Wandering into the Wilderness

If we are wondering if we have wandered into a spiritual wilderness, there are a few noteworthy signs.  Life is out of sync.  It is as if our steps fall not quite on the spot they are intended to fall.  Unexplainable anxiety hovers at the edge of all the things we do.  Relationships seem frayed and life is lived on edge without any apparent reason.  We live with the dreaded feeling that one more thing piled on to the already overwhelming pile of stuff with which we have to deal is going to push us under.  It is not something we can really talk to anyone else about as we hardly can understand it enough to verbalize our feelings.  We just know deep down in the inner part of our life that something is not right.

 

When life is out of sync, we figure there must be some quick fix.  The first place we are prone to look is at the external things of our life.  The problem is that a quick view of that waterfront often reveals no explanation.  For some reason one of the last places we look is at our spiritual life.  What often puts our life out of sync is the spiritual issue of being connected rightly in our relationship with God.  If it is something upon which we have learned to be dependent and suddenly it is no longer in our life, it is bound to cause an uneasiness that will only be handled by being in the presence of God once more.

 

This sense of being out of sync may be for us a still small voice telling us that we need a quiet and still place to once again synchronize our will with His will for us.  Another term for it is centering.  When the center of our life has shifted it only makes sense that everything which is a part of it seems to be in the wrong place.  It is time for us to "Be still and know that I am God."  (Psalm 46:10)