Saul answered, "I am greatly distressed...God has departed from me and no longer answers me, either through prophets or by dreams; therefore I have called you, that you may make known to me what I should do."
This passage in 1 Samuel 28 is heart-wrenching, but also instructive. I truly feel a pitiful compassion for Saul (By reading of his symptoms throughout the Biblical narrative, some researchers suggest he may have suffered from a form of depression or even schizophrenia) when he feels like he's at the end of his rope.
I can sit here in my office now and look back somewaht objectively. My hope's been restored and I now wake up in the morning like in the old days - ready to attack and hit the ground running.
It wasn't that way last year.
I think the worst thing I faced was the feeling that God had abandoned me, left me completely on my own and lost any favor with me.
And it was horrifying. Pulling myself together to face another day was a daunting task. Shuffling to work to sit at a desk and peel through work that had no value attached to it was more than I could bear. Enduring a burning back pain around the clock. Being unable to sit through a simple meeting without breaking out in sweat because of the pain. I suffered...and suffered to the extreme. Through all this, Jill was loving and understanding as she allowed me to talk and express my grief.
But even when it seemed God was the farthest away He had ever ben in my life, I still couldn't keep calling out and reaching for Him. And now I know, as brutal as last year was, it was all for my good. I'm seeing that each day now.
I recall having a dinner with an older couple in Hollister, California back in the 80s, and I got to discussing the local church. The husband got up and left the room. His wife leaned over and told me, "He had a bad experience and won't have anything to do with church or God." I asked her what it was about, and she replied, " A dispute with the deacons about church construction."
"How long ago was this?" I asked.
"Oh, about twenty years ago," she replied.
I was stunned. A disagreeable situation that couldn't be resolved, and the man walks away from God? Even now, after all I'd been through - and a lot of the memories still give me the creeps - I just couldn't bring myself to abandon God and go it alone. Father, if I don't have You, what else is there to hope for?
