An Update

        Much has happened since I first attempted to begin this blog. I originally started this blog because I thought that I could. I had been in a class where it was required of me to blog once a week about various experiences as a future teacher, and what I was learning about technology in education. Since then I was diagnosed with PMDD which is essentially an emotional imbalance related to my hormones. Where it relates to my spiritual journey is that I don't have many of the feelings that I've always associated with having faith, and praising God.
       While I'd agree in a heartbeat that faith is not a feeling, in this season where I don't have those feelings that I've always been so used to having, the Lord is making that truth incredibly evident to me in a very real way. Yes, it is hard to not have a powerful emotional experience while worshipping or getting more into the Word, so seeing Him so clearly working in and all around me. It's hard to not "feel moved" and know in the deepest part of my soul that I should be radically moved, and falling to my knees for all that Christ has done for, in, and through me, and the endless amount of ways that He has so richly blessed me. But even in this trial, the Lord has graciously given me eyes to see at least a portion of what He is doing.
        A part of this emotional imbalance, for me, has meant being forced to be vulnerable. As someone who has always been emotionally driven, I have never been good at hiding how I truly feel about anything. So naturally, when those emotions are enhanced, like being anxious or upset, it shows. In the times of breaking down or getting upset in public, God has blessed me with many dear sisters in Christ, and some brothers too, that have been incredibly loving and caring towards me. They constantly remind me that God is still good, and that Satan's lies pale in comparison to the truth that He has revealed to us in His Word, and the power of the Holy Spirit that moves within us. They remind me that it's okay to lean on others, that many times God uses His children to lift one another up and comfort them, and that even when they don't understand, and they know that they cannot give me any strength of their own, they so naturally point me to the One that does.
        He is teaching me more about the Person of the Holy Spirit, and as Francis Chan wrote of as "The Forgotten God." He is teaching me that the Holy Spirit is much more than the emotional experiences we have during an intense time of worship or prayer, and that no one, literally not one single person can do anything for Christ apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. We aren't naturally able, due to how sin has corrupted us, and our finite beings, understand the infinite spiritual truth of our Triune God. We cannot know Him without Him revealing Himself to us.
         In this season especially that has been for the past several months or so, I have seen similarities with myself and the fig tree mentioned in various passages in scripture. One of the first passages the Spirit comforted me with comes from a book in the Bible that I never would look to for encouragement:

"Though the fig tree should not blossom,

nor fruit be on the vines,

the produce of the olive fail

and the fields yield no food,

the flock be cut off from the fold

and there be no herd in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the Lord;

I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

God, the Lord, is my strength;

he makes my feet like the deer's;

he makes me tread on high places."

Habakkuk 3:17-19

This passage comes from a time when Habakkuk is seeing all of the destruction that has come from the people of Judah being invaded by the Babylonians. I love how the commentary in the ESV Study Bible puts it:

"Anticipating great destruction at the hands of the Babylonians, Habakkuk has radically changed--he began by informing God how to run his world, and ended by trusting that God knows best and will bring about justice."

Habakkuk is describing all of these things that are going wrong, and yet he still rejoices in God's sovereignty, and all that Yahweh is doing for him. The same commentary notes say this:

"Yet even amid suffering and loss, Habakkuk has learned that he can trust God, and with that trust comes great joy, not in circumstances but in God himself....Yahweh has become Habakkuk's strength."

That, dear ones, is what the Lord has been teaching me, and what is true of Habakkuk, I believe to be true of myself. Though I may not feel or express the joy that comes with trusting the Lord, and though I very much am still learning to trust Him more, He is still God, and what He says of me is still true.