Why Do I Feel Spiritually Drained? | The Warning You're Missing
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So it is called Mirror, and the, what I want you to get from the premise right at the start, and I think this is gonna be very helpful series, whether you've been walking with Jesus for a short period of time or a long period of time, or you haven't even started following yet, you're gonna learn some things out of this about how you're wired and how things work, that if you get it, will really set you up to not make the mistakes that I've made just recently.
So your life, here is the premise of this: your life is telling you what is already in your heart. And the question is, are you listening to it? As I said, it started as a SOAK devotion journal, and I, it came out of Proverbs chapter 27. Now Proverbs, if you don't know what Proverbs are, they're a book of wis- it's a wisdom book in the middle of the Bible.
It was written predominantly by Solomon and a few others, and then King Solomon was actually the son of King David, and Solomon was one of the wisest people around at the start, but he did not finish well. But a lot of the stuff that he puts in there is very helpful to us. So I was just digging through this as a SOAK devotion, and I was reflecting on it, and I just got caught by one thing.
It just says, "As water reflects the face, so one's life reflects the heart." And that's where I got stuck, and I found myself starting to journal, because I realized suddenly all of life's activity is an early warning drift system Your life is an early warning drift system. Not about your performance, not about your report card of your life, but it's a mirror reflecting what is actually in your heart.
There. Maybe not there. Up there. It's a mirror reflecting what is in your heart. Now, here's where it gets really personal. I've had seasons of my life where I have not paid attention to the things that were going on in my life on the outside. I just didn't recognize when things... I was getting a little bit short, a little sh- bit of a short fuse going on.
I wasn't so patient, I couldn't explain. I had a restlessness that was going on, and I kept pushing away, and I had all this... I was trying to distract myself with things and trying to manage the external in my life to just keep going, keep serving the people, keep doing what you needed to do. And as a result of that, I ended up in clinical depression because I didn't pay attention to what was going on in my life.
Now, anybody here that's ever experienced, or online, that's experienced clinical depression, you realize that after you've been there, you actually have to be... You have to lead a fairly disciplined l- life to guard your mind because I call it an old black dog, and it's always roaming around trying to get in the yard again any opportunity it gets.
So you have to be very careful with your mind on that. So what I missed then but later began to understand was our life doesn't lie. Your life doesn't lie to you. It doesn't lie to you. Your habits, your reactions, your speech, your energy, they're always reflecting something. The question is, are you paying attention to what is going on?
Life is your early warning drift system to see if your heart is actually drifting And I think this is not just about me now. Now I think we're moving to everybody, 'cause we've all experienced it. You'll have experienced this in relationships, whether it's work or home or wherever it happens to be.
You'll suddenly realize something just feels slightly off. That's a warning. That's a mirror that you should be looking into to figure out why, but we tend to not do that. We tend to think I'll just manage it," or, "I'll make excuses for it." And you start getting snappy with people, but doesn't really warrant it because you love the people, but you do that because you realize that, you're trying to control the situation.
And then there's a creeping cynicism that will come in, and if you're prone to depression, then there's a flatness that comes in which things become very dark and they become very demanding of you because everything feels like it's crouching in on you. And there's a restlessness that goes with it and you just then try and figure out how to manage it.
Let's just... How I manage it the best I can, and you turn to whatever. Some would scroll, some would watch TV, some will turn to alcohol, they'll turn to other relationships. They turn to things to try and figure out, trying to fix up and manage the situation, whereas they should be actually looking into the mirror of all those situations.
Now, part of this is to do with your mind, but of course, last week I told you how to get control of your mind with the, develop the flight plan, early flight plan on that. And I've had some people that have spoken to me and said, "This is the most best thing that's ever happened to me," 'cause they're very busy people, "and I go to sleep now at night and my mind can be at rest 'cause I've planned out to a certain degree what tomorrow's gonna be like and let the Lord just give me the grace to do that when I wake.
And then when I wake, I'm not thinking, scrambling, what am I gonna do for the day? How am I gonna manage it? I'm just, 'Okay, Lord, is there any adjustments to the day?' And we head off." So I'm glad that's helping some people. Some people it didn't help. They let me know that. Can't work for everyone. But what I'm trying to say to you is that this stuff that's going on, you have to pay attention to your life.
You've gotta look at your life, and you've gotta reflect and look and see what's going on there to see why you are doing the things that you do. Now, sadly, as I said, I missed this when I put this devotion down 'cause I thought, "This is such a great thing for my people. They need to hear this, Lord, and I'm gonna teach them this, and I'll get this right."
