The other day I wrote on Facebook a little thing about walking through difficult places in life.

Here’s what I wrote…. not all, but the part I want to focus in on:

Some seasons, times, spaces are difficult. When God is doing something in you. Yet it is a quiet work. It looks and feels like a whole lot of nothing. Its not flashy or full of expression. Its slow and steady. He diligently works something in to work something out. Maybe we call these times “wilderness” or even “dark nights of the soul” where we feel behind, lost, wandering, wondering, crying ourselves to sleep at night.

Starla Smith

I want you to notice the part about “God doing something in you” in a “wilderness” or a “dark night of the soul.” Have you ever been in a place where God says something to you and then goes quietly silent? Where your mind starts to wonder if He is still there or if you are just losing your mind? Cause surely His word is true…He will never leave you…

When we walk through places that are bright and full of light, where the joy is present, and the hope is not lost…. walking into the “dark wilderness” feels like shockingly normal at first. I think we tend to think that walking into the “dark wilderness” is like heavy and uncomfortable. We think it is deep deep sadness or days of hard trial and pain. While that can be true. What if “dark wilderness” can also just look so normal? I wrote this, just the other day, in the blog post Time to Integrate.

I have found my heart struggling the most this year, wrestling the normalness and the day to day.

Time to Integrate

I think it is in these normal “dark wildernesses” in the day to day that catch us by surprise because let’s face it, there really isnt anything going on that is huge or terrible or terrifying. Yet, the one walking in this feels off and let me tell you there is nothing more unsettling then to feel off.

What does that even mean? Feeling off.

Unsettled. Unsecure. Uncomfortable.

It is a place where it is hard to put a finger on the issue.

Side note: I can already feel myself being uncomfortable writing this. I am using distancing words like YOU, US, THE ONE instead of I…. this is a vulnerable place. Bare with me…

When I think I am doing my best to stay close the the Lord but I feel this way, I have the type of personality that looks for clues to the issue. My personality type sees inconsistancy, unevenness, and problems with a critical eye. So just let a person in my home fall into one of those catagories and I will pick up on it. But the more I focused on what I thought was the issue the more I created places and space no one wants to be in, not even me.

Here’s the thing about “dark wildernesses” the kind that shade normal life from true light, they reveal the one walking. Not that other people don’t have a line or two in the drama. But this kind of “dark wilderness” is where you are the main character in the play and all your wild and unharnesses places are out for display to the eyes of the audience.

See sometimes there are places where we behave as if we deserve something. Places where we act entitled and if I told you the places and spaces where I do that, you would tell me I have every right. Unless you were on the other end of it. I dont have every right! See, when the Lord walks you into the “dark wilderness” of normal day to day and shows you yourself. Do you argue with Him? I tried. When God is speaking to you about your heart, pointing to others is pointless. When the Lord deals with you, it doesnt mean He is letting others off the hook. It just means, right now the only hook he is after, is the one that keeps you pointing somewhere else.

Deserve means to do something or have or show qualities worthy of what you are after. But the Lord gave me eyes to see a new definition De-serve: the act of un-serving others to serve self.

What if in all the places that we think that others should be and act a certain way toward us, we let go of what we think we deserve, and instead took up serving them with no expectations.

Philippians 2:3-3  Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. 

Here’s to re-walking in love in places where I picked up a mindset of entitlement that was killing me. Wrestling the normalness is exactly what God had in mind to free my heart from the tendrils trying to suffocate me. Please pray for me.

Thanks for Listening,

Starla