This week, I am going to give you a peek behind my screen…

For the last few months, I have had a hard time hearing from God. Nothing in my life has really changed- I still have my quiet time in the morning.  I still have my worship music blasting in my car.  I’m not back sliding at church or with ministry responsibilities.  But I have just felt like I have been in a season of silence.  A few weeks ago, I sat down at the computer to create a post, and my thoughts were completely blank.  My computer keys weren’t clacking because I had nothing to say.  “Okay”, I thought to myself, “I will post a nice picture with this cool saying that I found the other day.”  I sat and tried to use my creative juices to cut/copy and paste it all together, but that wouldn’t even work.

One morning, as I sat to pray, God finally spoke. And I did not love what he said.

God told me that I had anger, bitterness and jealousy in my heart.

My reaction was: Whaaaaat??? Who, me????

I knew that I had been dealing with some things in my personal life, but I hadn’t realized how deeply it had affected me.  These three emotions were brewing and feeding into a longer list of other emotions that I knew were not healthy for me.

The most troubling thing was knowing that the Holy Spirit could not dwell where these emotions were present.  Anger, bitterness and jealousy are works of the flesh that are directly in opposition to the fruits of the spirit.  One cannot exist when the other is present.

I asked God for forgiveness, and He gave it to me.

It was shocking to me how such a trivial event could create such a wedge between me and God.  How quickly one little festering ember could have turned into a fire.

The parable of the sower and the seed in Matthew chapter 13 explains this so beautifully.  Seed fell by the wayside and it was snatched up.  The seed in the stony places does not produce anything because there is no where for a root to take hold.  The seed among the thorns gets choked up by weeds which are the cares of this world, and these seeds remain unfruitful as well.

I was experiencing that first hand. I was trying to be fruitful, but I was producing nothing of any value.  The silence that I felt was my seed being choked.

We all have situations in our lives that can turn into diversions from God’s ability to produce in us.  Give God control over those diversions, and let Him create a beautiful, fruitful vine from them instead!

~Shiney