I discovered something today - I'm not nearly as concerned about where God will send me as I am with whether or not God will go there with me. Have I ever really sought God's face with desperation before? Have I ever come to the end of my self and discovered the thirst, the longing to have God at my side? What if all of this is about shattering my confidence, shattering my broken cisterns that hold no water, and helping me recognize my thirst?
I'm not an expert at anything. I have nothing to offer to God, except my little life. I think I feel how Manasseh must have felt in prison, or how the prodigal son felt on the way home.
Is all this the extent to which God has to go to get me to just surrender to him? Is my neck and are my knees that stiff?
I love Moses. The people had just broken their covenant with God, worshipping a golden cow, and Moses had no defense for their actions. They were sinful, they were rebellious, they were stiff-necked. BUT THEY WERE STILL GOD'S PEOPLE. And so he wrestles with God for their future. He won't let them go down, at least not without fighting on their behalf. And God chooses to forgive. And He revokes His threat to not go with them into their inheritance. He remembers his promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and he honors the arrangement, at great personal cost to himself.
I draw hope from this story (Exodus 32-34, if you want to read it yourself) as I look within my own heart. I am stiff-necked, but I am God's son. He has made promises to me, and to Jesus about me. He will not abandon me now, or ever. But I must stay HERE - broken, empty, thirsty - and cry out to Him to fill me, to satisfy me, to lead and guide me. Be persistent, like Moses was - until God shows me His glory.
What if that will actually happen? What if God will actually show up? I want to find out.
2 comments:
You will have a front seat to see what God will do if you trust Him! I am wrestling with this concept right now. My head knows I should and can trust God, but do I really believe that I can? Sometimes I try to take life in my own hands, basically saying to God "I don't trust that you will answer THIS, or that you will ever anything about THIS" - and that's not trust at all. Bridging the gap between what I know and what I believe - to not just intellectually know and trust God, but to experientially know and trust God. I want more of the latter.
It is that sense of desperation... that unmet longing which awakens me to my deepest and truest desire - GOD HIMSELF. I am so prone to settle for substitutes that I become dead to my deepest longings. I can be bought off by a simple slice of pizza when what I truly want is the experience of His presence satisfying my hungry soul. I fill my stomach, but leave my heart empty. I WANT GOD! And when I realize that He is all I truly need, then and only then will I be free of the power of life's tintillating but unsatisfying distractions.
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