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1 year ago
“The Joy of the Lord” or “2010: The Year of the Buffalo”
In March I kept saying that I was having a bad month. Of course, even as I was saying it I felt like the “month” had started around mid-February. My computer had pretty much decided to crash and was hanging on by a barely visible string, my external hard drive was acting roughly the same (which meant virtually no music for me). Furthermore, it seemed like just about everything in my life was falling apart.
All I wanted was to make it through March. However, as March ended and April came, I found that relief was no where in site. All the problems I had in March were still there in April. Furthermore, the problems were compounded as I began to prepare myself for graduation. Each day grad inched closer and closer and I reflected on how I would spend the rest of 2010 “stuck in Sussex” with no chance of getting a good job. By good job I mean something ministry related, something that would pay me a salary and give me some freedom to come and go as I needed.
Because of everything going on my relationship with God began to suffer (or perhaps it was my suffering relationship with God that caused all these things to feel overwhelming). Either way, by the time May came around I hit the deepest depression I have been in in a really long time. The only reason I did not spend all day sleeping is because I’ve seen enough that I know where that road leads. However, all that means is that I got up and sat on my couch all day.
May was a month long drought of not reading my Bible. I might have touched it once or twice, but I doubt much more than that. Beyond reading my Bible, prayer was pretty much non-existent.
I have a friend that just went on internship. He will be done with school completely in six months and free to go get a job anywhere. I have two other friends that are going on internship this summer and fall, after which they as well will be completely done and free to go and do anything. Finally I have another friend that graduated with me and is taking the senior pastor position at a small church in Nova Scotia. Beyond that I just found out that one of my old college roommates. who dropped out and did not even finish college, has excepted a senior pastor position at a church here in New Brunswick.
And then there is me. I just applied at Wal-mart, Tim Horton’s and Canadian Tire, as well as a plethora of other jobs like that. So I have to confess that most of May I spent the month thinking, “Does God not love me?” Did I do something wrong? Is God punishing my for something.
It has been incredibly difficult for me to try and worship God. I know that worship isn’t about me, and that worship is a lifestyle and all of that, but the fact remains that it has been hard for me to see God as loving and caring and good when in all honesty 2010 has not been my year.
Over the past week or so I have found myself thinking, “Once my situation clears up, I will be able to read my Bible and pray a lot better.” Once things start going my way, then I can come to God and has a relationship again. Once I get what I want… then I can be joyful.
But even I’m not convinced of that one. Joy is not something that comes from external circumstances. If that was the case, Paul would have been the greatest emo kid to ever live. Yet he sat in prison and wrote one of the most joyful and encouraging letters of his life.
I’m realizing that there is something wrong with me. I have a sickness of sorts. If I can only experience “the joy of the Lord” when things are going my way, then I’m not experiencing true joy. In which case, what I think is joy is rather a dark veil, hiding the truth and allowing me to ignore the deeper issues in my life.
So… I’m not sure how to go about resolving this. I don’t know what steps I’m supposed to take or how to “fix” my lack of joy, but at least I recognize that it’s there. At least I recognize that I’m not nearly as “connected to the vine” as I should be. And according to our 12-step friends, admitting there is a problem is the first step.
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