What happens when we do NOT feel God’s presence?

Written By @3130beloved
jessicachow3130beloved

Many of us LOVE that God can play on our senses, but what happens when we don’t feel God’s presence?
When that fire 🔥 we once felt deep down within our souls is gone?
When all the feelings that surrounded the Jesus we know to ‘experience’, is missing?
What does it mean when you do all the same routines to get close with the Lord, even switch things up but still don’t hear his direction anymore?
When reading scripture draws up more questions rather than giving answers?
Is it bad when prayer 🙏🏼 + worship 🙌🏼 + meditation 💆🏻 DON’T uplift us for a season?!
For weeks, my mentor kept repeating to me, “Jesus loves you with an everlasting love”.
I thought, “That’s sweet, but I don’t feel that right now.”
Coming out of my 10-wk Abortion healing program, this season DRAINED me.
It took a long while for me to surrender being empty.
When I did surrender the need to “have it all together”, I realized it is o.k. to NOT be o.k.
It’s o.k. to not have the best “performance” of the day.
It’s o.k. to unplug for DAYS to escape in solitude for communion + prayer with my Jesus✨.
It is [[ MORE ]] than o.k., actually FREEING, to sit in my own weakness with zero capacity to care well for anyone, yet still see the Lord somehow work through me for our good, but ultimately for His name’s sake✨
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Pastor Dave Lomas @realitysf spoke on how there’s ‘seasons of Consolation and Desolation’ in Christ.
That God wants us to have intimacy & relationship with him IN SPITE OF OUR SENSES + EMOTIONS + SHORT-LIVED FEELINGS.
He is always leading us deeper and it does NOT depend on our rational thinking + intellectual understanding + OR gut feelings.
God chooses when these “dry seasons” will be and He also directs us into these other seasons that go beyond the cognitive senses, rational mind & emotions.
There is a greater challenge that awaits us on the other side of it all so TAKE HEART.
Do not grow weary.
Even if we don’t feel him, he is drawing near + LOVING US WITH AN EVERLASTING LOVE 💙 + giving us the opportunity for growth by clinging to him in spite of our senses. 🙆🏻
It will be for ‘such a time as this’.
“Though he slay me, yet I will hope in him.”
Job 13:15
AMEN?!

@3130beloved

I’ve always hated these, “Bio” or “About me” sections— so awkward.

But… after living 25 years lost in my agnostic world chasing my own fame, glory, comfort and will I was brought to my end. After the death of my mom, ending the most manipulative & emotionally abusive relationship, a lifestyle of drug addiction, 2 abortions, and finding myself empty while standing in the middle of what the world says is “bliss”… I reached the end of myself and the beginning of seeing Jesus’ light beaming down on me.

I met His Holy Spirit for the first time at a Halloween rave called, “Day of the Dead.” To this day, I still think this is one of the darkest places to be on our planet. I raved and popped pills to numb my pain, to avoid my fears and to suppress my sadness. I was in the middle of bobbing my head and raising my arms to the electro house music blasting in my ears when images of skeletons came on the TV monitors and the weak spirit within me has a knee-jerk reaction to put my arms down. “Whoa! I don’t worship that!”, I thought. “Wait, what do I know about worship?” Now looking back, there God was! The beginning of my site for Him.

A year later, I followed my brother (his good looking friend) to church (@realityLA). I don’t remember the sermon but I heard God for the first time when worship began singing, “Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders. Let me walk upon the waters wherever you would call me.”

I LOST my mind.

It was an overwhelming & LAVISHINGGG upon me of, "Hi precious girl. I see you. I know you. I’ve been here. I know your pain. I know your loss. I know you are lost. I know you’re angry, specifically with me because you lost your mom and you think your life is unredeemable but my beloved, I’ve been coming after you because you are mine.” I cried the hardest I’d ever cried in my life because my entire being just knew… This. Is. God. This. Is. The. Master. Of. The. Universe— and He wants me? Broken, selfish, ugly me?

I soon followed this good looking friend of my brothers to a community group. There is where I met the love of God through His people as they accepted me, fed me, welcomed me, and took me in as family despite my lifestyle that rebelled against everything they believed. One year later, I said, “Fine. I’ll follow until you fail just like everything else has.” Well… He hasn’t failed nor broken any promise yet. ;) My choice to accept Jesus as my Lord, savior and new identity has brought me more freedom than I could have ever fathomed. I didn’t know what I was living for or aiming at but God truly lit up every shadow, broke down every wall, shattered every lie and came after me.

Salvation belongs to the Lord.

As the world kicks and screams trying to shout their way to justice, peace and unity on their own terms right now, may the roots of our identity in Christ grow deeper each day together as one body; as one family.

“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.

The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.”

https://3130beloved.com
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