Dancing in the Distance

Why do I feel so distant from the Lord today? I've felt this way over multiple days, and its frustrating. For a while, I felt so close to him, His presence was obvious. And now, I feel like I'm in a desert again. These desert times seem to come without warning and I am left to wander around until I find His presence again. Yet, I know the Lord is near to all who call on him. I'm calling. Why the block?

• Am I calling with wrong motive?
• Am I forgetting some sin that I have not yet repented for? (Do I even believe that I have to repent for every sin before God will answer?)
• Am I simply unable to turn off the "coffee brain"? (This is how I now unaffectionately refer to what feels like a separate brain I have that is just allocated for work. for the visual at heart, I've found a little doll who can sympathize with me)

• 

• Should I develop some different method of reading the word?
  
• Should I relocate to somewhere out side my home so my brain engages that we are now "doing something." Get on the ball brain! We are workin' here!
• Do I need a business coach to help me organize all the responsibilities I now carry.
• How about a lobotomy?

Last week was a week full of challenges for me, emotional, spiritual, marital - scanning all realms of my life from home, to work, to friends. I fought my demons as best I could. Though some may say I could have done things differently or better, it was my best effort through the exhaustion I feel. Perhaps I am wrestling with some guilt over not being able to "fight better."

I have been "fighting the enemy" for some time now. Learning the correct manner, mantra, and mode of how to fight a faceless enemy and emerge victorious. Last week, I did not follow my tutelage. In my temptation I did not sin, but I suppose somewhere in my legalism I am bound up in believing I did not succeed either simply because "I did not do it right." But in the midst of "my not doing it right" come heaps of condemnation, guilt, fear, and shame. And I recognize this as not being the Lord, but aren't our feelings deceptive?!

I choose this morning to lean on the words of Paul Tillich (The Shaking of the Foundations): "You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything, do not perform anything, do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted. If that happens to us, we experience grace."

I look on the horizon of these strange days and I see dancing. Dancing that will come. I feel it rising in my spirit. The dancing one I see will be me, dancing in a freedom that calls for nothing less than feet that can't help but bounce in the spirit of embracing a relentless love. I'm not there yet, but it is indeed on the horizon, and I am running for it.