For when you find yourself frustrated

Have you ever found yourself frustrated? Frustrated with your walk with Christ? That’s where I’ve found myself recently. In fact, I have been so frustrated that I was frustrated with myself for being frustrated!

It’s not an easy place to be.

In fact, it sucks.

Maybe you’re faithfully reading the Bible.

Maybe you’re faithfully doing your devotions.

Maybe you’re faithfully going to church and engaging in service.

Maybe you’re faithfully praying and crying out.

Maybe you’re faithfully singing on the Worship team and even leading worship at times but you feel NOTHING.

Friends, that is exactly where I’ve found myself for quite a while now.

In fact, I kept telling myself, “Why can’t you snap yourself out of this funk?” Like, “Girl, what is your problem?”

I mean, I figured I should be able to “self-control” myself out of my issues.

Here’s the thing: I’d been doing all. The. Things. All the things that I figured I should be doing so that God would meet me.

What’s the one thing missing in this equation?

But God.

Instead of trusting God for the truth, I’ve been doing. Doing doesn’t bring us closer to God.

Pause for a moment with me.

Let me say that again. Doing doesn’t bring us closer to God.

That’s powerful! All my doing doesn’t bring me closer to God.

All the things that the church says we should be doing, they don’t bring us closer to God.

Am I saying that we should stop doing all the good things?

No, not necessarily.

But it all starts with the heart. For many years I just couldn’t figure out why God calls King David a man after his own heart. I mean, he’s the guy that murdered man a so he could get that man’s wife!

How could he possibly be a man after God’s own heart? (Acts 13:22)

One of the biggest reasons is that it’s not about our doing! We are capable of doing big things for Jesus but with the completely wrong heart attitude. So many times we do things for God because we want to be noticed by others. We want the glory and accolades of other human beings.

But what if God asks us to do things that don’t necessarily garner any recognition or at least not of the positive kind?

About a year or so ago, God began poking at my heart to pick up garbage when I was going for a walk. I didn’t really like this idea. I don’t litter but I didn’t want to be responsible to pick up other people’s garbage! I also didn’t want to have carry litter down the street until I came upon the next garbage can. But I started to do it. One time, I was walking and I say a fairly big board on the street so I picked it up. Wouldn’t you know that I saw several people before I made it to the next garbage can and they all looked at me funny?

For me, the heart of the matter was this:

Obedience.

God is looking for hearts that will do our best to obey Daddy God every time he asks us to do something.

David did his best to obey Father God. Notice he wasn’t perfect. He didn’t get it right every time, but his heart was to obey his Father every time. I think the biggest thing that he obeyed God in was that even when he had the chance to kill King Saul, he didn’t. He wouldn’t touch the Lord’s anointed because that would have been walking in disobedience.

When we read the story, we can see the end of the story. David couldn’t. He had to walk in a tremendous amount of Faith, even when it didn’t look favorable for him. I can guarantee that running for his life was probably the last thing that David wanted to do. It would definitely have been easier to just kill King Saul so that he could have stopped running. Yes, he had the promise of when Samuel anointed him as king, but he really had no idea when that was going to happen.

1 Samuel 16:11-13 (ESV)  Then Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but behold, he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and get him, for we will not sit down till he comes here.”  And he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome. And the Lord said, “Arise, anoint him, for this is he.” Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward. And Samuel rose up and went to Ramah.

David could have made his promise come to pass quicker by killing King Saul but that would have been disobedience.

How many times haven’t we tried to make our promises come to pass in our own strength?

The longer I serve Christ, the more I recognize that much of what God does makes no sense to the human mind.

Isaiah 55:8-9 (ESV) For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

So, if he asks us to do something, or he gives us a promise, he’s expecting our obedience to that promise. Knowing what he has promised requires an intimate relationship with Christ. It’s not one we can “will” into existence. It takes being still and being willing to listen to his voice. So when you’re feeling frustrated, I encourage you to use that as a checkpoint for where your heart is at.

If you enjoyed this content, I’d love if you’d take a moment to share it with a friend or via social media.

*All Photos are my own*
Linking Up: Wise Women Linkup; Tune in Thursdays; Salt & Light Linkup

Faith Filled Fridays; Grace and Truth Linkup