The Heart

Spirit-Filled Life. C.Stanley

 In the heart of a believer who is filled with the Spirit, He reigns supreme over the will, the emotions, the intelligence but with his full consent and cooperation. The Spirit-Filled Life begins once we are absolutely and thoroughly convinced that we can do nothing apart from the indwelling strength of the Holy Spirit.

Times of Job I have decided to call them. I have had many over my life, when the trials were suddenly amplified to a near unbearable level. Each time I leaned closer to God...except for the one trial that nearly ripped my faith by the roots out of my heart. That I think was the hardest trial, the hardest Time of Job.
We often have times when the Spirit is present often, and times when we would hardly be a Christian because of the lack of feeling His presence. That lack is our own fault. 
I believe that lack comes by in a few ways. 

1) We sometimes get so proud of our "goodness" because the Spirit is within us! We become super people. We are better, smarter, know the Bible better than ANYONE else, and are a better driver with a better car. (Last part mainly for humor, but who knows?) We begin to think this way because we are Christians, and as Christians, especially of whichever denomination we claim to, we are just a little bit (ok a LOT) better than those other denominations. Our pride gets in the way so much that we start to lose Him by deciding that we are those wonderful mini-gods. Just look! We are in the better church, and we got there by the better car! Oh, those dreadful people over there....

2) We just don't make the effort to be godly, to be a vessel in which God would dwell. We are not ready to give up sins that we are already feeling guilty for. We want to keep the pornography in the closet, or continue a sexual relationship regardless of the fact that mere decades ago we would die in shame, or we want to keep up some obsession---gambling, drinking....whatever has grabbed our attention to be more important than nearly anything else in life. We just don't need God, and would rather people do not talk about Him, because we honestly get that same uncomfortable feeling of guilt creeping up on us.

3) The Poison Route. This is the one for you if you are not a mature Christian (I am not sure at what point one is mature---spiritually or personally). This one is hard because it involves others more, and is a poisoning of your growing faith, as through someone dumped triple-strength RoundUp on you (if you were a plant, although I assume even as a human that would not be terribly beneficial...) Some teaching, or argument concerning a topic of faith, how you should believe etc., so confuses your growth, we may as well have tossed a big rock on you (again if you were a small plant). Growth stops to nearly nothing, and as more poisonous lessons are poured on top with the first big rock, your faith begins to switch to that which is not sound.

4) Major hurt, such as illness, deaths, divorces etc....these things are classic for drawing people away from God, because He "allowed it to happen". Yes. He did. And it is a spot to make a choice, just like any other---God or not. He may have allowed it........but if He is great enough to say "Let there be light", and there was, I imagine He has a good reason for allowing it. We are, after all, children to Him...and parents do not let children have a great many things, and allow punishments to befall them when poor choices are made. 

So if we are in these situations, what do we do? First, try reading the Bible, or praying. Read the Bible with purpose. For me, that means reading with a pen handy for underlining. Now, at this point, I had read my Bible so much, that the whole thing is circled and underlined...so I now write verses down. And maybe nothing jumps out at you. That happens, try another book. I like to start with John, and if nothing is reaching me by the Spirit, I flip around and see if I can find something that does. Read a good, sound Christian author, take the same approach of underlining etc. (unless a library book, it's rather tacky to do that)
If you have more or less pushed the Spirit away with your actions, He will answer, but it may seem like it takes a while. Would a friend you hurt by refusing to speak to them be super quick to answer? Depends on the friend, some will, some won't. I have found with my trials that He sometimes answered quickly, and sometimes did not--I feel that those cases are still our faults. We are maybe not asking forgiveness for what we have done, or asking for help to stop sinning. God, Son and Spirit are pure perfection, remember. We have our faith that saves us, but I think we still need to pray about our sins, discuss them with our Father. The more we share of the "hard things" to tell a Father, the closer He will get; and that's because you are giving so much of yourself.