Seasons of Rain

7/15/2016

Step #1: Lectio / Read

Isaiah 38:10, 11, 12ABCD, 16

R. You saved my life, O Lord; I shall not die.
Once I said,
“In the noontime of life I must depart!
To the gates of the nether world I shall be consigned
for the rest of my years.”

R. You saved my life, O Lord; I shall not die.

I said, “I shall see the LORD no more
in the land of the living.
No longer shall I behold my fellow men
among those who dwell in the world.”

R. You saved my life, O Lord; I shall not die.

My dwelling, like a shepherd’s tent,
is struck down and borne away from me;
You have folded up my life, like a weaver
who severs the last thread.

R. You saved my life, O Lord; I shall not die.

Those live whom the LORD protects;
yours is the life of my spirit.
You have given me health and life.

R. You saved my life, O Lord; I shall not die.

Step #2: Meditatio / Meditate

Do you feel God close to you right now?

As you've stayed faithful and persevered in this commitment to encountering the Lord daily in prayer, you have probably noticed that sometimes when you go to pray, your heart and mind are filled with beautiful reflections and peace and your soul just widens to love God. You leave prayer refreshed and joyful and courageous, ready to become a saint.

Other times, you go to prayer and God is curiously absent. You struggle to even sit still for 15 minutes and for the most part, your soul is filled with doubts and sadness. You feel distant, far away from God. Is He even real? Does He even love me? If He does, why does He leave me feeling like this?

Maybe the second experience is really common for you right now. Maybe you're in what one of my favorite musicians Josh Garrels calls a Season of Rain. The experience of feeling alone, lost, and confused, far away from God is what the spiritual writers call "Desolation." It can come for one of 3 reasons:
1) Sin: have I committed mortal sin recently?
2) Negligence: Have I not been consistent in prayer?
3) Challenge: God as a loving Father is calling me out into the desert in order to help me grow.

I want to focus on the third type of desolation. Sometimes, God allows us to experience dryness so that our thirst for Him becomes more apparent. In these times, we can come to realize how much we need him. Penny and Sparrow, another famous musician, put these words in the mouth of God in one of their songs:

"If I get you alone / I promise you I'll turn the light on / And if you feel the dark / Come close to me, your heart's adjusting."

Often, our experience of abandonment is actually doing more good for us spiritually than our experience of fullness, but only if we allow ourselves to actually use it and don't let it become an occasion to doubt God's goodness. Even in the midst of desolation, you're still with God; you just can't feel Him. In desolation, we realize the only thing we really need is God, and that's exactly where He wants us. He has to get us alone, away from all of the things that we normally lean on. In Hosea, God says about you, the love of His life, "I will call her into the desert, and there I will speak to her heart."

The problem is that we, just like the Israelites after leaving Egypt, so often use desolation as an occasion to turn back toward our idols. We lose trust in God and, thinking He has abandoned us just because we haven't had warm fuzzies in the last, like, 10 minutes, turn back toward our comfortable patterns of sin.

Recently, I got stitches. Before stitching me up, they numbed my finger and it hurt like crazy. While my finger was numb, the doctor got to work closing up my cut with four stitches, but I didn't feel a thing. This is what God is often doing with desolation: we don't feel anything happening, but, really, the Divine Physician is binding up the wounds in our heart. Just because we don't feel it happening doesn't mean that it's not effective!

Step #3: Oratio / Pray

Am I in a period of desolation or consolation in my life? Do I use my times of feeling distant from God to turn back toward sin?

Lord, how can I trust you more in my dryness? Show me through the power of your Holy Spirit, how you are using my time of struggle and suffering to open my heart more to you.

Step #4: Contemplatio / Contemplate

Jesus, I trust in you.

For the Rest Of Your Day...

I will not be intimidated by my suffering. I will use my struggles in this world to let God be glorified in my life and in the lives of others. Amen.

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Today's prayer was prepared by Tim Glemkowski, a Youth Minister,
Young Adult Minister, and Catholic Speaker originally from Batavia, IL.

CARPE VERBUM