anfechtung

"My days have passed, my plans are shattered, and so are the desires of my heart." - Job


I don't quite understand what God is doing. Everything in my life is falling apart or being taken from me--my future, my relationships, my desires, my possessions, my hopes...even my health is failing me. Every day seems like another hopeless battle. God seems so far from me. "What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me. I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil." My worst fear has come upon me. God has hidden His face from me and taken His hand from my life.

Friends have come to me and told me what I have always told others in this situation...Oh, you just need to go to God. Pray about it. Read the Bible....Seek Him. You just aren't looking. For some that is true. But this isn't the case. Job says it better than I, after being told the same thing, "If only I knew where to find him; if only I could go to his dwelling!" I seek to find nothing. I have begun to wonder if I'm just a terrible Christian and if I brought this on myself somehow...



I came across an article that talked about the recent published writings of Mother Teresa. The world is shocked to find that she experienced quite a time of feeling disconnected from God. She compared her anguish to hell. Torture. Darkness. Oswald Chambers had a similar experience. It also wrote on Martin Luther's struggles. He called it his period of Anfechtung--doubt, turmoil, despair. He wrote, "God often, as it were, hides himself, and will not hear; yea, will not suffer himself to be found."

Luther found that the solution is to drive you to prayer, scripture and God's promises--faith in those promises.

"When one is possessed with doubt, that though he call upon the Lord he cannot be heard, and that God has turned his heart from him, and is angry....he must arm himself with God's word, promising to hear him. As to the when and how God will hear him, that is stark naught; place, time, and person are accidental things; the substance and essence is the promise."

I have to trust in His promises even though I feel like they are so far away...like I have no claim to them. Faith is a frightening thing for me right now. But promises and faith must go together... Without the promise there is nothing to believe...but without faith the promise is useless.



Why should my heart not be broken? When did this life become mine to glorify? Christian sympathy has me convinced I do not deserve this despair. It cripples me and hardens my heart. I am angry, because I expect blessing and comfort. I begin to question God's goodness, kindness, mercy....I sit at the door of self-pity.

The biggest trial I am facing is not in my belief of God, but belief that God's character is trustworthy.

This is the hardest trial of faith I have ever experienced. Feeling so far from God and removed from him is the very essence of hell. It could be so simple to fall into self-pity and give up. Holding on requires a strength so unknown to me, but it's what I desire. I am not going to ignore the fact that I am having these questions and feelings. I have learned so much from Job. He was always honest. But he never let go.



Even so, in all of this, I know that my Redeemer lives. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God. In the end he will stand upon the earth. How my heart yearns within me....

"Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him."