What I didn't do at that point in time, which is what I shoulda done first, is, "Lord, is there something going wrong in me? What's going on in my life?" And there was already going on in me a, a real dissatisfaction, a real sense of not being where we should be as I thought we should be, and there was this unhealthy dissatisfaction that was kinda like seeding there.
And then s- different people would, were careless with their words, and then that got inside, and then there's like a cynicism that's starting. And I, and so r- I missed all this because I'm then just managing. I've gotta lead the church, and I gotta get everything done, and we got this other stuff to do, so I missed it, whereas I should've been dealing with this beforehand.
Hence, I'm kinda semi in a counseling session with you guys right now as we're going through this. Because I missed the early warnings that were there, I kept stuffing them down, and I kept just managing the situation, and now that gave the black dog entry back in, so now I gotta chase this thing down and get it out again.
That's the reality of what happens if you miss the early morning drift system by not following your life. When all the issues that you've got are going on in your life, they're not actually problems for you to solve and manage, which is where I made the mistake. They're there for you to reflect on them.
They are mirrors that will a- let you reflect in to see if your heart is actually drifting And there's only one drift with your heart, and that's the way you lose your love for God. And it starts to drift a little bit, and you get a little bit dark, and you get a little bit jaded, and you get a little bit cynical, and you don't even realize it, but because you're not addressing, it's just drifting, and it's drifting.
Our life is always reflecting something. It is always reflecting something. And we have to learn to pay attention. And the practices across, we're gonna do some practices across this season which will help us not miss these things. So Proverbs 27, where I started, as I talked about wisdom, and this is what it says.
It says, "As water reflects the face, so one's life reflects the heart." As water reflects the face, so one's life reflects the heart. Now, in Solomon's day, mirror, a mirror was actually water. They would actually have to go and look at some still water, and that's how they would see their reflection. But the mirror, when you look into it, into w- directly into the water, it doesn't editorialize it.
It doesn't soften it. It doesn't add a nice filter on here or there. It doesn't p- pick a flattering angle. It just shows you what's going on, what's right in front of you. I don't know if you've ever seen what they call the Mirror Lakes in New Zealand. There's a picture of it here. They're sweet as, bro, yeah.
So nice. I think we're gonna need a new dug. So if you have a look at it, it's, it reflects exactly if it's still enough. Now, when you... Th- even this doesn't do it justice, but when you're sitting there and you take the photo and you look at it, you can kinda move your hand up and down, and you can cover the real, and you can't tell that th- this, this looks like it's the real.
And then you can go the other way. Oh, that looks like it's the real. It reflects exactly. That's what a mirror does. It reflects exactly what's going on. Your life is doing the same thing. It doesn't reflect what you intend to reflect. It doesn't reflect how you wanna perform or how you want people to see you.
It reflects who you actually are and what's actually going on underneath the surface. It reflects the patterns of your days, the things that you do. It reflects what you do when you come under pressure. And this is you... This is where I've made a big mistake, is that because I didn't address it there, come under pressure, then I get a little bit twitchy and that kind of stuff, and then I can respond.
If someone says something that's very unkind I can then not be kind back. It can wind me up to the point where I just... And that's just sadly what happens when the black dog gets involved there. But that wouldn't happen if I keep the other part right. If I acknowledge and see what's going on, you don't have that problem.
And your mind goes to do things or watch things that you want to be, have your reflection, but it's not the reality of who you are. You start reflecting on the wrong things. So here's where the new covenant is really... It, this takes this on further than the old covenant law principle. This is not God standing over you with a scorecard making sure you're right.
God is trying to say to us, "This is about your awareness. This is me giving you wisdom and saying, wisdom will now hold up the mirror of the thing that you're struggling with so you can reflect into it, and then you'll be able to see, is your heart drifting from its right course?" Now, Jesus picked this up a lot with the religious leaders at different times, but this particular portion, I just wanna just step through this 'cause it really highlights it.
The religious leaders are always obsessed with the outside. Wanna make sure you look right. Doesn't matter if you're not right, you just gotta look right. You gotta make sure that you're on point, make sure you look the part, doing the right thing. So they were obsessed with this kind of stuff. They always wanted people to be eating right first, do the ceremonial washings first, make sure that you're hanging out with the right people, don't hang out with the wrong people, make sure you do this, dress like that, move like this, don't eat this.
It, they were obsessed with the external. They were more obsessed with looking right than being right. Now, Jesus comes along and He addresses this area of food with a bunch of them. This is what He says in Matthew chapter 15. I'm sure glad that Matthew was there to share it with us. He says, "Don't you see, whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body?"
