barrenness

Eric, will you trust Me?
You always strip my heart bare until I have nothing else to hold on to but You. in this place, the only thing I can do is cling on to you for dear life (and for the sake of my sanity)
there’s something very uncomfortable about barrenness. in this “naked” state of my heart, I come face to face with my depravity, and just how weak and vulnerable I am without Him. I don’t like feeling weak, unsure about the future. but my weakness shows areas of my life I have yet to surrender to Him. in this upside-down kingdom, only the weak enter the kingdom, only be strengthened, filled with hope that comes with submitting to the leadership of the One who created me.
Eric, will you trust Me?
the beauty (and pain) of barrenness is that it forces me into a place of dependency. my flesh doesn’t want to become dependent. my flesh wants to be self-sufficient, confident in my own plans for the future, and secure in the life i’m dying to have control over. confession: I am a control freak. i like to have a tight grip on to every area of my life.  there are few things that bring me more peace in life than knowing a future that I can have control over. few things bring me more peace than a world where relationships, career, and future is under my control
Eric, will you trust Me?
 a season of transition is a season in the wilderness. but this kind of wilderness isn’t one where God feels distant and i feel dry. no, He has been close. very close. however, the wilderness is where i am stripped bare of anything and everything apart from His voice. I don’t have any secure thing to hold on to. in this place,  and as much as I don’t want to admit it, I realize just how little control I have over my life. in this place, I suddenly realize I am in no place to lead myself. who do I think I am, to be under the impression that I know better than my Father? my life is no longer my own!

Jesus, it’s in Your kindness that You bring me to these places. help me to treasure these seasons. it’s only an act of Your grace that you would let me know my barrenness, that I may know how to lean. you have only one agenda, that you may have my all. I have one mission, to come and die. to lay all that I am at the foot of the cross, and to recognize my complete lack of any good thing, any secure thing apart from You. Jesus, help me to know nothing apart from the sound of your voice. Jesus, I am so bare, I need you so much. Jesus, come have my all. I am nothing without you.
Jesus, i’m not as strong as I think that I am.
help me to trust You.


I know the end of the story, I come up from the wilderness, leaning on my beloved