In the past couple weeks, I've found myself getting a little weird, in a bit of a funk. I was too easily discouraged and disheartened and just irritable at times. I thought it was due to some relational issues and some areas of my life where I feel like I'm wrestling against my flesh and with the Lord for freedom. Turns out I was missing the biggest issue of all - I've been replacing the things of God for God Himself. Sounds kind of crazy to me, considering I spend 30+ hours a week at the house of prayer. One would think that would mean some real intimacy with the Lord. But I've found myself so distracted by other things.
This quote by C.S. Lewis from The Weight of Glory really caught my attention yesterday. "If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased."
Wow. I'm far too easily pleased by just a little bit of God and far too easily distracted. Are my distractions at the house of prayer necessarily bad? No, they're not. I'm reading a couple Christian books that are really challenging, really full of truth and helping me gain some insight into those areas of my life where I need freedom. I spend some time with my friends in fellowship, discussing a variety of things. The one thing that probably should have sounded the alarm was my time in the Word. I was reading, but not soaking/meditating on it, and it just wasn't all that thrilling.
Nothing, not a single thing, or person in this world can replace God and time with Him. Nothing can satisfy our deepest heart's desires like He can. Try as I may to chase a billion other lovers, I find again that only His love quiets my heart. So, I came into the prayer room last night determined to just sit and wait. And it's amazing what happened. After just a few minutes of soaking, the veil of crud that I had felt over me just lifted and there was peace, even joy, and a contentedness in the deepest parts of me that I'd been missing.
And there was such life in the Word. The Lord had put John 15:1-11 on my heart. It's all about abiding. Not about doing, just being. Our greatest satisfaction can come just by knowing that we belong to Jesus and we're loved, just as the Father loved Him. And in abiding, we can have the fullness of joy. Not an earthly joy that fades away, but an eternal, everlasting joy that springs up from the innermost parts of our being.
One of the things being sung in my time of soaking was, "You hear the cry of my hunger, You answer me with abundance." He knows when we're hungry and He knows what will satisfy that hunger. So, will I choose to answer the cries of my hunger by simply abiding in the One who can fill every longing in my heart?
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