Little biology lesson there for them. Let's get that out of the start. It's like whatever goes in there, it's not important. You're on the, you're missing it all together. And He goes on. Next slide. But the thing that comes out of a person's mouth comes from the heart, and these defile them.
Ooh. The things that come out of a person are coming out of their heart, and these are things that defile them. Now he gives them a nice little list in case you're wondering what are those, what it is. He says, "For out of the heart comes evil thoughts." Anybody here had any evil thoughts? "Comes murder, comes adultery, comes sexual immorality, comes theft."
There's one for you, Dex. "False testimony and slander." He's saying these things are coming out of your heart Now, once your heart has begun the process of being regenerated, you've turned it back to Christ, repented of your sins, and Christ comes in, He starts to heal and conform your heart. Hopefully, it's getting better.
Hopefully, you're not all sitting here thinking about how you can kill me. But he's saying, what he's trying to get across is these things come out of your heart. So many people in the West, I hear them all the time, "Oh, the devil made me do it." And you blame the devil. That's not what Jesus is saying.
Jesus is saying, "This is your heart. This is coming out of your heart." This is you having portions of your life that are not yet regenerated, not let God come in and conform it and bring it back to l- life in Christ. So it's coming out of the darkness pockets of your heart. So therefore, when someone gets trapped in sexual immorality and it's like and this, I hear about this quite often, they're either caught in lust or porn or something like that.
They're always trying to fix up, "I've got a sexual problem." You don't. If you gaze into it and look into the mirror, you'll discover that your heart, your love, and your intimacy with Christ has drifted, and now you have a counterfeit thing that's going on. Which is why He says, "It's coming out of the heart."
The Pharisees were obsessed in managing things. What Jesus is trying to do to them is diagnose what's going on the inside. There's a problem with the heart that's going on. It's drifting. But because they're so obsessed with polishing the outside, "I gotta look good, I gotta do things like that," and just polishing
We had an old saint here once, his name was Gordon. My wife's going this, "Don't you say that."
This is getting awkward. This is getting awkward. Oh, what the heck? I'm in trouble now anyway. He had this saying we had a difficult... When we were unhitching from the Old Covenant and that kind of thing and going through that process, a lot of people didn't like it, and a lot of people were quite angry at different times and quite nasty towards me.
And I would always try to love them, and I'd try to encourage them, and I tried to fix them. And Gordon, God bless him, came up to me one day and he said, "Pastor, I need to talk to you." He said, "I know that you like to pastor and to love all people, and I just want to give you some advice about people that are not really being kind to you at the moment."
And I said, "Oh, okay," 'cause I respect the man. I said, "Could you... Yeah, okay." He said, "Listen, this is what you got to understand. You can't polish a turd."
I said, "Come again? Did I hear what I heard?" Yes, and I didn't understand it at the time, but I understand why Jesus is saying the same thing here. You can't polish it up. If your heart is out of order and this is coming up, doesn't matter what you dress it in, doesn't matter what you do with it, it's still in trouble.
Still smells really bad. So I can't wait to get to heaven to see if he got in trouble for that. So what I'm calling this, this series is really, it's an early warning drift system. I want you to watch your life. I want you to watch your habits. I want you to watch your speech, your reactions, your energy.
All those things are indications of what is going on. What is going on. Now, the thing about a mirror button, this is the piece that's in between, is this: It only works well if the water is still when you're looking at water. So if Solomon looks in there and someone wiggles the water, he can't see anything.
He, you don't get to see anything because it's not accurate. If you drop a stone in a pond, you can't see any reflection. All you get is distortion. The noise and the busyness of life, which is why I think the Lord had me talk about first things first, about your mind getting that thing landed at peace.
Because if you don't have that, the water is gonna continually be stirred, and even though you try and look in to see what's reflecting out of there, you are not gonna be able to see it 'cause it's gonna be distorted. It's that busyness. It's that refusal to stop. It's that refusal to just Not fix everything and not get around running everything to do with your life.
It's like having the place where you can pause and be quiet just for a section rather than just re- rather than just keep managing everything. It's where you go, "Ah, okay, what's, what is actually going on here?" 'Cause if you don't get the water stirred, if you don't s- settle the water of your life, what happens is that you don't recognize that you're drifting.
When God spoke to me about this, He was wanting to deal with a, with frustration that I had and some disappointments that I had, but I didn't recognize it and so therefore I got busy managing it. And so by the time I realized this is happening, my heart's drifted a long way off and I'm not so loving as I should be, and I'm not so being able to graciously respond.
