Still Waters

More than just my notes and thoughts, I think of what is on my mind today as my testimony, how God showed me He was here. This week I reached my lowest point. All I’ve been through, all I’ve lived and I don’t think my spirit had ever been this broken. I don’t think I can remember a time I’ve felt so lost, numb and more than that, faithless. I couldn’t feel His presence but I could hear the voices in my head trying to turn me away from Him. And as much as I tried to hold on to Him, to my faith, to my belief that He was there even if I couldn’t feel it, it was getting hard to stand firm. Just when I thought that was it, He reminded me that He is here in the most magnificent of ways.

There I was, another Thursday and the world crashed. I didn’t know where to turn, where to go, because the path ahead of me, that seemed was going to happen, simply didn’t. I couldn’t understand, couldn’t wrap my head around it because absolutely nothing was making sense but one thing – uncertainty. What was I supposed to do now? I could feel it inside of me, the empty space, the pain, the anger, disappointment, in a way maybe even grief for something that was never mine to begin with but felt like for sure would be. My whole spirit was crushed and overtook by a sense of numbness 1000 words could not describe. I cried, like I most often do, one of the many qualities of being a sensitive person, but this time I cried out of desperation, because I truly did not know what could possibly happen next, how the situation would get better. And still I held to my faith. Did it make me feel better? To be honest, no – I couldn’t feel anything at all and that scared me. Was I faithless? Was my faith gone? Was He gone? How was I supposed to go through this alone? That’s when the thoughts started to creep in – maybe if I was more like those who don’t believe I’d be better off. Maybe if I had been greedier and more, tried to be less like He wanted me to be, maybe I would’ve gotten what I thought I was going to get. Maybe, just maybe, He doesn’t even exist, and this is just all fantasy, something my mind makes me believe to make me feel better – after all I’ve always been a very creative person. Even so, every time one of those thoughts crossed my mind, I simply fought back with “He will not leave me”, “if this pain if the path to my true purpose, then so be it God” and my favourite “Your will be done”. Now you can imagine how, in a way, dumb and hurt it feels to say those words when you feel like the world as simply stopped and you are desperate – however abandoned I might have felt, leaving Him was not an option. So I surrounded myself with His word, worship and He sent me a Sermon from Pastor Steven Furtick.

“There was war again between the Philistines and Israel, and David went down together with his servants, and they fought against the Philistines. And David grew weary.” 2 Samuel 21:15

In the sermon he preached about 2 Samuel 21:15 and as I tried to listen and focus, which might have been the hardest task, he said something that caught my ear: “There was war again”. I started reflecting, had I ever been in this situation before? Surprisingly, yes. Maybe not the same but similar. As he pointed out, this wasn’t the first time David was fighting against the Philistines and facing a Giant, however this time, he grew weary. David was fighting a battle that he had already fought before and wonn, he knew he could do it and yet, he grew weary. I too had been in this same situation before, to be honest, the last time might’ve been worse and yet, this time, I felt destroyed and weary. Not tired, weary. It was a deeper feeling of fatigue I couldn’t even begin to comprehend. Until Pastor Steven made another good point:

“And Ishbi-benob, one of the descendants of the giants, whose spear weighed three hundred shekels of bronze, and who was armed with a new sword, thought to kill David.” 2 Samuel 21:16

Ishbi-benob, the descendant of the giants, was “less strong” than Goliath and yet, David grew weary. He, the man who defeated Goliath. Similar situation but somehow, he couldn’t defeat it the way he did last time. And that’s when Pastor Steven made a good point: “… and who was armed with a new sword”. While the giant, who was less impressive than Goliath, was using a new sword to defeat David, David was trying to fight him the same way he fought Goliath. Just because it is a similar situation, doesn’t mean you need to use the same strategy to solve the problem. And maybe you don’t need to fight it at all, for it wasn’t David who defeated Ishbi-benob but Abishai.

“But Abishai the son of Zeruiah came to his aid and attacked the Philistine and killed him. Then David’s men swore to him, “You shall no longer go out with us to battle, lest you quench the lamp of Israel.”” 2 Samuel 21:17

Although he was anointed and strong, he didn’t need to fight to win this battle, and I feel like sometimes neither do we. Sometimes we simply need to learn to let our Abishai help us. Sometimes God won’t help you fight, but He will send someone who will do it for you because if you did it, it would end you – it would quench your light. And the same way He sent Abishai to David, he sent Abishai to me. All I had to do was open my eyes and accept it – put my pride aside and accept that maybe this time, I don’t need to do it all by myself.

In that moment I started to feel like maybe He didn’t leave but was simply preparing the way for me to continue. So today I attended church and watched Pastor Steven preach. I tell you, I didn’t really want to. I could feel something trying to turn me away from church but, maybe by God’s plan, all the plans I had made fell through and I had nothing to do so I forced myself to watch it. Now, remember me saying just a couple words ago that maybe it was by God’s plan? By the end of the sermon it was clear as day that He had cancelled everything I had planned to make me listen to that specific sermon, because it took me back to the day the Lord spoke to me the loudest, the day that changed me forever – the day I gave my life to Him and started worshipping Him with all my body and soul.

It was just a few months ago that I was sitting in my living room, alone, completely paralyzed, unable to breathe because of a panic attack. My limbs went numb along with my face, my heart felt like it could jump out of my chest at any second and my lungs couldn’t process the air in the room anymore. That’s when He spoke to me and told me to watch something that would 30 minutes later change my life forever. Through the series “The Chosen” He brought me to Matthew 6:25 “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” along with a song called “Jireh”. I do recommend all to watch that series and listen to the song, but that is not why I write this. It’s how He knew exactly what I needed in that moment. How I had told my friend on the phone that I needed a hug and when I heard the words of Matthew 6:25 I physically felt like someone was hugging me. And most importantly, how today, at the sermon, after a week of doubting and uncertainty and asking God to show me scripture, to show me something I need to hear; to show me the way and me trying not to lose faith, Pastor Steven finishes his sermon with a prayer and the exact words from Matthew 6:25. I smiled because I knew it wasn’t just a coincidence. I cried because although I might not know how to move forward, I know that He will show me the way at the right time, because He has done it before. I believed because He has shown me already that He is here always, so why should I doubt now? I knew it wasn’t a coincidence that I ended up in this mess, that this mess made me turn to my Abishai, that this mess forced me to cancel all my plans and led me to watching this specific sermon. I knew, then and there, that He was telling me to let go and hold on to Him. Let go of the fear and hold on to His promise. To trust Him without knowing the details. To believe, without seeing, hearing or feeling. So to all I say, hold on to your faith even when you don’t feel it. Trust Him enough to not need to know all the details.