Living on the Side of the Mountain...

It's so interesting to me -- how one day you can be on top of the world (on the mountain top) in your relationship with God.  You begin to think -- how was I ever in the valley? Or even descending into the valley? Then all of a sudden *bam* you're sliding down the hill for no apparent reason.  There hasn't been a trial (or not one you've been fighting through already) - there hasn't been some conflict or doubt that has arisen - there is no weariness, no temptation overtaking you.  Just the feeling of that mountain top closeness fading. And where "last week" you were jumping out of bed to spend time with the Lord, you find that "this week" hours go by in the morning with it barely crossing your mind, and when you finally go sit down, it seems difficult and forced, rather than that peace of abiding joyfully. It seems so easy at those times to let busyness win over sitting and abiding.

In my younger years, I might have mistaken a time like that as God being far from me.  I didn't *feel* the presence of God, so therefore He wasn't near to me and I had to search for Him - recreate that mountain top feeling.  I failed to grasp the concept back then that the Holy Spirit lives IN ME.  There's not too much closer on this earth that God could be to me than that! Not only that but I am UNITED with Christ -- that's a concept that still baffles me joyfully. So whether or not I *feel* His presence, He is ever present in me. And because of my union with Christ, I won't ever be without Him. 

These truths have helped me to dig my heels in while sliding or even just living daily on the side of the mountain - fighting not to let the momentum of the downward slide or the status quo take root in my heart - not listening to lies of God not being near me -- from a roaring lion without a bite.  Satan loves to pray on my emotions, and what better emotion to try to trip me up with than a feeling of indifference from God.
 

"... See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are"..."But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 

God is not indifferent! He loves me and cares for my every need.  So even though some mornings my quiet time seems more like dry toast than a banquet set out before me, and I can wait peacefully through a "dry time" by remembering these truths (and others!) - when I fight to remember that that my feelings don't dictate who God is to me or my standing in Christ.