Soul fatigue

 It has been a loooooong time since I last looked at my blog or write an entry. What made me think about visiting my blog was because I am going through some reflecting questions that we do for lifegroup. One of the questions was what difficult struggle did you have in the past and how did that affect your life? Because of that I started reading all my previous posts again and realise, wow, it has been 11 years since I started this blog! I can see how much I have grown as a person but also as a Christian. I feel a little embarrassed reading them, because I used to share everything and anything , but at the same time, I feel "jealous" of the old Orenjigaru. I used to be so passionate about Christ, even the very reason of publishing my stories online is to bless others. However these days I feel like I'm only looking in instead of looking out. I cared only for my own interests and hardly thought of how I can be a blessing for others. I also realise that I used to enjoy writing so much, but these days I never write anymore, I dont even know what to write because it takes so much effort for my mind to focus on writing. My mind jumps a lot these days, it is so difficult to quieten my soul. 

This week the topic of our discussion is about Soul Fatigue. 

The following is from our life group material 

There are 3 reasons for soul fatigue: 

1. we are ruled by busyness

2. we are overcome by stress

3. we experience overload

The root causes are : 

1. we are running on empty - this is so true for me, I hardly take time to reflect on God, on His character, His doing in my life, I hardly go to Him to listen, and because of that, I ended up leading an empty life and having a superficial relationship with God. my prayers were hitting the roof, I wanted to spend time with Him but 2 mins into my prayers, my mind is somewhere else. 

2. we are running after emptiness - we run after things that may satisfy temporarily but in the long run, cost us more. For me, I run after other people's life, what I mean by that is I look at other people's life a lot then compare to my own. I spent a lot of time on social media and on other entertainment stuff like Netflix etc without thinking what gain do I have from these things? I think there is an addiction of being mindless because when I am looking at these things I dont have to use my brain.. but slowly.. I didn't realise what it does is that my brain has become useless. I can't even concentrate on anything anymore. 

The results of soul fatigue:

1. we lose the sense of destiny - yep, this is me, I lose my destiny. I dont know what I want in my life, or what's my calling anymore. I dont think I even spend much time thinking about it because I was so busy emptying my mind. 

2. we lose the sense of courage - we can't make decision, lose the will to win and be the best version of ourselves. This is also what I am experiencing because I dont have the motivation to do anything, I try to think about what I am passionate about but I couldn't. 

3. we lose the sense of legacy - we lose all notion of finishing well, we fail to take stock of what we live for and what we leave behind. yep, me again.. I realise this in my life when I think about how do I want to be a role model for my daughter? that's when I realise there's nothing that I can teach her because I am a failure

so, what is the remedy?

1. repent

2. remove and replace - remove the things that you are running after and replace them with the things of the Lord

3. refresh yourself in the Lord

I pray that God will help me to repent and not just to regret about my life because that alone is not enough to give me a wake up call. When my pastor shared this message, every sentence of his is like a wake up call for me. He said, when people are stressed, they try to clear their stress by going to holiday. People running after worthless things, on average Australians spent 3 hours a day on TV. What about the things you do before you go to sleep? how many of us mindlessly scroll through our screens everyday? we think that these things will help clear our stress. He also said, it is not enough to want to remove these things in our life , but we need to intentionally think about how to replace them, because it is so easy to remove one thing and replace with another idol. So for me, I want to challenge myself to be consistent with writing, sharing my experience and life through blogging/journalling again. I also decide to use my time to read books, do things that will grow me, not to be stagnant. He said, people think that by doing same thing they are fine, but the fact is when you are doing same thing, you are actually moving backwards. we need to continually grow and challenge ourselves. Finally, I pray that God will reignite the passion that I once had for Him so that I may have the desire to refresh myself daily in Him.

All glory to Him

Orenjigaru