The following is adapted from a fellow minister:

You and I have probably been through a similar season at one time or another:

There are days or weeks when I read the Bible and there are no grand epiphanies.

There are whole seasons of Sundays when I sing praise and feel very little.

There are times of prayer where the silence kills me.

There are great Christian books and podcasts that I eat up which don’t budge my spiritual life.

There are even sometimes even when I doubt that God is even paying attention to what is happening.

It can all feel like a crazy alternate reality.

It’s in those times that I ask myself, “Am I out of love with God somehow? Am I losing my faith here? How do I get back to where I used to be?”

But I keep reading my Bible. I keep singing on Sundays. I keep praying. I soak in books and sermons. I serve. I enjoy the company of mature Christians. I enjoy the fellowship of the broken.

And you know, sometimes the clouds part and God comes through and His love squeezes my heart and I fall to my knees remembering how good He is.

Then I read Scripture and can’t stop weeping and I turn on Christian songs in my car full blast and sing loud enough to scare the traffic. I serve with shaking hands and get convicted by those sermons and soak in God’s goodness all over again.

So I’ve learned over time: I wasn’t really out of love with God. I’m just a fragile human being who changes as much as the weather. I was setting a ridiculous standard for myself that can’t be defined by self-pressuring parameters. I was tricked by the enemy into judging my flesh. How I feel is important, but it’s not the whole basis of my faith. It’s wholly, solely, defiantly by His grace—and in that, I think I can relax.

“Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.”  1Peter 4:19

Don’t give in or give up, Pastor Larry