Forcing things and handing over power

My relationship with God has been sinking for a while now. Nothing dramatic - just more of my usual dread of prayer, and more of a dead feeling when I do try to pray, and less relief of the feeling that there is nothing there.

I've been somewhat at a loss as to what to do about it. I've tried regular, disciplined prayer for a few weeks at a time, but in terms of my feelings* I haven't seen anything change.

*By the way, the old adage about how it's not about feelings - I'm not sure I understand that any more: what else is it about?

Our church group decided that we wanted to spend some time trying to work out what our "calling"s were, or at least what God wanted us to do at the moment, and this fitted quite nicely into the fact that I/we are thinking about our future: my job, where we live etc. We assigned each other a couple of names each to pray for, and one of the friends who was praying for me felt that God was telling her to read the book of Joshua in the Bible, and asked me to read it too in case something came out of it for me.

Of course, nothing came out of it for me.

Last night we had our meeting and she told me that the part of Joshua* that struck her as being about me was the part in Joshua 7 where a guy called Achan steals some of the plunder from destroying Jerico, instead of handing it over to be given to God. This was extremely brave of her since she must have been terrified that she'd be confronting some terrible (probably sexual) sin in my life and didn't know how I would react.

* As an aside that I just can't leave out: I want to make it clear that Joshua is probably the hardest book of the Bible for me to accept as being from God, or, normally, of being any use, because it is basically just an account of a genocide backed, nay commanded, by God.

I didn't suddenly break down and confess to a propensity to place gerbils in any orifices. In fact, I didn't know how to take it on board at all. I couldn't see what the terrible sin in my life was: I knew there are pretty crippling sins of pride and greed going on, but not some nice specific thing I can stop doing.

A couple of weeks ago, I felt a little comforted by the idea that maybe what God wanted of me was just to try and follow his "ways" i.e. live our life as a family in a generous and kind way, and be gentle and attentive to my colleagues at work. I felt that I was doing that: on the big decisions we were trying to consult God (with little appearance of answers from him) and trying to do the right thing for our kids and for other people.

As we prayed last night, and prayed and talked and thought today, I have begun to think that what God is trying to say to me is that I am holding back something that belongs to God, like Achan (who, incidentally, was stoned to death along with his wife and daughters). What I am holding back is power over my life.

I think I sort-of knew this already, but I hadn't considered it to be such a bad thing - one of the mini-sins that we all have a bit of and can't do much about. The comparison with Achan is shocking, not just because of what happened to him, but mainly because what he did was seen as so wrong - disobeying a specific and direct order. But what am I doing when I hold back power over my life from God? I am making worthless the key thing that being a Christian is: you turn from your sin, and you "follow" God - you submit to God, you "accept" him as your master. So suddenly the idea that this is some grievous sin makes more sense.

What I am left with, then is what to do about this? It is difficult to make a plan of action about something as woolly as giving power back to God. This evening we were praying about our future and I was saying all I've written above, and I felt a sense of release. I've been extremely tense (my sleep has been utterly shot) as we have been thinking about the future, and some of that tension seemed to be released. Not all of it, by the way, or I would be asleep now instead of writing this.

I realised we have been trying to force it: to bend life to the way we want it to be. When I became a Christian* I turned to God, submitted to him: promised to follow him. How do I do that? I don't really know, but I think I need to stop having areas that are reserved for me - that may be influenced by him, but it's my final call.

*Although there's another potential article in the fact that I don't have a good moment I can point to when I did become a Christian.

Having the final call is too stressful anyway. I sort of long for relief.