Usually. But lately for me, in this season God has brought me into, I feel like my 'quiet time' has been anything but quiet. I feel like Jacob, wrestling then unknown man throughout the night at Peniel, left exhausted but changed forever.
After over two years of prayer journaling early in the morning with my cup of coffee, I was starting to think (foolishly) that I was kinda getting this whole prayer-thing down. I had a rhythm, a method, a time that worked for me...check all the boxes, right?!
Enter this season. Prayer has become more difficult than ever, as God has burdened my heart with hard, beautiful, and challenging things. Things I long for but am also incredibly afraid of coming true. My time in prayer is exhausting, emotionally and spiritually, and many days I end my prayer time more, rather than less, unsettled.
But it is something beautiful. I have never felt so broken, so desperate for grace, so desperate to be filled with the Spirit. I have never wanted to know God more.
I have been incredibly encouraged in this season by the patriarchs of the Bible, namely Jacob (the story I mentioned above) and Abraham, who has been on my spiritual radar since I got back from Haiti. Abraham was called to step out in faith, to leave everything he knew to head to a land God had prepared for him, where he had never been. THEN God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, the joy of his heart and his greatest desire, finally fulfilled by God in God's own timing.
Honestly, I don't know how Abraham and Jacob did it...had that kind of faith in the midst of a massive wrestling match with God, the testing ground of faith. Probably they, like you and me, didn't feel strong enough to be the people God has called us to be. However, they had faith and gave their burdens to God, resting in His strength. God was incredibly faithful in the struggle, and only after the struggle were these men (and us) blessed abundantly.
So I will face the struggle, the wrestling match, seeking God with everything I have and trusting in His abundant grace and blessings.
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