So lately I've just been feeling really down and discouraged about leading small group. We've had just two meetings, and I already can't help but to feel like a failure. People have fallen asleep, participation is scarce, and it seems like no one is getting anything out of it. I had been really excited about this in the beginning of the year, but now I just feel defeated with no idea where to go or what to do.

On top of all this, I just couldn't help but to feel almost abandoned by God. Here I am trying to serve Him and do His work, but he's not showing up. He's not changing lives, he's not opening hearts, and he's not working through us in spite of our prayers and our best efforts to be faithful.

On the flip-side of this picture, I can't help but to feel like God standing over me with his arms crossed, looking down on me, scowling sarcastically, "Good job Shelton! Way to ruin ANOTHER small group!" It's as if God is just waiting for me to mess up.

And so, here I am just altogether feeling so very far from God, not even able to worship or catch a glimpse of Him in the quiet moments I try to seek Him. The day of our small group meeting is coming closer, and still I have no motivation to do any sort of preparation. All I can do is simply sulking in my spiritual depression.

That's when I vaguely remember God teaching me something about faithfulness this summer. At that moment I couldn't recall why it was important, what good it did, or anything meaningful about it, but I just remembered learning somewhere back down the road that it was important.

So I decided without really any good reason that I was just going to be faithful just because and start preparing my small group lesson against all desire not to. I flipped open my Bible to the next section in Hebrews we were studying in small group, Hebrews 4:14 to 5:10, which was about Jesus as our great high priest. So I went along through the steps - doing my observation, interpretation, etc. when I got to application and realized "wait a second, this passage is speaking to me."

Here I was preparing a bible study about how Jesus is more approachable than we may think and composing questions about how we can rid ourselves of baggage hindering us from seeing Christ this way, and then suddenly I realized I'm the one who needs to fix my perspective and learn how to see Christ for who the Bible says he is: an approachable God who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses, who gives mercy and grace to help us in our time of need, who is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, who gave himself as a sacrifice to atone for our sins and become the source of eternal salvation.

It's taken a lot of re-reading Psalm 36, repeating Zephaniah 3:17, and re-singing "Jesus love me this I know for the Bible tells me so" but I think I'm beginning to see that Jesus really isn't against me after all.