What To Do When Faith Feels Dry | Psalm 80 & 1 John 4 | Crossroads Daily

Hey, I'm Chuck. I'm Jamie. I'm Chris. I'm Mish. And we are talking about Psalm 80 and 1 John 4. 1 John 4 brings back such warm memories for me. Little Chuck, my big sister, not my little sister, but my big sister, taught me a song based on 1 John 4, 7 and 8, and I can still sing it to this day. So, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone that loves is born of God. And knoweth God, he that loveth not, it was King James Version, by the way, knoweth not God for God is love. So Beloved, let us love one another, 1 John 4, 7 and 8. Thank you, Lonnie, thank you, my sister, for teaching me that. And I love, that's one of my favorite verses, maybe because I have a song that goes with it, but also because it just has so much to say about the power of love. So my question is, how has receiving God's love impacted how you love other people? Because that's what 1 John 4, 7 and 8 is all about. And let me say this, I would say for me, I am receiving God's love, and it is changing how I treat people. Like I have not arrived, right? There are depths of understanding of God's love that I have yet to come to, and every time another one gets unlocked, it's like, oh, it gives me more of what I need, perspective, grace, patience, endurance, to love people in my life better, hopefully, you know, over time. So it's a process. Yeah, I would say, if I truly let myself be loved by God, I very quickly realize how much I need that love because of how messed up I am, and I just desperately need that. And then in turn, it allows me to, it gives me compassion and grace for people. I'm so much more quick to be judgmental and critical and short-tempered and lack of patience

when I don't think I need God's love. I'm like, I'm good. Like I've achieved some status where like, I'm fine, but his love for me makes me realize like, oh gosh, I need this badly. And it just gives me so much more patience with others because it's like, we're all in the same playing field. We all need this love and grace and patience. I echo all, the only thing I would add is just like, I think sometimes when I realize things are out of whack and how I'm loving others or how I'm showing up for others, and I start to like notice things, it's usually like an outage in me where God's trying to love me and help me get through something. And I'm like, oh, I'm really sensitive to this with other people because it's the exact thing that I need. So I think like- You're saying the same thing that you're seeing in them. I like see it and I'm like, oh no, this is my blind spot, God. Thank you for allowing me to see the log in my, or the stye in my neighbor's eye, but not pick the lie. I feel like it's actually like a superpower. Like you're saying, no, no, no, no, seriously, because you're saying like, it's the log in your own eye and the stye, but like most people don't acknowledge that. And I would say God's actually probably uniquely gifted you with that. You're able to recognize people's misgivings or challenges or whatever because of your own as well. I don't know. Maybe. Thank you. You're a superhero. You're a superhero. That's what I heard today, guys.

I'm a superhero. Receive that. That's right. That's right. We all, like I said, it's a process on how and when we're receiving the love of God and we also have dry spells. That's a normal part of a relationship with Jesus. I wonder what helps you reconnect if you've been in a dry place and sometimes it's not up to you. It's never up to us, it's up to the Holy Spirit, but like, are there things that you've learned help you reconnect to the love of God and to your relationship with God? I mean, I would love to hear from you guys because I feel like it's a hard question for me because I wrestle with the thought of like, okay, what, like if I'm not doing well with God or I feel like I'm in a dry season, I'm like, all right, new worship playlist or like let's read the New Testament. So the Old Testament or like I will change a bunch of things and I feel like in that I can make it about like, well, this is about me just feeling something like I wasn't feeling something at the end. I'm just chasing this feeling. Like I want to feel closer to God, so I'm just going to manufacture a bunch of stuff and I feel like I've seen some like, I guess the unsexy answer in some ways is like staying the course when in reality, everything I want to do is jump ship and like find the next stimulating thing to like that new worship song or like that new verse or that new sermon to make me feel on fire again and at the end of the day, it's like about me creating this love as opposed to just staring down the barrel like God's love for me and letting that over time. I'm like, go through the waves of life. Because it's often like a circumstantial thing that made me feel dry. It's like, something in life is hard,

or like, it's kind of boring, and I'm just like, all right, I need a new feeling, and I kind of just make it all myself. So I don't know, I feel like I wrestle with the like, changing habits versus staying in the course kind of tension. Yeah, that's so good and convicting, because I was about to say my answer is a new playlist, a new worship playlist. I mean, music helps me, right? Music helps me, and that's true, but I'm really, I think, I'm so glad you said that, Chris, because it's like, yeah, how much of that, though, is about me trying to chase an emotion versus maybe sitting in the discomfort of the dryness without that stimuli? So, dude, man, I'm glad you said that. I needed to hear that. I needed to hear that. I don't think both of those things can be true, right? I have found a deep satisfaction for some of these older, people would probably call them very religious, like, indoctrinal disciplines that I did not grow up taking part in because I didn't grow up in the church. Like, there's almost like this reverence towards these disciplines that I feel like has been teaching me more about the love of Christ, but the second one, I would say the main one, honestly.

What's an example of that, though? You mentioned it, so what's an example of that? Like, reciting the Apostolic Creed, or the Aaronic Blessing, stuff like that, stuff that you would do in some more older denominational type, or even like Eastern Orthodox type. Like structured prayers, prayers that are already- Yeah, structured prayers. I have a funny story about that that we don't have time to share, but. Cut that. Yeah. But the second one, honestly, has been just brokenness. I think, like, God breaking me, I'm so thankful that I was able to receive the Holy Spirit through a relationship with Jesus because there's so many times when there's a dry spell of the love of Christ that is coming from me, and it's only through brokenness over time that allows me to discern that brokenness, discern that lack of love, and reattribute myself back to God. Yeah, so good. Well, I mean, as we think about today, and lots of scripture there, man, whatever serves love, whatever serves love, that is the highest order in God's universe. And love, we know, is not just a feeling, but it's a person, right?

So when we are connecting with Jesus, we are experiencing love in its truest form. So may you do that today, and may you do that in the days to come. ♪♪