Soverign Grace
Well-Known Member
I'm going to try it a different way. Sometimes it takes just the right words for me to say, oh, I get what you're saying now, so I'm assuming we all are pretty much like that.
You think - you have equated - being in the Spirit - to a thing you feel. Incidentally, from what other men say, that's kind of different for the person. For me, it was this actual physical feeling, like waves washing over and through me and I would get goosebumps too. Wonderful feeling, almost as if God was...hugging me.
That feeling (or however you describe it for you) IS your reaction to the Holy Spirit. But, it also is...a pleasure to our senses, and is a more carnal way of communion. So He wants us to go on and not stay there, but we would never choose that, we would always choose what is a pleasure to our senses. So, He begins to wean us. His goal is a more naked communion, with our senses and desires put under, a purer communion.
And how do you wean a baby? By removing what it desires so it will move on to different desires, better things. No one would approve if they saw an 8 year old nursing, would they?
So, I know it will help you to know that it is God Himself who is doing this and hiding, as it were, from you. He used to pick you up and caress you all the time. Now, He sets you down sometimes, to get you to walk on your own feet. ( How amazing, incidentally, that all things He has made show Himself, even the mother and child relationship!)
So once you know a thing is God working and Gods will, it becomes easier to accept and submit to it. When we are thinking somethings wrong and something we have done is causing it, there's distress and no calm submission and trust.
He will sometimes come back to your senses again, and yes, as you say, its so fleeting, there and gone. He wants to reassure you He's still there and keep you calm, so He allows you to sense Him briefly again, a sort of reminder that you are loved and that He hasn't abandoned you.
I counseled you to read about Israel in the desert because their journey there reflects our spiritual journey with God.
It says He let them become very thirsty in the desert to....SEE WHAT THEY WOULD DO. What was He looking for? What was He hoping they would do? He was looking for trust, no matter what it seemed or felt like to their senses. This was a test of trust (faith). They failed it. It was their lack of trust that displeased Him.
But you will not fail your test. You will begin to trust in this, even if you don't like how it feels to your senses.
I know what you mean. And for me the feeling was a deep sense of holiness, of goodness, a sense of being in touch with the Ancient of Days. It was fleeting though and I do long for it. I grasp what you're saying: it may not be that I've done anything amiss or haven't achieved what I'm trying to spiritually - that the dry times are from His hand for a reason; that there is something for me to learn in it. My pastor said that to me one time: that's when your FAITH takes over. Maybe I'm seeking experience rather than exercising faith that this too is from His Hand.