Lent this year, I’ve been working through a 40 day prayer challenge. Using Mark Batterson‘s book, Draw the Circle – The 40 Day Prayer Challenge, I have daily spent time reading a devotional and learning how to pray with intent.

Monday was day 35. At some point early Monday afternoon, I began to feel a strong urge to go pray. I’m not talking about finding a quiet place at work to pray for a few minutes. This was a full-on urge or push or whatever you want to call it, to leave work and spend significant time in prayer.

I didn’t know what to do.

How could I simply leave work? What would I say to my boss? What about my customers who were expecting to see me when they arrived later? And it wasn’t like I could simply hold out until 5pm. This “feeling” began early in the afternoon. Maybe around 1pm. On Mondays I work until 8pm.

I decided I’d at least begin with leaving for lunch. Usually I eat at my desk, but I knew this needed to be different. My intent was to grab some lunch and go sit in my truck somewhere and pray.

As I walked to my truck I realized I needed to ignore my hunger. It could wait. This needed to be a time focused on prayer.

I drove to a nearby parking lot where I wouldn’t be bothered. And I prayed. I prayed for over an hour. I prayed for the four items I’ve been circling in prayer during the 40 day challenge. I closed my eyes, opened my hands, and prayed.

I prayed for God to calm my mind.

I prayed for God to open my ears.

I prayed for God to open my heart.

I prayed for God to speak to me, and to pour His love and power into my heart so I could be more obedient to His calling in my life.

The call to pray was crystal clear. I answered the call the best I could at the time. I had to return to work. There were people relying on me.

The time I spent praying was wonderful. The experience was what I had been searching for, and at least partly the intent behind participating in the 40 Day Prayer Challenge.

There is certainly a rebirth occurring in my prayer life. I’ve learned how important it is to be intentional, committed and consistent with prayer.

Prayer can begin a rebirth in your life. It has in mine.

Through these last weeks I have grown exponentially in some areas of my prayer life, and not at all in other areas. It is a learning experience. It is a growth experience.

I’m growing closer to God. I’m learning how to listen for the still small voice of the Holy Spirit.

I’ve been planning all along to write about the experience of the 40 Day Prayer Challenge. I hadn’t been planning to do it this soon. But this was necessary. Very necessary.

In the weeks after Easter I will share more about what I learned during the 40 days. I hope you’ll come back to read more.

Have you ever felt you should drop everything and go pray? I’d love to have you share your story in the comments!

Love and Law

14 Replies

I’ve been feeding on the doctrine/theology of my beloved Calvinist tradition.
My brain is well fed.
My heart is starving.
#Next3Decades

{This is a re-post from November 11, 2013.}

I posted these words on my Facebook page Sunday morning before leaving for the morning church service. It stirred up an interesting collection of comments.

If you are wondering about the last line, #Next3Decades, I’m using this phrase for the next few months at the end of Facebook and Twitter posts. I may use it all through 2014. It is intended to remind me, and maybe you, that change is possible. A friend of mine used it when I posted something about the last 30 years of my life. It grabbed me. I need to let go of the last 3 decades. I need to look to the #Next3Decades.

And that is the reason I posted the first three lines.

I haven’t posted here in about four weeks. At first I wasn’t 100% sure why. I had plenty of material available to post and promote. It would have led to some great discussions. But, I wasn’t happy with it. (I’ll post it at a later date. I still like it. It will promote conversation.)

In my heart I knew I needed to look for something else. I needed different content for my current frame of mind.

I found it.

Now back to the first three lines of the Sunday post.

The question that continually came to mind over the last few weeks related to something that was missing.

I was missing something. Something big.

What was I missing?

Grace and forgiveness.

My head is full of wonderful doctrine and theology. I collect it. I study it. I look for it in everything I read. I listen for it in every sermon.

During a counseling session I suddenly realized it wasn’t enough.

I had the head knowledge. I knew the words describing grace and forgiveness.

I knew Jesus had died on the cross for me. I knew that God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit loved me.

I knew it in my head.

How did I miss the part about my heart?

