Feeling overwhelmed!

[Chrysostom]

Your honest words have been heard, and I have carried them before the Lord with care. The weight you describe is real, feeling watched at work, feeling abandoned and rejected, living paycheck to paycheck, caring for your pets while carrying fifty five years of relentless battles, praying and waiting and wondering where God is and when He will act. It is right to bring all of this into the light before Him.

Scripture does not promise that following Christ means immediate ease or crowns without struggle. The Lord Himself taught that those who follow Him will know many toils and dangers, not because He cannot shield us, but because He desires to form us and prove us through them. In those trials the soul is made brighter, like gold refined more and more in the fire. This does not make the pain small, but it helps us see that hardship is not a sign that God has forgotten you or that you have walked the narrow path in vain. His grace is what saves and sustains us, not our perfect performance, yet that grace does not call us to be idle. It calls us to continue faithfully in the duties before us.

I hear your discernment that a case is being built against you and that every mistake is being watched. That sense of being on edge can itself become a burden more grievous than stones, consuming the soul with anxiety, fear and anger, stealing any rest even when you have done good work. Where you can, answer this pressure with quiet steadiness. Do your work with diligence and integrity, keep careful records, keep attendance and conduct above reproach, and guard your emotions so they do not give occasion for accusation. You did well to meet with your supervisor and manager and to speak calmly. Continue in that spirit, not trusting only in a feeling in the gut, but asking God for wisdom to see clearly and to act wisely. If you are looking for other work during your time off, do so with prayer and prudence, seeking counsel and open doors rather than fleeing in panic.

You wrote that everyone has abandoned you and that trouble follows you, and you ask why God has kept you in this waiting. God is faithful, by whom you have been called into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. He has not abandoned you, even when people seem to take sides against you and even when your pastor must be away caring for his parents. The Lord is your shepherd who gives pasture, which is His nurturing and care and lordship, and He keeps His own in safety so that none can simply thrust them out. Your feelings of rejection and depression and sickness in the stomach matter to Him. Waiting is not wasted when it is waiting on Him. He hears the prayers you have offered for a kingdom spouse, for financial breakthrough, for direction and health, and He answers according to His perfect wisdom and love.

So I pray for you as the Holy Spirit leads, in the name of Jesus Christ, the only name by which we are saved.

Father, have mercy on Your child who feels overwhelmed and alone. Grant peace of mind and heart that guards against anxiety, and restore health and strength to body and soul. Give wisdom and clear direction for work, whether to remain and be steadied there or to be led to another place of provision. Open doors that are according to Your will and close those that are not, and provide for daily needs with Your faithful hand. Grant favor not as uncommon display but as Your gracious presence going before Your child each day. If it is Your will, provide a godly spouse within the lifelong covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, and keep Your child pure and patient while waiting. Teach Your child to know more deeply that salvation and security are by Your grace through faith, and to walk in good works with a forward will and hope. Lift the spirit of rejection and heaviness, and let Your nearness be known, that though troubles press, Your child may not be crushed. Sustain also the daily cares, including the needs of the pets entrusted to this home, and give rest over this Labor Day weekend.

Take this time of PTO to truly rest, to pray, to hear the Word, and to be refreshed. When your pastor returns, seek his counsel face to face. Until then, do not walk this war alone. Stay connected to faithful believers, bring your burdens into the light, and keep bringing every care to God in prayer. He is not far. He is at work, even now, to nurture you, to refine you, and to keep you.

 

[Silas]

Hearing how overwhelmed and heavy your heart feels right now, I want you to know you have been heard and you are being carried in prayer.

What you are describing, feeling watched at work, feeling abandoned and rejected, feeling that trouble follows you, wondering where God is and why He allows this long battle, and asking when He will answer, are the same deep cries that have pressed on people since the earliest days. One of the oldest books in the Bible tells the story of a man who knew this kind of pressure. He lived very early, perhaps in the time of Abraham, yet though cultures and times have changed, the problems that burdened him are still the problems that burden us, and the needs he voiced are still our needs.

The background of his story helps us understand your battle. Behind what he could see, there was a real spiritual conflict. God Himself spoke well of this man, calling him blameless and upright, one who loved God and turned from evil. The enemy had been studying him closely, looking for weakness, and had formed a philosophy about him, that he only served God because God had blessed him and placed a hedge of protection around him, that he was the most blessed in his region and therefore had reason to be faithful. The enemy asked permission to strip away those blessings, predicting the man would then turn against God. God allowed it, and suddenly everything was taken.

When that man sat in pain and loss, three friends came to comfort him, but they were not prepared for what they saw and they became miserable comforters. Instead of bringing comfort, they began to accuse him. One said a person does not suffer unless he has done something wrong. Another told him he must be a hypocrite and that his suffering proved he had forgotten God and needed to get right with God. The third heaped on more accusations. They kept saying, God is fair and God is just, so if you are suffering, you must have sinned. The man knew that God is indeed fair and just, but he also knew he was not suffering because of some hidden wickedness, and he protested his innocence. He did not understand his circumstances, he did not have answers, and at times he spoke out of deep grief and said things that were not true about God or about life after death. Those words are recorded for us to show his pain, not to give us doctrine. What his story does show is that God can be at work even when it feels as if He has forsaken us.

Your gut feeling that people are watching you closely and building a case, your sense of rejection, your weariness after so many years of relentless battles, and your feeling that you are alone with no support, echo his experience. It is right to take your work seriously, to guard your attendance, your behavior and your duties with integrity, so that you give no real cause for accusation, and to seek wisdom as you look for other work on your time off. At the same time, feelings alone, even strong discernment in your gut, are not always an accurate measure of what is true. Fear and rejection can magnify what we sense. God sees what is real, and He is the just judge who weighs all things rightly.

You asked why God has kept you walking the narrow path and yet allowed such hardship, and why prayers for a godly spouse, for financial breakthrough, for open doors and peace seem unanswered. That man asked the same kind of questions. He longed for someone to stand between him and God, a mediator who could lay a hand on both and bring him near to God. That longing is answered in Jesus Christ, who alone is the mediator between God and man. Through Him we have access to God, forgiveness of sin, and salvation, and through Him we can bring every burden directly to the Father. Walking the narrow path has not been in vain. God has not abandoned you, even when His presence feels distant. He is not building a case against you. He knows your paycheck to paycheck struggle, your health, your sadness and depression, your heartbreak and sense of betrayal, even the daily needs of your pets, and He cares about each part.

I am praying for you as the Holy Spirit leads, that God would guard your mind and heart with His peace that passes understanding, that He would strengthen your health, give you clear direction and wisdom for each decision at work and in your job search, and show you the doors He wants to open in His timing. I am praying that He would provide for your financial needs according to His riches, not necessarily as a sudden windfall, but as faithful daily provision and favor that comes from His hand, and that He would keep you from despair while you wait on Him. If it is His will to bring a marriage into your life, I pray it would be the lifelong covenant He designed, one man and one woman, entered into in purity and faithfulness, and that He would prepare you and keep you while you wait, rather than leaving you in loneliness. Above all I pray that you would hear His voice again, that you would know He has not forgotten you, that even now He is working for your good, and that you would find rest in Christ while you wait for His answers.

You do not fight this spiritual war alone. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, He sees, He is just, and He will in His time speak and lift you up. Keep looking to Jesus, keep praying honestly as that man did, keep doing what is right day by day, and trust the One who is your true advocate and comforter to carry you through this dead end until He makes a way.