So you gotta make sure you grab this thing. You gotta get this thing before it gets down the track. And the first things first, it's stilling your mind and having a mind that's reflecting of a nighttime and then coming out of it peace with activity. And rest is bingo. That's a big portion of it, 'cause that's...
it's your mind and stuff that stops the water from being stilled so you can actually see a perfect reflection. We have to do this, Now, before I go there, the mirror works best when the water is still. So the things that you have, the issues that you have, they're mirrors for you to reflect to see how far your heart is drifting away from your pure love, devotion to Christ.
If your mind has got it all worked out like that, then you're not gonna be able to see. And so therefore you've gotta make sure that you work these things in tandem together. So over the next... what all we're gonna really do over the next four weeks is we're gonna look at not rules, not regulations, but some things that the people of the way understood.
The people that were following Jesus, they understood, and it's to do with rhythms. And they didn't do these things because of the fact that they felt like they needed to earn anything. They already knew they were loved. They already knew they were free. They already knew they were forgiven of all their sins.
But they practiced some things that we modern people don't do. Things like silence
Little awkward, isn't it? Silence. Practicing silence so you can actually listen to what's going on. Fasting, we're gonna talk a little bit about how do you... what is a good way to fast so that you can actually deny your flesh some time and focus on what's important with God and making sure that your heart's not drifting.
Community and confession and solitude. Everything has to be reflected upon. Even though we're even right now looking at all the things that we do, and we do such a lot of stuff, and, but you've always gotta continually ask, "Is this bearing fruit? Is this fruitful? Are we actually achieving? Are we achieving making disciples and making disciples?
Are we loving God by loving people? Or if not, then why are we doing it? Is there something else to be looked at?" And you gotta continually just keep reflecting on those things. So let me just ask you a, a question this morning, just to kinda get you on the journey. What is your life currently reflecting?
Think about your life. Think about all the people that's close in your life, family, friends, spouse, kids. What are they seeing reflecting? Or what do you think you are reflecting? And then I want you to ask another question, or if you be so bold and courageous, once you figure out what you think you're reflecting, go ask those people in your world and say, "What do you see reflected out of my life?
What do you see?" And then just see whether they see the same things as you. Because the reality is, most of us can't see the areas that we've got the blind spots in, and we need someone else to show us and help us on. So I want you just to reflect on what is actually showing up in your life. What's actually showing up?
And pay attention to it. 'Cause if you don't pay attention to it, then your heart will start to drift and you won't even recognize it until suddenly it's way out over here. It's the reason why people end up having affairs, and they end up suddenly in a bed that they shouldn't be and get, asking the question, "How did I get here?"
Because you missed a whole lot of warning signals that were coming your direction, and you didn't pay attention. And then you just started to ma- "I'm okay, we can manage this thing. It's just a friendship thing, just a little office fun, that's..." And then before you know it, you're over here, and how did you get there?
Because you managed, and while you were busy managing everything, the water wasn't still, so you couldn't reflect, so you don't know that your heart's drifting. It's so important that we keep an eye on this thing. And Jeremiah, who's another prophet, he wasn't a bullfrog like some songs would say. Although Jeremiah was a bullfrog in a song.
But he was another person that spoke on God's behalf to an unfaithful people that continually rebelled against him and he would continue to go after things, but he made a statement going way back then because he could see all this unfaithfulness, and he said, "The heart is a restless evil." It will betray you every opportunity it gets.
Unless, and he didn't have this unless it's regenerated and surrendered to Christ. And then the more it's surrendered to Christ, the more He lives through it, and the more your heart leads you in the right direction. So that's what Mira is gonna be all about, and there's some things that you have w- that we've already got here that's so part of this process, your SOAK devotions.
You hear me say it all the time. If I miss one day, I know it. If I miss two days, Anne know it. If three days, the whole world knows it. Because I have this propensity, 'cause I've had clinical depression. I've got to be that fierce on it because otherwise, the black dog is trying to get back in the box, and I have to keep it out, 'cause you don't wanna see that black dog.
Are you understanding where this series is going? This series will seriously change your life, and it will help you stay anchored and not miss the things that you sh-should not miss, so that you don't end up in a place that you don't wanna be, doing something that you don't wanna do, and hurting people that you love deeply and have no idea how you've got to where you are.
It's because you missed all of the early morning stuff. And the good news... Early morning drift system. And the good news is that this is the heartbeat of God. It's not about... This series is not to condemn you. This is to keep you in that new covenant space of fully surrendered to Christ. And when you surrender your life to Christ, that journey begins, and life gets a whole lot easier to be able to make sure that your heart doesn't drift.
But you've still gotta keep checking, 'cause your heart can still have little chambers in it that you have not allowed God into and not fully surrendered. That's the journey we're gonna go on. Explore the rhythms for people who want to see clearly so that they can rep-represent Christ clearly.
