I am disappointed with God because I sincerely want Him to work in my life to bring about the fruit of the Spirit, but I don’t see Him doing that. I want to experience His power in my life and let the Holy Spirit control me. I have been a Christian for many years, and I sincerely want His love to be expressed through me.  It seems that by now His power in my life should be producing love and gentleness. 

Recently at my church we had a special speaker who was a missionary. I thought she was going to share about her ministry overseas, but instead she ended up talking about how God had gotten hold of her heart, and she has moved from an orphan mentality to a Father relationship with God. She came to recognize that she had some emotional wounds as a child and had never addressed them. One story she told was when she was three years old and had to have surgery. At the same time her mother was in the hospital giving birth to her brother. Her father couldn't spend the needed time with her in the hospital because he had to be with her mother as well and she felt very abandoned. This seemingly small incident had huge ramifications in her life, but she didn't recognize it until recently. She had always felt like she had to perform in ministry and do and go and keep going to gain the favor and attention of the Lord. She had some abandonment issues by viewing her heavenly Father through the experience of her earthly father.

Here are some thoughts she shared:

Our feelings are a pretty good indication that something is going on inside of us. There is a great distance between what our mind tells us and what our emotions tell us.

God wants to redeem our past and make it part of our destiny (who we are in Christ and the relationship we have with God as our “Abba Father,” meaning “Daddy”.)

God wants to bring the orphan out of us and let the Father bring the child home.

The Hebrew word for “salvation” means ”having room to breathe.” I think of it as being free and relaxed in the Father's arms.

God wants to redeem our orphan memories.

She recommended the following:

Recognize the fruit (your emotions).

Recognize the root (ask God to show you the cause of those emotions or lack of emotions).

Surrender the event or events and submit them to Jesus.
Repent of your lack of trust in God and forgive those who may have wounded you.

Replace the lie (orphan mentality) with the truth (Abba Father relationship) by the renewing of your mind (Romans 12:1-2).

Break the stronghold this event or events has had on your life by allowing God to redeem them and use them for good.

Meditate on the following scriptures related to the Heavenly Father and your relationship with Him:

John 1:10-13
Romans 8:22-25
Galatians 4:1-7
Ephesians 1:3-6
Psalm 68:5

Be aware that there might be an issue in your past that you haven't faced and dealt with. It doesn't have to be anything big (though sometimes it is). But it can affect us in ways we're not even aware of, especially in how we view God and our relationship with Him. You don’t need to dig deeply to look for something, but trust God to reveal to you anything that he wants you to look at.

Your lack of feeling in relationship to the Lord and your desire for Him to use you and reveal Himself to you, while at the same time not experiencing that, could be related to some damaged emotions. It is helpful to evaluate your life, not to cast blame, but to gain an understanding and add insight into why you may be experiencing what you are. Then you can deal with those things in the light of God’s Word which will in turn affect your feelings and emotions.

I would recommend you pursue some counseling with a godly, Bible-centered counselor who will be able to help you work through these issues.

I would also recommend the book When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man by Ed Welch as it may be of help to you. And I would trust books published by P & R Publishing at www.prpbooks.com. Check out their titles and see if any may sound relevant to what you’re going through.

Photo by averie woodard on Unsplash