"But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil." Psalm 92:10
When our faith gets stale and we aren't "feeling the Spirit", one of the traps we can fall into is to try to manufacture the emotions we were having at a time when we enjoyed God's presence. Perhaps we will remember a particular conference or concert we went to when we were touched by the Holy Spirit, and we will pull out tapes or CDs and -voila!- we are right back in that moment and we feel those emotions again.
Although we are encouraged to remember God's past faithfulness in our lives throughout the Bible (cf. Psalm 42:6), when our remembering becomes sentimentality and trying to relive the emotions associated with that experience, we will soon find ourselves in a rut.
We may also deal with spiritual low points by relying upon formulas which have worked for us in the past (which at the time weren't formulas at all). This also may work for a time and succeed in bolstering our emotions, but we will soon find it falls short, producing spiritual staleness. As we become more and more in tune* with God's Holy Spirit (Heb. ruach qodesh, or "set-apart spirit"), we will immediately begin to sense we are on a "dead" path, and need a "fresh" anointing from the Lord.
The lessons the Lord is trying to teach us through these experiences are nothing more than patience and reliance upon Him. Fortunately for us the Word is filled with saints that have experienced the same spiritual darkness:
"You who have shown me many troubles and distresses will revive me again, and will bring me up again from the depths of the earth." Psalm 71:20
"Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of his servant, who walks in darkness and has no light, yet trusts in the name of the Lord and relies upon his God" Isaiah 50:10
Brothers and sisters, let us not be satisfied until we have received that fresh anointing from the Lord, not relying on past formulas, but always looking forward (cf. Philippians 3:13-14)
"...let us press on to know the Lord. His going forth is as certain as the dawn; and He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain watering the earth." Hosea 6:3
* see God's Frequency
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