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At the time of spiritual dryness and laziness.
Dear believers, We must realize that God has only one desire. Certainly we can never understand that why we get the dryness and laziness unless we understand what God's desire is. His desire is to give Himself to the soul that really loves Him and to that soul which earnestly seek Him. And yet it is true that this God who desire to give Himself to us will often conceal(hide) Himself from us(the very one who seeks Him).
Now why would God do that? Dear believers, we must learn the ways of our Lord. Our God is a God who often hides Himself for a purpose. Why? His purpose is to rouse us(wake us up) from spiritual laziness and dryness. His purpose in removing Himself from us is to cause us to pursue(follow and chase) Him.
Lord Jesus is looking about everywhere for such a Christian who will remain faithful and loving even when He has withdrawn Himself. If the Lord finds such a faithfull soul, when He does return, He rewards the faithfulness of His child. He pours out upon that faithfull one abundant goodness and tender caresses of love.
We must understand that we will have times of spiritual dryness and laziness in the spiritual progress. It is part of the Lord's way.
But the fact we will have spiritual lazy and dry spells is not the issue. The important question is what we will do in a time spiritual dryness? At this time we must learn something about our natural tendencies. It will be the natural thing for us, during a dry season, to try to prove our love to the Lord. During a spirituall dry and lazy season we will find that we will try to prove to the Lord our faithfulness toward Him; we will do this by exerting our strength. Unconciously we will be hoping by such self effort to persuade Him to return more quickly. But this is not the way to respond to our Lord in seasons of dryness.
What then shall we do at such period of laziness and dryness?
Here is the way. We must await the return of our Beloved Lord with patient love and that love should be with self denial and humiliation! Even though the Lord has hidden Himself , remain constantly before Him. There before Him, pour out your love upon Him passionately and always peacefully. We must spend time with Him in worship and in respectful silence.
By waiting upon the Lord in this way, we will demonstrate to Him that it is He alone whom we are seeing. Here we will see that we will be demonstrating that it is not the selfish enjoyment which we receive from being in His presence that causes us to love Him. We will be showing that it is not the pleasure which we experience, but our love that motivates us. We need to be patient in times of laziness , dryness and darkness. We nees to allow the removals and delays of the consolation of God. We need to draw near to Him and wait upon Him patiently that our life may be increased and be renewed.
We need to wait upon Him in spirit of Humility, in a spirit of abandonement, with contentment and resignation.
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