God has been teaching me all kinds of lessons this year. Probably the most salient and important lesson is that God is moving in my life most especially when I don’t or can’t see it.
Especially in the backdrop of significant societal uncertainties, at such a pandemic time as this, anxiety needs to be thwarted.
If you learn anything from reading this, hold yourself open to this possibility in your own life.
Let me commence with a story.
It was August 31, 2004. I sat upon a spiritual and a situational precipice. My recovery was just short of 12-months in the making, and I’d been embraced by the leadership in the church—drawn into leadership to be around wise people who could guide me, especially in those tenuous moments, and there are plenty of those in recovery.
These moments where anxiety, doubting, spiritual attack become big in one’s story.
One of the golden threads through this article is the importance of communities of grace in not only our recovery but also in our routine going out and coming home.
The fact is, we’ll get it wrong, and rather than be judged by our families and communities, we all need grace, and just as much, we all need to extend grace.
We all need to experience being forgiven, and just as much we all need to experience what God does within us when we extend that forgiveness.
Back to the story:
I was having one of those deep moments of torment, of doubt, of self-sabotage. As I approached the precipice, I reached out via ‘a letter’ that I sent to a mentor—Rod, a deacon/elder at the church who was deeply involved in my journey. I couldn’t sleep, so I recall going into work, writing the letter, and emailing it from there. The letter involved some risks, in the things I was stating, my desires and intentions. The correspondence was loaded.
Having sent the letter off, I was still in a battle with myself, partly at peace for having communicated what I felt I needed to say, but also partly anxious for how it would be received.
At this point, reflect. Think about a time when you’ve sent something that was loaded. Perhaps it tested the relationship. Maybe it came to define the relationship.
It was 24-hours later that I received a response to my letter via email. Not only was the reply from Rod full of grace, but it was also full of prophetic wisdom. Not only had Rod been wise enough to choose to encourage me rather than chastise me—which would have revealed fear from him to control me—he also used the opportunity to call my vision beyond the present. It actually proved pivotal in my being called a month later by God to become a pastor.
But it was during a follow-up phone call that Rod said such important words that have stuck with me ever since. When I told him I was fearful of backsliding, he immediately came back with,
“There’s no way that you, having seen what you’ve seen, and having experienced what you’ve experienced, would go back to the old way of life, so don’t worry about that.”
In other words, “You will not turn back.”
It was important to hear, because it was true.
It was exactly what I needed to hear. It’s also been something I’ve needed to remind myself of from time to time when I’ve lost my connection with God, poignantly under spiritual attack.
There are so many times in 2021 when I’ve drawn on this truth, especially when I’ve been pressed into a fresh season of conquest and challenge. Through providence of God’s grace, the reminder of God’s mercy, I was enabled to overcome a certain hardness of heart, but due another set of challenging circumstances, I found my heart growing dark and discouraged.
The majority of 2021, and certainly the second half, has been punctuated by frustration and exhaustion. In this season, there’s almost been a weekly cycle of being under the blowtorch of spiritual warfare.
At times of deep spiritual attack, what’s needed most of all are reminders of hope, and particularly for Christians, that God is still moving. During this pressing time, there have been more reminders than usual that God is moving:
§ regular messages from a fellow pastor friend, poignantly on days when I needed them most
§ more than one situation where people I didn’t really know came and told me, “God wanted me to say to you, ‘He’s still moving and working... don’t lose hope’”
§ times when I’ve had regular visions of what would happen, yet only saw the fullness of the vision consciously at a time when God wanted to show me, i.e., when I needed to see it completely
§ special ministry opportunities (funerals, counselling, speaking, etc) have come up
§ one of the key challenges has been indecision (one of the two AA “pests,” the other is hurry), and so many times God has broken through to clear and clarify the way
§ being able to see that despite the regular weekly spiritual attack from exhaustion, the following day would inevitably bring recovery—genuine resurrection experiences
§ Most poignantly, it’s been the communities of grace that have ‘held and contained’ me very much this year—to succeed, everyone needs such grace, which is like a safety net
What I’ve learned that I also want to show you is, when you most think you’re about to give up because you’re assailed by the enemy, you will not turn back. You won’t. You know what you need to do. You know that God is your hope, and so no matter what, you cling to that hope.
When God seems least to be moving, paradoxically God’s moving more than you think. Our role is to wait well, to be patient with ourselves, our circumstances, and others, resolving to be gentle with ourselves and others.
Rising out of the depths, eventually, is the overcoming life!
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