By: Jenifer Metzger
Remember that feeling you had when you were first saved? The newness of your relationship with Jesus? The excitement? The passion? The yearning to learn more about Him? The way you felt when you worshipped Him? The hunger for His Word?
What a magnificent feeling it was!
Then, life happens. Just as with a marriage or friendship, life gets in the way. Our schedules get busy. Our desire wanes. Our motivation falters. Crisis or grief strikes. Before we know it, our burning excitement is barely a spark. We go about our faith walk as more of a mindless routine than a relationship.
How can we get out of this spiritual rut? How can we fan the spark into a full blown flame? How can we find the desire once again?
God loves you. He desires to draw near to you and pull you out of the rut you've found yourself in. He desires to hold you close and shower you with His goodness and love. Yet, in order for Him to draw near to us, we must first draw near to Him. How can we draw near to God and away from the rut?
Open your Bible. The Bible is God's Words written for you. His Word is our love letter and instruction manual for life, it is our Daily Bread. It will bring you the comfort, joy, teaching, and correction you need to joyfully walk out of the rut. If you need to, start small. Read a verse when you wake up, then leave your Bible out and open. Let your eyes fall to it when you walk past. Read another verse before you go to bed. Meditate on those two verses. It's okay to start small as long as you open your Bible and start.
Open lines of communication. God longs to hear from you. He wants to listen to you and He wants to talk to you. Prayer is how we communicate with our loving Father, yet it is also a powerful tool for a Christian. God created you to worship Him and He wants to help you with your struggles. Talk to God, tell Him how you're feeling. Prayer doesn't have to be fancy or complicated. Just talk and listen to God.
Purify your heart. James tells us cleanse our hands and purify our hearts. Simply put: repent. Sin puts a divider up between us and God. When we repent of our sin, the divider falls. We need to repent of our sins, but we also need to ask God to reveal any unrepentant sin in our life.
When we read the Word, pray, and purify our hearts, we are drawing near to God. As we continue to daily draw near to God and allow Him to draw near to us, we will soon find ourselves out of a spiritual rut and fanning the flames of once again.
Have you been in a spiritual rut lately? I would love to pray for you.
So beautifully spoken. Thank you for this blessed message. Blessings.
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