When The Fire Burns Low

"But the Lord sustains the righteous."  Psalm 37:17 

"In Your righteousness deliver me; incline Your ear to me and save me. Be to me a rock of habitation to which I may continually come; You have given commandment to save me, for You are my rock and my fortress."  Psalm 71:2-3

     Oh Lord, thank You for Your word with which you have sustained me. Sometimes I need to be rescued from others, from the enemy trying to destroy me. And sometime...sometimes I need to be literally rescued by You from my own ungratefulness. 

   I often wondered why many of Your peoples' fires go out. They receive You into their hearts for the first time with all joy and awe and it's amazing the love and happiness and pure glee that spills forth from them. Then somewhere, somehow that fire begins to burn down and...just...slowly...dies. 

     That's how I was feeling today.That is, until You graciously and faithfully reminded me. You took me to these Psalms and showed me what to pray. Because, oh, when my own prayers become tired and feel sluggish and weighed down with "is this good enough, God?" I know that I need to keep praying like I need the air in my lungs You graciously give. But sometimes...I don't know...my heart just can't seem to find it's footing on the mountain of Your praise. But lo, our faithlessness does never nullify Your faithfulness and love. (Romans 3:3)

     I believe we get knocked off the course of our path so easily because we so desperately want that "on fire" feeling to last forever. We want to constantly be walking on Your high mountains and looking out over Your indescribable canyons of never-ending glory. And there is nothing wrong with that. I believe Your never-ending-love-beating heart rejoices that we, Your scurrying and chaotic children, have a place deep inside that just can't get enough of Your holy presence. A place surely created and placed tenderly by Your very own hand.

     But life always creeps in. The dishes must be done. The floor must be swept (again). And the laundry..."wasn't that basket just empty 5 minutes ago and now its gone and bred even more clothes??" And we can't avoid our lives. We can't simply toss everything into the air and change it all up just because we are changed. We must now begin to learn how to live, completely and wholly new, among that which is still the same. Still the same. To the point of being mundane. 

     But You, oh Lord, are never mundane. Your Spirit which You give to us is anything but ordinary. Splendor, majesty, strength, beauty...these are qualities of the Most High! (Psalm 96:6) Your Spirit, which You give to us (to me??) is power and life. (John 14:26, Romans 5:5) Isn't that what we all want, Lord?? To feel wholly and eternally alive??

    So Lord, let me remember that, when I feel the mundaneness of my perpetually still-same schedule creeping in, that You are a rock of habitation to which I may continually come. Let me not put my hope in my feelings and emotions (may it never be!) but only in You and Your beautiful promises Lord. Teach me how to live and walk changed among that which is still the same so that the "same" might also put their hopes in You and become changed too. Holy Spirit, teach me to be faithful to You even, especially, when the flames inside me are burning low, for You are my Source now and always. Amen.