When You are Not Asked to Rise

I've gone through seasons of my life where God feels distant. As one who has grown up in the church and received repeated praise for my *strong faith*, the distance feels devastating, scary, and even shameful. What did I do wrong? What do I not understand? How do fix it?

Pray more. Seek more. Repent more. Beg for more... and still the distance remains.

How do I get to you? How do I fight this? How do I rise above to find you?

And then the still small voice: "I am not asking you to rise..."

He is not asking me to rise.

If I'm honest, that idea scares me. I want to rise. I want to rise above the suffering and the pain. I want to rise above into someplace that feels glorious and good. I want to rise above into victory. I want to rise and prove that I believe, that my faith is strong, and that I am capable of walking in the victory of Jesus. But what if the truth is that God feels distant because I have bought into a lie? The lie that says His true presence and true glory only resides in the rising - the healings, the victories, the resurrections. And what if He is not asking me to rise? What if He wants to meet me here in the pain and suffering?

Can glory reside there? Can goodness reside there?

And so I ask:

In the grief - How is He mourning?

In the pain - Where is He soothing?

In the hurt - How is He comforting?

In the suffering - How is He sustaining?

In the heartache - What is He saying?

In the brokenness - What is He revealing?

Emmanuel. God with us. He came not to a throne of glory, but to a life amongst the lowly and the poor. He came not to bring immediate and complete victory, but to walk alongside the needy and offer hope to the hopeless. He came to offer glimpses of what is to come while offering comfort in what is now.

The rising has been promised. The rising will come.

But what if the rising is not now? What if His glory is continuing to reside in the manger, in the lowly places of suffering and pain?

If the rising is not now, you are not alone. Emmanuel. God with us. And where God is - there is glory.