The Joy of the Lord is my Strength

I've been noticing over the past three years that I am getting really tired. Life is getting dull. I've been getting sick so much over the past few years. I'm grossly out of shape and kinda don't care. I don't really enjoy my dog the way I've enjoyed her in the past. I have been seeing my work as a job and less of a ministry and a passion. My friends have become nearly non-existent to me. It has been a struggle to go to church and to love God. It has been a very long time since I've noticed the beauty of anything. I've grown increasingly worried about money and how little of it I make and how I may not afford to live when I grow too old to support myself. I am really tired physically, mentally, and spiritually. I have spent the past ten years of my life giving, serving, loving, and sacrificing as a response to Christ's gift, service, love, and sacrifice for me. But each of the past three years it has been getting painfully difficult. I need refreshment. I need some rest. I need some encouragement. I need to be loved. I need more of God.

After a prolonged and intense period of great healing and transformation in my life I am becoming painfully aware that I am still damaged, broken, weak, and hurting. I need a breakthrough in my life. I need more of God. I've been so tired the past two years that I've slowly dropped out of life. I feel like I've lost my ability to reach young people and to relate with them. I've lost my ability to relate with my friends (most of whom are too busy to relate with anyway). Lately I've lost my ability to hold my temper in check. I've really blown some major fuses lately. I really need more of God.

The thing is, as negative as all of this may seem, I am blessed. I'm so tired I have nothing left to give except everything I am. I offer myself up to God and cry out for mercy and grace. The most amazing thing is that my Heavenly Father loves to answer cries for mercy and grace. So I cried out to Him tonight. I felt deeply troubled and unable to fall asleep so I started to surf the internet aimlessly. I surfed over to my old church's website. The pastor there used to be one of my closest friends and his son was also one of my closest friends. They have a section on their website with old sermons. As I scrolled down, examining the sermon titles, two of them caught my attention. They were part of a two part series called, "Refueling on the Fly." I decided to give it a listen since I was troubled and unable to sleep.

My former Pastor, Ken, discussed his own struggle with what I'm going through and his ascent from it. At a certain point his wife told him he needed to get a hobby. He decided to take up disc golf. That silly hobby transformed his life. He discovered the outdoors and especially birds. This helped him realize that God created everything for us to enjoy. He mentioned Nehemiah, who brought the Jews who were exiled from their homeland back to Israel. Their homeland was ruined and the Jewish exiles were in deep sorrow, partly because of the immense task of having to rebuild their home and their life. They had enemies and doubters who stood in the way of this rebuilding. They were filled with fear and with sorrow. Nehemiah told them, "the joy of the Lord is our strength."

Ken's life was transformed by following through on his wife's advice to get a hobby. I was a first-hand witness to this. I was in deep depression at the time. I was not attending church. I was barely holding on to my faith. I gave up struggling and just gave in to sin, depression, and to my anger. I have no clue why but Ken started to invite me to join him for disc golf. I somehow knew that disc golf was of huge importance to Ken's life. So I was blown away that he would ask me to play with him. I played with him nearly every week for about two years during the warmer months. We would even venture out to play during the winter on milder days. Ken's renewed enjoyment of life soon rubbed off on me and I began to enjoy life again. Unlike Ken, I didn't really care about the birds. I fell in love with the game of disc golf. It changed my life. While Ken learned how to enjoy life through birds, I learned to enjoy people. Ken was the first older person who I felt comfortable with besides my own family. We had deep conversations. I couldn't believe someone older than me took the time to play a game with me and to listen to what I had to say. It was therapeutic. He began to invite others to join us on Sunday afternoons. I soon learned to enjoy them as well. Eventually I realized that people weren't all bad and after turning down dozens of invitations to go to Ken's church I finally went. I began to realize that God wasn't this angry God who was punishing me for the sins of my parents. The height and width and depth of God's love (still a mystery to me while very real at the same time) hit me and captured me and has never let go.

I am a competitive person and a bit of a perfectionist (not in every aspect of life though). I started going to the park to play disc golf to "practice" by myself. This was a major step for me. I hate being alone. I felt very uncomfortable at first. I soon came to enjoy the quiet, the sun, the blue sky, the deer, the shade, the dried up pond at Hudson-Mills Metropark, the other disc golf players out on the course, and my conversations with God as I played.

