Staying Near to God in Calm Seas

Staying Near to God in Calm Seas
Copyright 2012 by Shea Oakley
All rights reserved

It seems to be a fact of the Christian life that we find ourselves closest to our Lord when we are in the midst of our most difficult circumstances. It would also appear that God uses these circumstances to cause us to draw nearer to Him out of urgent need. In my own life the majority of my most powerful experiences with the power and presence of Jesus Christ have come when I have been in great pain of mind, body, or soul. There have been glorious moments when, in the midst of my suffering, I have been granted a visitation of His Spirit that has instantly taken me from a deep valley to seemingly the highest mountaintop. Such moments, even when sometimes followed by another descent into misery, have been the greatest ones of my life. If anything has made my hardest struggles worth the pain it has been these visitations. I cherish the memory of them.

In recent years I have found that the valleys of my earlier existence as a believer have become far less deep and fewer and farther between. I sometimes wonder if this is only because of personal growth as a Christian or also because of a lessened sensitivity to the conviction of the Spirit. Perhaps both these things are true. Either way I have found that as my life has become less of an ongoing crisis the intensity of my experiences with God has diminished and the experiences themselves have grown farther apart.

We are not, of course, to seek “spiritual highs” for their own sake. The idea is to seek the Lord for Himself and not for what he can do for us emotionally. I also have found that longer times of meditation upon God and the things of God, in recent years, have brought me to good places that are less fleeting if also less intense. Still, I miss some of those earlier mountaintop experiences and cannot help but wonder if they are never again to be part of my spiritual walk.

I do not think they can be reclaimed by trying to once more make myself miserable and I have no desire to try. The world, my flesh and the Devil can all potentially bring me back to the place of very difficult circumstances without my becoming some kind or spiritual Masochist. Such circumstances will always be a part of life in this fallen world on some level.

I suppose the real question here is whether it is possible to stay as close to the Lord in better times as it is in worse ones. So far I have no fully satisfying answer, though I do believe that part of the solution comes from disciplining myself to spend time with God not out of desperation but out of desire. Beyond felt desire I must also seek to stay near to Him because of a realization that desperation can be dangerously replaced by complacency born of calm seas in my temporal life that can be just that, temporary.

This points up another truth about the times between spiritual storms; they have a tendency to lull us into a sort of forgetfulness about Who we are living for and why. When the world seems pleasant enough we can quickly begin to forget that it is not, and never will be, our home. Sometimes we find ourselves walking away from our Lord without even being conscious that we are doing it.

It seems to me that before this happens it is best to be aware of the potentiality and guard against it. Again, the most effective way to do this might be to habitually practice the disciplines of the faith in both good times and bad. This means being very intentional about prayer, meditation, Bible study, fellowship, service and other exercises that are designed to keep us close to God.

These practices are perhaps harder to pursue when present pain is not driving us to them but perhaps it is when that pain is not present that we may be most in need of their pursuit. May our Lord help us to understand this paradox, one of so many in the Christian life.