From The Desert.

Have you ever found yourself in a rut before? You know those moments where you just don't feel like yourself? Sluggish and moping. Dragging your feet. Knowing you're in one and wondering when you'll finally get out of it?

That's been me for the last month. I've just been off. I haven't felt like myself, and everything I try - works for a moment and the next thing I know, I'm right back in it. 

I'll be totally and embarrassingly transparent with you - I've been so not myself. I have not been reading, not hearing Him, not processing His word, I've not been dreaming with Him, or seeking Him. 

I've been so weary and drained and discouraged and trying to force myself to keep on. Pressure after pressure, I've found myself in this slimy pit. Where I don't even recognize myself. 

It feels dry, and sometimes we go through those seasons. It also feels endless and hopeless and I'm tired of it. 

I've lacked passion in this space, in my gifts, calling, and purpose. I don't know if this is very wise or encouraging of me to share - but it's true. And I want to be completely transparent so that you don't feel alone if you have felt this too. 

The lies have swarmed to the point of questions circling my mind of what if I just didn't do this anymore. This ministry of Cassidy Designs. I mean, has it really impacted anyone? Does it really matter? Is it really even doable? Or needed in this world? 

I've desperately longed for encouragement from the Lord. Gentle whispers to tell me yes. Reminders of its fruit and purpose. A fresh wind of passion and drive for the things He is dreaming over this space. All while living in the present reminders that it is meaningful and needed and valued. Yet there is something keeping me from believing that. 

This has trickled into my personal relationship with Him. I spent all of my summer serving at 4 different camps and served on a mission trip, while hoping to live a life on mission daily in the midst of it all. And when I was supposed to be resting, I was thinking about this ministry, beating myself up for neglecting it, feeling shame for not doing enough, worried I’ve been unfaithful with what God has placed before me, thinking all opportunities have passed by me, and leaving me to wonder why should He ever trust me to do anything more?

I’ve been tired, yet telling myself I have not done enough. Knowing I am doing what I am supposed to be doing - yet hearing that voice of torment and shame that I am not doing enough. I have so much pressure, so I've stopped. I've tried taking a step back. I’ve mindlessly scrolled instagram, I've slept in late, I’ve cried tears, I've prayed prayers, and I've felt guilt. I have found myself struggling to read my Bible with joy, and even struggling to wake up and face the day with excitement. 

I've felt meaningless and purposeless. 

Why? Because I have felt my life without Him.

I realized this at church one night when we were singing the song, “What A God.” Our pastor had just given a sermon on my favorite scripture, Exodus 33, which is one I quote, pray, and refer to often in this space. 

Particularly verse 18, when Moses says, “now show me Your Glory.” 

In her prayer, she prayed for forgiveness for envying other people’s experiences with the Lord and gratitude that He lets us see Him personally. That struck me because in this rut - I have found myself idolizing past versions of myself. The ones where I experienced Him deeply, heard from Him loudly, spoke with Him consistently, sat with Him joyfully, and genuinely delighted in Him. The truth is - it is hard being in a desert season when you always want to be in a garden season. 

But sometimes we are placed in the desert to be shown His glory. 

Moses was not leading the Israelites out of Egypt through a lush garden. He was leading them to the Promised Land through a desert. A very long, dry desert. But it was the same desert God was walking with them in a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. The same desert He revealed Himself in the bush that was on fire, but did not burn up. The same place He rained manna down from Heaven, and the same place all of His goodness passed by Moses. 

Sometimes the desert is what focuses our hearts back to The One who gets the glory. Yes the Garden of Eden was perfect - but the point and reason and purpose was that God was there in it. And that He was there with us. Just as Heaven is perfect - the point of Heaven is Jesus Himself. And that we get to be there with Him. 

When David wrote, I long for you in a dry parched land where there is no water. I have read this before, like of course you would in the desert. When you need Him, you long for Him. But the real truth of that scripture is that - sometimes it does take a dry and parched land to remind you that only God satisfies and that is the purpose God is working out in us. 

There is a reason the Israelites went through such an exhilarating experience of rescuing and deliverance, and then found themselves in a desert. The Desert is where God chose to get to know His people, and His people to know Him. Before the Exodus from Egypt, the Israelites only knew God as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It was in the Desert where He chose to reveal Himself as their God and them as His people. The Desert was where things got personal.

Wherever He is, is where I want to be. The book of Numbers depicts this in chapter 9 when the Israelites go only when and where the cloud of the Lord goes. Cloud stays? They stay. Cloud sets out? They set out. From place to place. For hours, or days, or weeks, or months. “At the Lord’s command the Israelites set out, and at his command they encamped. As long as the cloud stayed over the tabernacle, they remained in camp.” Numbers 9:18 

They only were going to be where God was. So I can’t be wishing for a garden, when He might have me in a desert right now. Because if that's where He is, that's where I want to be. I may not be here long, but I must be willing to move when He moves and stay when He stays. He wants to meet me in fresh new ways, for He makes a way in the wilderness, and I need to let Him do the New Thing instead of boxing Him into only what I know. He does more than I know. 

