Good Morning God

Good Morning God,

It is me again. I love you and I know that You love me. Your Word tells me that You know my burdens and the longings of my heart. The weights that I carry deep within me. I speak not of the struggles from my daily encounters, like job, or family, but the unseen questions of life that no one sees. The battles with inner demons that lurk in the shadows of the mind. The ones that keep me awake at night, that tire my soul.

I confess to you that I do want to live a free and victorious life in Christ; to embrace the newness of your grace, to bask in your glory. But the truth is even as an older adult, I do not know how. I have spent time seeking your face. Taken time to pray for your guidance, but too often, the rest that You offer does not come. I suspect, as I have been told, that the problem is with me, that my unbelief is blocking my vision of you. Perhaps. If that is so, I pray, ‘Oh God, help me in my unbelief.” What you did for Thomas, who had to put his hands in your side, and see the wounds You endured, do this for me. Help me see and believe. If not, then I fear that perhaps my heart is just too small to embrace the things You have for me.

At times, I wonder if I will be one of your children who died in the wilderness, unable to embrace what You had so prepared. Will my last thoughts be of sand and wind and desert? Will I view the futility of my life’s journey as simply the beating of a wayward heart? Will I fail to plant my feet in the land that flows with milk and honey, fail to truly taste the goodness of your love? God, please let this not be my fate. I beg to see your face even as I take these last few steps of my life.

But who am I that You should even want me to know these things? What is man, but a frightful combination of flesh and foolishness? Like Solomon, I suppose that I have found all things vanity. Every pursuit I have done, every life road I have chosen, has in the end achieved nothing. My life on this earth is like a vapor vanishing away, a plume of smoke that is here one moment and then gone the next into nothingness. As much as I might long for it to be more, the reality is I know that it is not. Has been not. It is my greatest shame to have wasted moments reaching for the Promise, only to die in the sand of the wilderness. Perhaps the race for truth is a mirage we must tell ourselves so that we do not go insane at the futility and fragility of our own human heart.

It strikes me that You are using my self-doubt and deeper issues as a way to draw me closer. I do not understand. Am I to keep shuffling through this desert of the soul for one more day? Hoping, wishing, wanting things to be as You promised? When does the Promise appear? When will I inhale the scent of grapes growing on the vine, taste the land of milk and honey? Even the Israelites who survived the wilderness to the very end failed to see the glory of the Promise, save two. Will this be my fate? Is this the life that You, O’ merciful God have laid out for me? Your plan? Your purpose? That I come right to the water’s edge, the river of Jordan, but never cross in to taste for myself to goodness of what You have prepared? Has my life of weak faith sealed my fate? I confess that I do not have the faith of a Caleb or Joshua even though I long to be like them. I want to know your goodness, see your glory and taste the fruit of a life well lived. But my mouth is parched and my throat sore from swallowing the sand and dust of strife.

So this I pray. I pray to have faith enough to walk through the wilderness for one more day. By your Grace, I pray that you will not let these last steps be in vain. And I pray that I might rally those around me to take a step and then another and then one more, as we venture through this pain called life. May I be the Caleb, who even though I am old, should lead the way into battle. May I be more, experience You more, live in the Promise while my feet shuffle through the sands. If this is my call. Please tell my heart that it will be enough.

Amen.