Don’t get me wrong, please. I’m not upset or disappointed with my Calvinism. I’m not upset with my upbringing and education. I will always love and spend time with doctrine/theology. And, I have no intentions of “falling off the wagon” so to speak. But, in the last six months my eyes and heart have been opened to what I was missing.

It was being offered to me from the pulpit, in my reading, through my music, in person by great friends, etc.

My defective brain didn’t let my heart see it or feel it.

I have hundreds of pages of journal notes about grace and love over law. But recent events have “cracked my heart open”.

Now it is time for me to allow grace and love to pour into me and over me.

Please join the conversation. Return to my blog every Monday and Thursday. I’ll do my best to make it worth your time.

Have you ever been stuck on the law? Have you ever been stuck on the love?

Letting Go

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“One at a time doesn’t weigh too much. All together is a different story.”

How do you let go of something you didn’t even know you were holding? In my previous post I wrote that during a counseling session I discovered I had been carrying something for almost three decades. (You can find it here – Holding On | My Sandbox )

Here are a couple of analogies describing how heavy things can become without our noticing:
Three decades ago I weighed less than I do right now. Not a few pounds less. More than 70 lbs. Gaining 2.5 lbs a year doesn’t seem like much until you look at the total.

If I asked you to carry a backpack weighing 70 lbs, you would more than likely notice the weight. If I asked you to carry an empty backpack, but over the course of time I occasionally added a few pounds, you would not necessarily be aware of how heavy it was becoming.

Back to the counseling session.

Why am I in counseling/therapy? Why aren’t you? Sorry. That was a bit confrontational. I’m seeing a counselor because I’m depressed. I have been for years. Big, bad, clinical, Major Depressive Disorder, soul sucking, medication taking, life numbing depression.

Wow. There it is. In black and white on the screen.

Typing it is easy. Speaking it with real words coming from my mouth is a different issue.

Speaking with words about the reasons for the depression is hard. I was holding one of those reasons. (Think “death grip”.)

It was comfortable. It came to me bit by bit. It became heavy. Too heavy. 18 years ago the weight became too much. That was the first time I saw a counselor. That was the start of the medication. The medication made the weight bearable again. It became comfortable again. That is until a few weeks ago.

I returned to counseling for the first time in over a decade. Why so long? I have no idea. Life had settled into a predictable rhythm. I forgot what I was holding. I was trying to survive at home and thrive at work. I did thrive at work. For 16 years I was very good at my job. From the perspective of my co-workers, employer, friends, fellow church members and the general public, I had a good life.

My wife, my two boys, and I knew better.

On April 30, 2013 it all changed.

I lost my job.

Now what?

God knew better too. He always knows better. He had a plan. I was clueless to His plan. Working 65 hours a week will make you clueless. Not reading His Word and not spending time talking to Him will make you clueless too. God decided to wake me up. I’m sure He had been nudging me a bit. I never felt it. If I did feel it I didn’t realize what the sharp painful poke was all about. I ignored it. I ignored God.

I didn’t think I was ignoring God. I was going to church every week. I was taking notes during sermons. I was teaching 7^th graders every Sunday. I was singing praises to Him. But I didn’t get it.

I knew I was saved. I knew I was redeemed by the blood Jesus spilled for me. I understood all of it. My salvation is secure. Without a doubt.

But, I was missing something huge.

I was missing the full understanding of God’s forgiveness.

My counselor put me on the spot. I had told him there was something “back there”. I think it took me 20 minutes to speak the words. It was hard. I spoke the story. I spoke the words of where I believe my depression story began.

Here is how I was able to let go:
Counselor: “Do you truly believe God has forgiven you?”
Me: “Yes. I have no doubt.”
Counselor: “Have you been able to forgive yourself?”
Me: “No.”
Counselor: “So you’re telling me your personal standard for forgiving yourself is higher than God’s.”
Me: “Yep.”

I sat in silence as the realization and understanding came over me.

I let go.

The weight I had carried fell away.

What weight do you carry? Can you speak the words of your story?

Your ears need to hear your voice. Speak your story today.
#TRUTH #Next3Decades

(There is much more to my story. Releasing this burden does not cure my depression. The chemical imbalance in my brain has not gone away. But, a huge burden has been lifted from my heart and now I can begin moving forward.)