Grappling With Divinity

I’ve been struggling for a while now with a feeling that I can only describe as “restlessness, irritability, and discontentment.” I had been feeling great, perhaps better than I have felt in years. Then, one day, it just kind of hit me and, in spite of my efforts and prayers, I can’t seem to shake it for more than a few days before it comes back.

Being an overly analytical problem-solver, I my first assumption is that this is something I can troubleshoot, isolate, and repair. If only I can figure this out, I tell myself, then I will find my way back into grace. Thinking more and working harder, however, have only led me to feeling desperate and overwhelmed. So I began asking God to help me discern what is going on and what, if anything, I can do about it.

This prayerful request seems to have opened the divine floodgates, as I have had to take a long, hard look at my life and where I can improve for God. The closer I get to Him, the more flawed and broken I seem to become. It’s a good thing, then, that God loves the flawed and the broken.

After days and weeks of racking my brain and dropping to my knees, it feels like I haven’t gotten much closer to a solution, assuming that a solution exists. In fact, I’m more tired, more confused, and more lost than I was when this feeling first settled down upon me. All this in spite of my being faithfully prayerful, meditative, and committed to service.

The truth is that I know I cannot earn or work my way into God’s grace, but I sure am trying my best to do so. I can’t and don’t deserve His love and His mercy. All I can do is to have faith in His promise and be willing to receive it. Even that I pray.

One thing that has seemed to help, however, one thing that has kept the demons away for a while is that I have returned to my writing practice. Over the years, God has demanded certain attitudes and behaviors from me, and He has used a feeling of desolation to motivate me to get on the same page as Him with regards to whee we are going together. For whatever reason, God wants me to write.

It’s not that when I write the pain, confusion, and uncertainty magically disappear, but they do lessen. In fact, after writing my first longer post in a while last night, I felt more at peace today than I have in a while. I’m sure that, as with all things in this life, this will also change, but if writing is the obedience the Lord demands of me at this moment, then write I will.

~Robert Van Valkenburgh