If the Israelites only stayed in what they knew, they may have never left The Desert of Sinai when that was only the beginning of the journey to the Promised Land. 

What desert are you running from, that God wants to reveal Himself in? 

That night while singing, “What a God,” we were encouraged to ask Him to show His glory to us. To reveal His character, heart, presence, majesty, radiance to us. And He so clearly reminded me of this treasure of a friend’s richly encouraged me with - “and don't forget to enjoy Him.” 

I remember she was telling me several reminders to do before an incredible Sunday sermon - “Go to the auditorium and get a seat in the very front row, really lean in to what He is saying, take all the lovely notes, believe what is spoken, wait in line to talk with the speaker…. And oh Cassidy, don't forget to enjoy Him.” 

The truth is - I have forgotten to enjoy Him. And that is what most of us do. We forget to enjoy Him. We think He has a list of dos and don'ts, we grow weary in waiting, we grow bitter in promises unfulfilled… so we run from Him. We hide. We avoid, or we only give Him a little of our hearts and time. 

But God is full of glory, He created us for Himself. He placed us in the garden with Him. So that we would be beat down by to-do’s and trapped by don'ts? No! So that we would be His and He would be ours, so that we would delight in His presence and enjoy Him. 

We glorify God by enjoying Him. 

When was the last time you enjoyed The Lord? 

When you spend time with someone, you enjoy it. You don’t just sit there cause you have to and need to and probably should and should do more of. You do it because you enjoy it. This is why we sit with the Lord. This changes everything. 

Tonight He reminded me that I do enjoy Him, I just have forgotten to lately. I have tried to meet Him without the heart posture of delight lately and it has only hardened my heart.  

Then the lyric struck me, “You are my everything.”

The question the sermon opened with was, “who is God?” and it was followed by, “now who is God to you?”

After being in this rut, thinking and overthinking. And when that thinking has come to the discouragement in this space, to the wondering if I should continue here in this ministry - in full transparency, my mind has gone to… but then what? What would I do? Who would I be without it? I have given everything to Him! I'm too far in to quit now.

And I've told myself I must be careful to not find my identity in this business, but I believe I began to wonder this, not because I have found my identity in it, but rather because it is exactly what He put me on this earth to do. If I were to do anything different in this season - I would not be walking in my purpose or my calling - to be exactly who He made me to be. 

And what took the driest, most excruciatingly hot and miserable desert I've probably ever been in before - it was here where He showed me His glory. His divine character and radiant majesty over my life. He reminded me that He is my everything. 

Apart from Him, I can do nothing. Without Him, I am nothing. Apart from Him, I have no good thing. Without Him, there is nothing interesting about me. My life is so wrapped up in His - that without Him, my life feels so utterly meaningless. Trust me - I've been feeling it lately. 

And this reality that I cannot be me without Him - is not something bad. It is actually the most beautiful thing about me, so I will choose to be grateful for it. That my life is so His - that it cannot be anything else. 

Perhaps getting to know Him as my Cloud by Day and Fire by Night is exactly what He wills for me in this season.

Even more transparency for you … my greatest fear of my life has been Judas. To become something I am not, or to leave Christ. I never want to do it and the devil torments me to be deeply terrified of a life without Christ. (Revealing that he wants me scared because it's never gonna happen!) But instead of just saying - uh yeah, that is scary. 

Today, in this desert, I rejoice. Because I know that is not the reality. Because my God is faithful to be My Keeper. And if I have declared Him as My Everything - He is. 

And in His unrelenting kindness, The One that is shielding me from every fear - He let me feel like nothing to remind me of the Truth - that He is everything to me. 

In Exodus 33, while Moses is longing for God to still let them go to the Promised Land even though the Israelites have just danced around a golden calf - He tells them they can go, but He cannot go with them. 

So Moses pleads, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?” Exodus 33:15-16

This is the cry of my heart. If Your Presence does not go with us, Lord, do not send us up from here. There is no point without You Lord! How will anyone know that You are pleased with me and with Your people unless You go with me? There is no reason without You Lord! What else will distinguish me and Your people from all the other people on the face of the earth? Who am I without You, God? There is no purpose without You Lord!

You are it. It is only You. I am made in Your image, I am the work of Your hands. Without You - I am nothing. 

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

If God is Love, then without love, I can do all these things for Him but none of it will matter. Without You, I am a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. Without You, I gain nothing. Without You Lord, I am nothing.

And this is not to discount the work of His hands or to diminish my self worth or value. But it is to enhance the Truth behind it. I am who I am because of I AM. 

Thank you for loving me enough to deliver me from the lies of my past and walking me through a desert to remind me that You are My God and that I am Your Daughter.

God You are everything to me, and I am all that I am because of who You are. Thank you Jesus that You give me purpose and value and life and goodness. Thank You for showing me your glory. Even as I stand upon this desert ground, thank You that You are with me, growing me. Thank You that my life is so wrapped up in Yours. I'm all in Jesus, no turning back. Amen.