There’s a deep aching that grips my heart at times.My heart feels physically and emotionally squeezed at the same time.
My lungs get caught in the pressure and my breath turns shallow.
All the things that normally comfort and refresh me seem to just barely dull the ache, and only for a moment. My soul feels parched, so I read and study and intake God’s beauty in many forms till my soul feels stuffed. And my soul is still anxious. And my heart feels like it is shrinking under the squeeze.
So I pour out…trying to relieve some of the excess my soul has absorbed. But nearly as soon as I put pen to paper or my hand to service, I’m feeling parched again. Parched and over stuffed all at the same time.
When we went to Mexico in the spring, I felt parched. Completely dried up and poured out, yet overstuffed and overfull at the same time.
Until it hit me somewhere 15,000 feet above the Texas desert…
I’d been intaking for the wrong purpose.
All the books and Bible reading and praying and serving I do will give me nothing if I am not drawing close to Jesus in the process.
Because He said that my good efforts are filth. Isaiah 64:6
Because He said that studying His word is not the point. John 5:39
Because He said that you can be a whitewashed tomb. Matthew 23:27
Because He said that He is the One who gives rest to our souls…not His word or our good works or our righteousness hearts. Matthew 11:28-29
Because it’s not the things we do that satisfy…
It’s the One we are doing them for.
It’s the One who is empowering us to do.
It’s the One we are learning about.
It’s the One we are being loved by.
“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me.”
John 5:39
I so quickly forget…
I so quickly loose focus of the goal…
The goal is Jesus.
The goal is to know Him, to spend time with Him.
The goal is to love Him, to be in relationship with Him.
The goal is communion with God, not knowledge about God.
The goal is to fall in love with God, not to pass a test about God.
So I’m learning to find ways to remind myself: to read books that will point me to Jesus, to write reminders for myself to come across, to seek out the influences that will push me to His arms…
At the beginning of this new season, as summer is slowly fading into fall, let’s keep this reminder at the forefront.
Let’s write it bold before our eyes and plaster in our homes.
Let’s seek out the people and resources that will remind us.
Let’s memorize His Words and remind each other of the purpose of it all.
Let’s make falling in love with Jesus the goal, and the rest will follow.
Because the goal isn’t knowledge, it’s relationship.
It’s less of a lesson and more of a love story…a love story He initiated at the beginning of time and solidified on the cross two thousand years ago.
Let’s resolve to be swept off our feet, and then to continue on intentionally falling more in love with Him every day.
Be blessed
<3
