Pushing through disappointment

I had an interesting thing happen today. I was at a coffee house, sipping some green tea and reading the Word while worshipping to some music on my mp3 player. I have been dealing with disappointment a lot lately — there are a lot of things in my life that aren’t the way that I want them to be.

As I kept the reading and listening, the discontent in my heart eventually rose to the surface, and I just couldn’t continue. So, I packed up my books, etc. and went to my car. I didn’t feel like driving directly home, so I just kinda drove around aimlessly, and listened to worship music in the car. As I was driving, I could feel the Lord begin to direct me to drive towards a poorer part of town. I really didn’t want to do this — I was already nursing an aching soul, and that part of town is not a pretty sight. Nevertheless, I could hear the Lord saying, “I want you to see the reproach of your people,” so off I went. I drove through some rougher (not terribly bad) looking neighborhoods, and interceded for the people I saw there, and especially for buildings. The Lord gave me knowledge of issues and prayer needs for the people and buildings I saw. As I prayed, I could see layers of sin in peoples lives slowly being stripped away (it made me think of the ablative heat shielding on the Mercury space capsules, but that’s just me , and I could see the glory of God filling different buildings like an explosion.

Now at this point, you’d think my heart was totally revived because I was experiencing God in a very real way, and serving others in intercession.

Nah.

I still had an aching heart, frustrated with life, etc. I pressed through as long as I could, and drove to many different buildings, praying for them as I passed by. It was honestly really incredible what He led me to discover, things and places I had never been to in a city that I’ve lived in for eight years, nor even knew existed. Eventually, I had to stop and go home, because I was getting really upset (because of aforementioned issues), even though God was working through me. I felt His grace that I could stop and go home, although I know He wanted me to stay at one particular building and pray for breakthrough, but I just couldn’t handle it.

This only confirmed to me what I already knew, that our hearts are refreshed by spending time in the secret place of intimacy with Jesus, and not by our multitude of pursuits and ministry efforts.

Selah.