So this week, I just want you to take one area. Just have a look at one area. What's one area you're reflecting which you don't feel like is reflecting Christ well and representing well? And just say, "Okay, Lord," rather than try and manage it I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna change this, and I'm gonna add this," just say no.
Lord, let me reflect on that. Let me look through that to see where my heart is drifting, so that my heart can get back in the right place." That's what we wanna be as a church. We wanna be a... We do not want to be a people that look like we've just polished ourselves up for the community, but they, underneath we're still running exact same way as the community.
We wanna be a people who are paying attention to the inner s- inner interior of our lives and taking it seriously, so that we know that we can represent Him well. And we got some tools here that you can use on the journey. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. You can read the book and then get involved with a group there.
But you... These are practices you have to pay attention to, 'cause if you don't pay attention to them, like I'm having to do some catch-up work now and do some things because I didn't pay attention at the time, 'cause I thought the first thing of the devotion was all about you guys. I made a big mistake.
It was all about something that was happening in me first that needed to be dealt with before it came here. But now we're all in a counseling session together, so we're doing just fine. But that's how easy it is for it to slip. Our Intentional Missional Villages, they're all just about the same thing.
It's just a group of people you can hang with, do life with together, with someone that know you enough that can actually love you enough and say, "Hey, listen I dunno I think maybe your life is drifting. What do you think?" "Ah, I think it is." Let's pray together. Let's look into that mirror together so we can actually figure out where the drift is coming from."
It's no, there's no point in being a people of the way following Jesus if that's only on the outside. If we all look great on the outside, but if someone scratches under the surface and we are as dysfunctional and as challenged as everybody else and as angry as everybody else. I spoke to a Christian two weeks ago and he...
not from here, thank the Lord. But he was just unbelievable. Hates everybody, hates the world, hates everything. I said how does your wife feel about that?" "They hate me, too." "And the kids?" They hate me as well." "Okay. How's that working for you?" I'm doing okay. I got it together. It's all happening."
"I don't think you got it together at all. It's not happening at all. You're just trying to manage the whole thing." See, I missed that, too. I missed so much across this thing 'cause I was just thinking it was about this. But we wanna be like the mirror lake. We wanna make sure that what's reflected above is exactly the same that's reflected underneath.
Exactly the same. So when people look, they go, "Wow." They should be able to go, "Man, the way you handled that, the way you s- did that. The way Anita did that with Dexter, I had no idea that was going on." Trying to help him grapple with for the first time in his life, experiencing someone, like, doing something not so nice and what am I gonna do with that?
And trying to help him handle that in a Christ-like manner. That's what it's all about. It's all about helping us adjust so that way he looks the same and then getting him to pray for him, as awkward as that would've been, I can imagine. Having said that, he's a marvelous detective. He tracked down where his bike had been and found a piece of his bike.
I thought that was marvelous. Who's your guy? Detective work. But your life is already telling you. It's already telling you everything of what is in your heart. It's already telling you everything of what's in your heart. The question is, you gotta pay attention. You got to pay attention Let's pray Father, would you just help us to keep our minds focused on you so that we can catch a glimpse of what's really going on in our hearts?
'Cause according to your list, Jesus, whether it's unfaithfulness, whether it's adultery, whether it's anger, whether it's slander, whatever it is, it's a heart issue. It's a drift in our heart. Help us to remember that no matter how much or how good or how polished we make ourselves, what's inside will eventually find a way of leaking out.
And if you don't address it, it'll leak out, and it'll hurt you and it'll hurt others. So Holy Spirit, would you just help us to pause and to just ha- be courageous enough to look at some of the things that's the warning systems going on in our life that we really should address and just, you know what, let's pause.
Let's actually look through that and just see what's going on w- with our heart, 'cause there's nothing worse than waking up one day and realizing, "I have no idea where I am. How did I get here?" Because we missed all the little warning signals along the way 'cause we were just so busy trying to manage life rather than surrender it to you.
So Holy Spirit, would you help us? Help us to realize that this, this journey of being conformed to the image of Christ, this is not a one-stop pray gig. It's something that happens right throughout our life, and our hearts have often lived a long time not fully surrendered to you and knows a lot of bad patterns and a lot of things that it's not helpful.
But would you help us to be courageous enough to look into those mirrors and find out where those things are that need to be fully surrendered, that need to let us just point our heart back to you, that full devotion? So Father Would you just graciously for, just forgive us where we make mistakes, where we blow it, and encourage us to look into those mirrors and see what we need to change.
Underneath your empowerment, not something that we just try and fix ourselves, but it's something that we surrender so that our life reflects you always. I thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.