I spoke about the last 8 months of spiritual decline in my last post and have continued to think about it as I am not totally out of the woods yet. What I didn't mention in that post was that prior to our escape to the Black Sea, I was gripped with a terrible desire to escape it all for a weekend away... alone. I started to plan a trip, a spiritual retreat in solitude while G watched the girls and then G would get his turn.
It was my wise friend that I mentioned in my last post who dissuaded me against it. Her reasoning: when you and G married, you became one flesh. You are suffering together in one flesh; therefore, you need to retreat and pray together as one flesh. Go together. She was right. We took her advice for G and I to retreat together for a day. It was seriously the best thing for G and I do it together. It made all the difference in the world and solidified our marriage even more.
With comments from different people here and there, I recently came to the realization that I was simply stressed and that the desire to escape was a symptom of chronic stress for the last 8 months. I began to piece together what started it and why it has continued. It was the cause of the spiritual malaise I suffered. I had blamed myself for the spiritual dryness, searching for sin, trying to repent, struggling against pessimism and complaining. It was stress that had driven me into the spiritual dryness, I am ashamed to admit. Maybe it doesn't happen to other people but it has happened and continue to happen to me.
The stress was caused by the language study workload combined with the end of our term looming nearer and nearer. We cannot go home until we have completed our language requirements. I won't go into detail about it all because I would essentially be complaining. Workload + deadline = stress. That's simple enough. Compound that with the relentless day in and day out of parenting, chores, and living in a foreign culture...and the lack of a real church fellowship.
There's a light at the end of the tunnel because we're nearly finished. I hope to finish by the end of May, by God's mercy and grace. Maybe then, I will pull out of the spiritual dryness. I look forward to going stateside, to be with friends and people who speak truth and shine with Jesus' light, to worship with a church.
God is faithful, though, in the meantime. I feel like my faith has withered down to a spark and that my view of him have grown dim and cloudy. I asked for a better vision of him and recently through a conversation with someone about spiritual warfare, chapter 10 of the book of Daniel popped into my head (by the Holy Spirit, no doubt) about the angel who was detained by spiritual warfare for three weeks before coming to Daniel. I looked it up and was struck by what I read. What I forgot about Daniel 10 was that he had a terrifying vision of the pre-incarnate Jesus:
I was standing on the bank of the great river (that is, Tigris) I lifted up my eyes and looked, and behold, a man clothed in linen, with a belt of fine gold from Uphaz around his waist. His body was like beryl, his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs lil the gleam of burnished bronze, and the sound of his words like the sound of a multitude. And I, Daniel, alone saw the vision... and no strength was left in me. My radiant appearance was fearfully changed and I retained no strength. Then I heard the sound of his words, and as I heard the sound of his words, I fell on my face in deep sleep with my face to the ground.
Daniel went into a dead faint at the sight and sound of the terrifying pre-incarnate Jesus. Glory! John Gill, one of my favorite biblical scholars, expanded this description of the pre-incarnate Jesus as terrifying, majestic, awful, full of strength, whose brilliance denotes knowledge and truth, peace, joy, grace and glory, his eyes of fire showing omniscience, and so forth. The expanded description only served to further fan the flames of glory. He is the "Prince of angels, the first of chief princes, the Head of all principality and power, superior to angels in nature, nature, office, wisdom, and strength, the General and Lord of hosts of heaven and earth." This is the Commander of the Lord's hosts -- imagine the hosts of angels, hundreds upon thousands, military might. He wages battle even now as his enemies have not yet been put under his feet. Jesus is mighty, strength itself. He is glorious and terrifying.
Jesus is not the mild homeboy, your buddy who pats your back in sympathy when you're struggling. He is Lord and the demons fear him. He fights in power and glory. This is the vision of Jesus that I am treasuring in my heart right now. It strengthens me, bolsters me, propels me onward.
And it takes my eyes of myself and my woes onto my glorious Jesus. That's how it ought to be.
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