A Season Of Dying

If you are serious about the Christian faith and have made a commitment to Jesus Christ, making Him your Lord and Saviour, you will be transformed. That is the essence of walking with God, you can't remain the same. He heals us, He teaches us, He guides us, touches our hearts and woos us, but He also, at times, wounds us and even slays us. In the true Christian walk there must be dying. Unfortunately and fortunately. Dying sucks. I have been in such a season for 2 and a half years. I currently feel as though I am in sheol. Not that my geographical location is such, but God designed it to be that way for me, because it has been ordained that this was to be my season of dying. Although I have a blessed life in anyone's eyes, it is a life designed by God to mould me. My particular personality type is extremely sensitive to having or not having certain things and God simply made sure that all my wells dried up. This sucks. Royally. I have had words with the Almighty about this, tears and even yelling. I have told Him things that require repentance later. I should have my mouth washed out with soap. He is patient and un-offended, killing me softly? Bringing me to the very end of myself. I hate it. I resent not having what my soul craves. Worst of all, I miss Him. He has also made Himself scarce, all part of the plan. At times my heart felt like Job, where satan could have his way, to a point. Job was not allowed to die. I know he wanted to, but it is not that kind of dying we need. In the season of dying we may want to escape, no, we will want to escape. That is the choice we have in that season. Will you run away? Will you escape? Will you quit? The temptation is very real. Some do. Some don't. Your mind plays with you, the devil plays with your mind. Inevitably you feel like a complete failure. In your eyes. God doesn't look with our eyes. I am beginning to believe that victory in the season of dying, is simply not running away, or quitting, but to persist, as ugly as it is, through the death. I am currently awaiting my resurrection. At least my faith hopes in a resurrection, because I feel dead, pathetic, useless. No power left in me. Except I have not run away. I have not broken into the wine cellar to taste what I know God asked me to put aside. Oh how I have fantasized about that award winning Merlot. I would sniff the cork. Something in me held me back from falling. I imagine God has set up walls of sandbags around areas of me that the devil is not allowed to cross. How comforting, how maddening. He is there, but still letting me die. The field looks very dry. I can't imagine anything could grow there. His plan is mysterious. At least, that is what I am (at this point emotionlessly) choosing to believe, by faith. A couple of days ago I was so thirsty in my barren land that I knew I had to find Him for a sip; I called on His mercy. I told Him how I was so thirsty and dead. I told Him I needed to be resurrected. I poured out my soul. He answered me. His Spirit told me something about Jesus. About how Jesus had to die to inherit a people. How Jesus did nothing wrong, yet God sent Him to the cross. How Jesus, the God-man, cried out like me, “Why have You forsaken me?” Jesus also needed to be resurrected. He told me that I, like Jesus, am purchasing something with my dying. That I am earning something, paying a price for something, something that will be mine, because He will make it so. My dying will earn me the right to something. Jesus paid the price for a people, He raided hell when He was dead. Apparently I am raiding hell of something in this season of dying. Time will tell. So, true Christianity is not about happiness, it is not a walk in the park, but a war. Not a war against people, as some have made it out to be, but a war to disarm the spiritual principalities of darkness. In order to do that, we mustn't have anything in common with darkness, or all satan has to do to get you out of the way is yank that chain. We fall, we sin, we are flesh, but through repentance, which is accessed through humility, we find grace. Grace picks us up after we stumble. In the season of dying, pride is God's target, because He knows, if we are in pride, we are in deception, and we will fall with little hope of getting back up. So here I am, in my season of death, with nothing but faith and hope and a “we'll see” attitude, awaiting His timing, His release of power, that will resurrect me into a whole new being all together (it will have to be). The old me could never have proceeded into the next season He has planned for me, I wouldn't last. He loves me too much for that.