Joy in the Deserts

The past couple weeks, I've been reading "The Hiding Place" by Corrie Ten Boom, who took huge risks to hide Jews in her home during WWII. Eventually, she and her sister were arrested and sent to a concentration camp in Germany. While in the camp, however, God opened incredible opportunities for her and her sister to preach the Word of God. So they started holding daily meetings in the barracks. And while their physical conditions were inhumane, the spiritual condition in that camp was growing richer every day. Until Corrie found sin starting to seep into her life and drain the joy out of her ministry.

"My prayers took on a mechanical ring. Even Bible reading was dull and lifeless...And so I struggled on with worship and teaching that had ceased to be real. Until one drizzly raw afternoon when just enough light came through the window to read by, I came to Paul's account of his 'thorn in the flesh.' Three times, he said, he had begged God to take away his weakness, whatever it was. And each time God had said, Rely on Me. At last Paul concluded--the words seemed to leap from the page--that his very weakness was something to give thanks for. Because now Paul knew that none of the wonders and miracles that followed his ministry could be due to his own virtues. It was all Christ's strength, never Paul's.

And there it was.

...The real sin lay in thinking that any power to help and transform came from me. Of course it was not my wholeness, but Christ's that made the difference...And so I closed the Bible and to that group of women clustering close, I told the truth about myself--my self-centerdness, my stinginess, my lack of love.

That night real joy returned to my worship."

Oftentimes, as Christians, we accept the fact that there will be dry times in your walk with the Lord. Every Christian goes through those "deserts" in their Bible reading or prayer time, right? Maybe so, but I've started treating these passionless times in my walk as just "one of those times", as if there were nothing I could do about it. But maybe Corrie was right, maybe there was a reason why the joy was drained from her worship. Could it be that I've started letting sin slip in between me and God? My self-centerdness, my pride...have they started choking my relationship with God?

Lord, show me the sin in my life and get rid of it so that I am joyfully worship and humbly serve You once again. Don't let me complacently allow my walk with you to dry out. Fill me with joy and passion!