I feel in a place like Esau. I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit depart, (after I resisted Him a few times) slipped into gluttony again. (literally, bad gluttony, shameful kind of gluttony, abstaining from sweets because I thought it was an idol, start indulging in food that doesn't even taste good, sad sad sad) any how, I have lost a lot of my drive to seek God, feel like I am getting comfortable in sin, losing a lot of fear of damnation. prayer feels like talking to the wind, my mind lost most conviction, my mind feels carnal, I don't get anything out of the scriptures any more, nothing out of sermons any more, nothing out of when a Holy Spirit filled person prays over me, nothing when they lay hands on me to pray, nothing at all. I lost a lot of my reasoning ability, find that I walk in enmity against God a lot, can't seem to repent. I tried and tried, tried fasting, but am failing more and more when it comes to fasting. and started justifying indulging. anyhow, I know it is wrong to continue in sin, and want a relationship with God. I tried kneeling and submitting fully to God, but my heart feels like lead. and my thoughts, I used to pick and choose them, or try to reject thoughts as they came in, now whatever thought comes into my mind feels like it is mine, and like there is nothing I can do with it. it comes in, then sets in my heart, and I only think one track at a time, when earlier I would have three trains of thought going at a time. any ways, any advice would help. thank you. and any thoughts on why Esau could not repent, and if he could repent after all, but was just not willing to trust or something like that.
Esau's example is more comparable to judgement day, when the opportunity to repent is worthless, than it does where you are right now. He sought it with tears, but not for the right reasons. He sought it with tears, but only after it was given to Jacob.
Here's a chapter from my devotional I read a few days ago:
Can a regenerate person become spiritually weary and not delight in God?
1. I answer, Yes--but this delight in God is not wholly extinct. This lassitude and weariness in a child of God may arise from the in-dwelling of corruption, Rom. 7.24. It is not from the grace which is in him--but the sin which dwells in him--just as Peter's sinking on the water was not from his faith--but his fear. Yet I still say--that a regenerate person's will is for God, Rom. 7.15. Paul found sometimes an indisposition to good, Rom. 7.23--yet at the same time he professes a delight in God, verse 22. "I delight in the law of God, in the inner man." One may delight in music, or any recreation--yet through weariness of body, be for the present dulled and indisposed. Just so--a Christian may love God's law, though sometimes the clog of the flesh weighing him down, he finds his former vigor and agility abated.
2. I answer, That this spiritual faintness and weariness in a regenerate person is not habitual; it is not his constant temper. The water may ebb for a while it is low-tide; but there is soon a high-tide again. Just so, it is sometimes low-tide in a Christian's soul. At this time, he finds an indisposition and irksomeness to that which is holy--but within a short time, there is a high-tide of affection--and the soul is carried full sail in holy duties! It is with a Christian, as with a man who is very ill; when he is sick he does not take that delight in his food as formerly; nay, sometimes the very sight of it nauseates him. But when he is well--he goes to his food again with delight and appetite. Just so, when the soul is distempered through sadness and melancholy, it finds not that delight in Scripture and prayer as formerly; but when it returns to its healthful temper again, now it has the same delectability and cheerfulness in God's service as before!
3. I answer, That this spiritual weariness in a regenerate person is involuntary. He is troubled at it; he does not hug his disease—but mourns under it. He is weary of his weariness! When he finds a heaviness in duty, he goes heavily under that heaviness; he prays, weeps, wrestles, uses all means to regain that alacrity in God's service, as he was accustomed to have. David, when his chariot wheels were pulled off, and he drove on heavily in piety--how often does he pray for quickening grace! When the saints have found their hearts fainting, their affections flagging, and a strange kind of lethargy seizing on them--they are never at rest until they have recovered themselves--and are arrived at that freedom and delight in God, as they were once sensible of.
The second case is—Whether a hypocrite may not serve God with delight? I answer—he may. Herod heard John the Baptist gladly, Matt. 6.20. and those who fasted for strife and debate, "did delight to know God's way," Isa, 58.2. An hypocrite may, out of some flashy hopes of heaven, show a delight in goodness; but yet it is not such a delight as is found in the regenerate, for his delight is carnal. A man may be carnal while he is doing spiritual things: It is not the holiness and strictness in piety, which the hypocrite delights in—but something else. He delights in prayer—but it is rather the showing of gifts he looks at, than the exercise of grace. He delights in hearing—but it is not the spirituality of the Scripture he delights in; not the savor of knowledge—but the luster. When he goes to the word preached, it is that he may rather feast his mind, than better his heart; as if a man should go to an apothecary's shop for a pill, only to see the gilding of it, not for the operative virtue. The hypocrite goes to the word to see what gilding is in a sermon, and what may delight the intellect. Hypocrites come to Scripture as one comes into a garden to pluck some fine flower to smell—not as a child comes to the breast for nutriment. This is rather than .
Such were those in Ezek. 33.32, You "are to them as a very lovely song of one who has a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument." The prophet being eloquent, and having a pleasing delivery, they were much taken with it, and it was as sweet to them as fine music—but it was not the spirituality of the matter they so well liked, as the tuneableness of the voice. It was a sharp—yet seasonable reproof of Chrysostom to his hearers, "This is that," says he, "which is likely to undo your souls—you hear your ministers as so many minstrels, to please the ear, not to pierce the conscience." You see, a hypocrite's delight in piety is carnal; it is not the being nourished up in the words of faith, which he minds—but the eloquence of speech, the rareness of notion, the quickness of imagination, the smoothness of style: he strives only to pluck from the tree of . Alas, poor man, you may have the , and yet it may be night in your soul.
- Chapter 5, the
Saint's Spiritual Delight by Thomas Watson.
