Have you been distancing yourself from God lately, but you don’t know the cause? Often, people find themselves forsaken the gathering of the brethren, lacking the zeal to pray, etc Still, they can’t fathom why it’s happening. Well, I’m here to provide an answer to the question on your mind. Here, I’ll be showing you the causes of your drifting and how to know when you’re drifting, so it can be attended to before it becomes a mountain.
Before we proceed, do you know your spiritual weakness? Everyone has one or the other, so, you must know yours. It is often a vulnerability that becomes elaborate fast. We must watch and pray.
6 Reasons Why You’re Drifting
- Comparison: We all grow on different speeds depending on our level of commitment and sacrifice. So if you’re comparing your prayer life or study life to someone else. It’ll bring you down. You want to “roar” in prayer like that brother/sister, but you’re not putting in the work usually based on knowledge- spiritual illumination.
- Unconfessed Sin: You’ve done something contrary to how a believer is expected to live, instead of asking for mercy, you kept it to yourself. You cannot prevail by your strength, you’re expected to seek for His mercy whenever you’ve sinned against Him. The sin is known to Him, so don’t sweep it under the rug by refusing to confess.
- Pride: When you begin to think you can do it on your own. You may think that the congregation was swept off their feet because of your melodious voice or perhaps, you feel you’ve been running this race on your own this is a big deception of the devil. Pride is disastrous, do not find yourself sharing in God’s glory. Instead, attribute all the glory to Him and give room for more.
- Esteeming Other Things Above God: Your Job, Family, Phone, Food, Movie, Career, Relationship, etc can make you drift from God. Believers are expected to prioritize God. i.e He should come first and for He is a Jealous God. Hence, when you place other things above Him, you might lose out on Him.
- Getting Angry At God: It is funny how we get angry at God, blame Him for things, etc. Really? Hahaha. Well, it can hinder your walk with Him because you’re bittered and offended- but shall the pot say to the Potter…
- Noisy Environment: There is so much noise everywhere. There is a lot vying for our attention, this can get your hearts troubled and make you feel distant.
Which of these resonates with you?
How To Know When You’re Drifting
I tweeted some days back that “At the initial stage of drifting, we all know about it because the Holy Spirit calls our attention to it, but we don’t heed until it becomes big.”
- Temptation rolls in: When you find yourself getting fascinated by what doesn’t catch your fancy before, then it means something is about to go wrong or you gradually find yourself going back to what you have stopped doing when you accepted the faith.
- Giving in to Pessimism: As believers, we should be optimistic, however, when we find ourselves heeding to negativity in form of thoughts, words, etc that are contrary to God’s promise, we must watch it.
- Easily Irritated: You get pissed at what you’d have easily laughed off before or you find yourself reacting to little things that amount to nothing. If you’re usually the calm person, but you find yourself raising your voice. We must reflect on our days to see where we could have done better even by the Spirit of God.
- Getting Hurt by Others: Usually, As believers, we are not expected to be moved by people’s derogatory words, or opinions nor be pressured by them because our lives are hidden in God. When this happens, it could mean you’re drifting.
- Holding on to the past: The past blinds us from what lies ahead, so if you hold on to it, you’ll lose sight of God’s promises, you’ll forget His faithfulness and gradually slip away from Him.
- You suddenly don’t see the need for fasting and consecration like you’ve always done.
IN CONCLUSION
The only way to know when you’re drifting away and the causes of your drifting is by being sensitive and discerning. Without it, you’d see happenings that call for attention as something normal.
So it’s about time you started paying close attention to yourself and your walk with God. So that if you find yourself doing those things listed above, you can seek help before it gets out of hand.
In what other ways do you identify when you’re drifting away from God?