Where Are You, Lord? – My Spiritual Diary

May 12, 2017 Sunny

It’s a fine day today. Outside the window, the light breeze was blowing softly. In the yard, leaves on the trees were dancing gaily in the breeze to express their happiness …

Looking at the dancing leaves, however, I was still unhappy. For a period of time, I often felt empty and fretful for unknown reasons. At home, when what my husband and son said was not to my liking, I lost my temper with them; when my husband hung about all day long, I even hated and despised him. But I thought of “Be you angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down on your wrath: Neither give place to the devil” (Ephesians 4:26-27). So I tried to be tolerant of and patient with them. However, no matter how hard I tried, I found myself always unable to conquer the sins, living in the constant state of committing them by day and confessing them by night. Sometimes, I even felt too ashamed to meet the Lord.

Worse still, recently, every time I went to church, as soon as the pastor began preaching, my eyelids started to droop and sleep stole over me. Although sometimes I had tried my best to stay awake, I still felt very drowsy. Neither did it work to call to the Lord for help. And the last few times I even became fed up with church meetings. I knew it’s not right, but I just couldn’t control this thought.

I have always thought: How come I have fallen into such a state? At the beginning when I believed in the Lord, brothers and sisters in our church were fervent; I was also full of faith, feeling strong in the spirit. Several times when I was scolded and persecuted by my husband, I felt weak in the spirit, and then the elder sister who led me to faith in the Lord came to my support. We sat under a big tree in the yard. When she talked of how the Lord Jesus was flogged, humiliated, and nailed to the cross, I was deeply moved by the Lord’s love for mankind, and felt that His love was too profound to be described in words. Over the talk, my sorrow and bitterness vanished without my knowing it. And an unfailing strength stirred in me, giving me the faith to walk a rocky road after the Lord. When my family had difficulties, I called to the Lord, and He would send others to help me; when I disobeyed or strayed from the Lord, He would deal with and discipline me through my husband or something else. Several times when I wanted to do business to earn money and didn’t want to attend church meetings, my husband quarreled with and criticized me, and things didn’t go well for me at all. At last, I couldn’t but go on to attend meetings. … At that time, I strongly felt that the Lord is like both a stern father and a loving mother, and that God is in the heaven, at my home, and even more in my heart.

However, unknowingly, I began to feel a growing sense of darkness in my heart. At its worst, I couldn’t see anything clearly, as if in a dark, endless wilderness where I felt directionless and lost. More often than not, I sank into unspeakable pain and worries. No matter how I prayed, the Lord seemed to be rather far away from me, and I couldn’t feel His presence at all. Then I thought of Psalm 63 and began to sing, “O God, you are my God; early will I seek you: my soul thirsts for you, my flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is….” And my tears gushed out. I called in my heart over and over again, “Lord, have You really deserted me? Where are You? Where …”

Jesus Christ is God Himself. The Holy Father, the Holy Son, and the Holy Spirit, They are One. We can know from the bible verses, the Lord Jesus said, “he that has seen me has seen the Father….” (John 14:9) “I am in the Father, and the Father in me….” (John 14:10) “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30).