Confession: I am really bad at spending time with God. I am even worse at setting aside times to pray...and praying in general.

This has been a reoccurring problem for me for a while now. I have faith that this season God has me in, usually unwillingly, being in America, is all about my prayer life and my time spent with Him. He revealed this to me in this passage from Jeremiah 29.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity."

So many things go flying through my mind as I read this, but the most reoccurring thoughts are convictions. I don't know what seeking the Lord with my whole heart looks like, but I am confident that I am NOT doing that. The reason I have been feeling this distance from Him is so easy to see. For me to find him, I just need to seek Him. It's so simple.

When I see how simple it is to find Him again, I go running back to Him, full of HOPE. But as I am running far away from this valley to my Father's lap, I hear whispers that are all too familiar, and not at all comforting. "You can't go back to how things were. He WON'T take you back. You don't deserve for Him to take you back. That distance you have been feeling...it's always going to be like that. Why do you think you haven't been feeling that 'love' He talks about all the time? It's your fault, and that's never going to change. He didn't break through then, and He isn't going to now."

I've been in an extremely vulnerable spiritual state for some time now. Constantly being attacked, but being afraid to speak up because I was believing those lies. I believed that I couldn't go back to how things were with God, which meant I couldn't go to Him for help whenever Satan found my footholds and latched on. When the pain in my knee came back (it was healed last week), I couldn't go to God and say that it's not okay what the Enemy is doing here. The worship song I was listening and singing to on the radio one night completely shutting off and going to commercial for no reason, but I couldn't do anything about it.

I am sick and tired of these lies- In Jesus name.

You called and You shouted

Broke through my deafness

Now I'm breathing in and breathing out

I'm alive again

You shattered my darkness

Washed away my blindness

Now I'm breathing in and breathing out

I'm alive again

Late have I loved You

You waited for me

I searched for You

What took me so long?

I was looking outside

As if love would ever want to hide

I'm finding I was wrong

As if love would ever want to hide... Love would NEVER want to hide. He never went anywhere, and neither did His love. But I still can't go back to Him. I don't deserve it. It doesn't make sense for Him to forgive me and act like everything is okay when it's not.

From "The Prodigal God" by Timothy Keller, based on The Lost Son parable in Luke 15:

"I'm not going to wait until you've paid off your debt; I'm not going to wait until you've duly groveled. You are not going to earn your way back into the family, I am going to simply take you back. I will cover your nakedness, poverty, and rags with the robes of my office and honor."

So, I guess this is what grace feels like...!