Psalm 22:1-5This psalm begins abruptly, with a disturbing scene: someone who knows and trusts God is forsaken, and cries out to God in agony.David Guzik“How do you continue to walk with God when you don’t feel His presence and it feels like He isn’t with you?”THE WALL.What is The Wall?What is important here is to note that the trials we encounter each day are not the Wall or “dark night of the soul.” Trials are traffic jams, annoying bosses, delayed airplay departures, car breakdowns, fevers, and barking dogs in the middle of the night.Peter ScazzeroJOHN OF THE CROSS PHOTO*continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.Philippians 2:12b-13Wilderness seasons don’t purify us from sin, Jesus already did that. It’s done. It is finished.“DARK”How do we know we are in “the dark night”? Our good feelings of God’s presence evaporate. We feel the door of heaven has been shut as we pray. Darkness, helplessness, weariness, a sense of failure or defeat, barrenness, emptiness, dryness descends upon us. The Christian disciplines that have served us up to this time “no longer work.” We can’t see what God is doing and we see little visible fruit in our lives.Peter Scazzero“NIGHT”weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.Psalm 30:5“SOUL"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.Psalm 22:1-2We're going on a bear huntWe're going on a bear huntI've got my binocularsI've got my binocularsI'm not scaredI'm not scaredOoh, look at that tall, wavy grassIt's so tallWe can't go over itWe can't go under itWe're just gonna have to go through itSwish, swish, swish, swishThe Kiboomers“DO I TRUST GOD?”10 I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. 11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.Philippians 4:10-14When we make it through the wall, we no longer have a need to be well known or successful, but to do God’s will. We have now tasted what it means to live in union with the love of God through Christ in the Holy Spirit. Peter ScazzeroFor the Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He knows your going through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you. You have lacked nothing.Deuteronomy 2:7When you accept the fact that sometimes seasons are dry and times are hard and that God is in control of both, you will discover a sense of divine refuge, because the hope then is in God and not in yourself.Charles SwindollGoing through “The Wall” helps us un-learn:Pride: They have a tendency to condemn others and become impatient with their faults. They are selective in who can teach them.Avarice: They are discontent with the Spirituality God gives them. They never have enough learning, are always reading many books rather than growing in poverty of spirit and their interior life.Luxury: They take more pleasure in the spiritual blessings of God rather than God Himself.Wrath: They are easily irritated, lacking sweetness, and have little patience to wait on God.Spiritual Gluttony: They resist the way of the cross and choose pleasures like children do.Spiritual Envy: They feel unhappy when others do well spiritually. They are always comparing.Sloth: They run from that which is hard. Their aim is spiritual sweetness and good feelings.Going through “The Wall” helps us learn:How to be needy.“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.Matthew 5:318 Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”[d] 19 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. 20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. Romans 4:18-21How to be okay with mystery.“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,”declares the Lord.9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.Isaiah 55:8-9 If you understand, it is not God you understand.Augustine of Hippo The way of Jesus cannot be ...
