The Rut

Sometimes looking within can be tough, painful and unattractive for one doesn’t always want to discover what’s hidden beneath behaviors, attitudes and emotions. Looking within, alongside with the Lord, is actually a beautiful process of how we grow and are transformed. I’ve been in a spiritual rut for the last few months. When you are in a rut, it feels like an eternity. But all of a sudden, you turn and look up, and you begin to leave the rut behind. Soon it is a distant memory. There are many ruts in a spiritual life; that is just a part of it. It is part of any aspect of life be it family, work, relationships, even cooking and exercise fall into ruts. Name anything you do for a continued period of time and you are guaranteed to fall into a rut. It’s the nature of life – ups, downs and plateaus.

My spiritual rut came about partly because I just couldn’t see the hand of God; no clear direction; no road signs; no natural world evidence of what I was hoping for; no activity to speak of; just quiet. Now, sometimes I welcome the quiet and embrace the stillness, but usually only for a short while, my timeline of quiet, you see. When the quiet and lack of direction goes on and on, or so it appears, the trappings of discouragement are there to entangle me. Discouragement. There it is again, smothering me. While in the rut, my prayer life becomes dry, and when I “feel” like there aren’t any fruits from my prayer time, sleeping in and daily distractions take precedence. The rut deepens. Someone once said, “our spiritual life is not about feelings. Rightly so, for a spiritual life tied to “feelings” is fickle, just like our feelings.

Christian community is essential to the spiritual walk. I can’t imagine life without it. The Lord is so good to us. He knew we would need Christian community for the journey and He beautifully set that up for us. He knew we would especially need the encouragement of others. Our part, is to remember to reach out and ask for help and encouragement from our community, as well as offering encouragement to others in need. It was in sharing my spiritual rut with my community, that I began to come out of it. Through sharing, I began to see what had settled within and what I saw was not pretty – self absorption. Convicted, yes. Forgiven, for sure.

When me, myself and I are the focus, I have reached a spiritually precarious place; room for the enemy to work. Thoughts can easily become negative and defeating. Discouragement and distractions swirl. When my focus is on what I believe is not playing out how I think it should, or I am not seeing the “signs” of God’s hand, then I am plainly looking for ways to satisfy me, myself and I. If the quiet time that God has sent is not “enough” for me, or I am frustrated at the lack of “progress” then once again it is about me and my measurements and expectation. My focus should not be on how things are or are not progressing according to my ways. My focus should be on Him. While at mass last week, I was praying, or more like complaining and grumbling about my rut. The Lord ever so gently spoke in the midst of my monologue and whispered, “Am I enough?” His words pierced my heart. And through my tears, I replied, “yes Lord, you are enough.”

Ruts are hard and probably won’t go away when we want them to. What we can do is embrace where we are, find peace where we are, and persevere through the dryness. If we can recognize that He is enough, regardless of where we are then our self absorption can be turned into soul absorption by the One whose sole focus is us.

All of a sudden we will look up and the rut will be miraculously behind us.