My faith and my life flourished. I became a member of Ken's church. I became active in youth ministry. I had a very active social life. I was enjoying life immensely. The church was growing, and the core group of people were strongly invested in building community with one another. But it didn't last. Building community ceased to be important. People became preoccupied with their jobs, and nobody had time for anyone anymore. The church began a huge project to plant a new church and Ken stopped playing disc golf with me. My other regular disc golf partners also stopped playing. I stopped playing disc golf regularly because nobody ever wanted to play anymore and there was no need for me to "practice."

I no longer enjoy life like I did four to six years ago. I am tired. Things aren't all bad. I have a renewed love for my ailing mom and a desire to serve her in the midst of her suffering. I have a renewed desire to help people encounter the transforming love of God. I have a strong desire to join the priesthood although I fear that I am too broken and am not a good enough person to become a good priest. I have a deepening desire to offer my life fully to God in a life of service to Him even if it is not within the vocation of the Priesthood. I struggle frequently with the notion that my efforts over the years have not resulted in the kind of fruit I hoped for. For a time this struggle has caused me to want to give up. Lately this line of thinking has been causing me to feel like trying harder and to press in closer to God. I would like to get more involved in my church but have no idea where to get started. I have many ideas of how I could help young people but I have no support, no energy, and no ideas on how to get started. I feel like there is so much worth doing and that there are so many ways I could help make a difference but feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the task, overwhelmed by discouragement, overwhelmed by weariness, overwhelmed with frustration, overwhelmed by the isolation and loneliness that stems from my childhood, overwhelmed by financial constraints, and overwhelmed by my weaknesses and flaws. I am overwhelmed but I am not crushed. I am tired but I am not dead. I am discouraged but not hopeless. I am sometimes lonely but not alone. I am weak but He is strong.

I just need to find the joy again. The joy of the Lord is my strength. I don't really know what it will take for me to enjoy all that God created. I'm trying. I used to love storms. The other night I actually sat out on my porch watching the sky for storms that were predicted. I haven't gone outside to enjoy an oncoming storm in years. The storm never came. I used to enjoy reading for pleasure. I went to the bookstore to get a book that caught my interest. I couldn't find the book anywhere. I haven't listened to a CD in a very long time. I'll listen to a song here and there but I can't remember the last time I listened to an entire CD. I went to listen to one of my favorite CD's. I opened the case and the CD was missing. I used to enjoy grilling food outside on the grill. I can't afford to grill right now. I used to enjoy going to Cedar Point with some of the guys from camp. I can't afford to go and probably am too big to fit on the rides anyways. I used to enjoy playing disc golf with my friends from church. I can't really afford the gas to drive out to Hudson Mills and my old disc golf friends are too busy to play anymore. I really enjoyed camp this year but am feeling too tired to continue to do it and feel like I am losing my ability to change the lives of young people. I feel like I am standing in ruins. The joy of the Lord is my strength.

I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire;

he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.
He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.

Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD.

Do not withhold your mercy from me, O LORD;

may your love and your truth always protect me.
For troubles without number surround me;

my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see.

They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails within me.
Be pleased, O LORD, to save me; O LORD, come quickly to help me.

Yet I am poor and needy; may the Lord think of me.

You are my help and my deliverer; O my God, do not delay.

- Portions of Psalm 40

Ken's sermon comforted me and reminded me of how God transformed my life through joy several years ago. I'm going to listen to part II tomorrow to see what practical suggestions he had for refueling. Lord knows I need some refueling.

I was able to have lunch with two great friends today. We talked and laughed and I really needed that. Despite losing my temper over some rather small things at camp I thoroughly enjoyed camp. I always enjoy the kids at camp. They are the reason I do camp. I love watching them have fun and I especially enjoy watching them discover the love of the Father. To be honest, the staff at camp has been the difficult part of camp for me in years past. This year was different. This year was the first year as camp director that I completely enjoyed the staff. I still got upset over some minor things, but unlike previous years, those minor things did not interfere with my enjoyment of the staff, who did an amazing job by the way.

This entry is way too long. Sorry. It is also one of my most personal entries. I am tired. I am in need of prayer. I am in need of refreshment. I'll bet everything I have that God will provide. The life God is calling me to is definitely worth the struggle and I will carry on.