I do understand that the words don't necessarily reflect actions. For myself I have always been aware of God. When I was in my teens I started having horrible migraines. I was very dependent on God's mercy. When I graduated I was a religious studies major at a Christian university because I wanted to be a missionary. I was so sure of all the good things I was going to do to serve (yes this is foreshadowing). The migraines began to leave me blind at least a couple of times a week. I was beside myself with pain and frustration. "Why God? How can I study and learn and serve you if I can't even see? I'm going to have to leave school and I won't be employable. What do you want from me? What do you want? ". The answer came quietly. I don't honestly know if I heard it but it or it might have been something strongly impressed on my thoughts."You. I want you. See me, hear me, know me." I remember laughing rather bitterly. I remember yelling, "You want this? I have nothing to offer. I'm a joke. A useless joke." I sobbed and then I was quiet. I stopped fighting. I stopped trying to run ahead and do what I thought best. Later that year I transferred over to being a history major and ended up as a medical social worker. It ended up being where I needed to serve. He didn't want me in Russia as a missionary. He had other plans. Years later I heard a little Egyptian pastor talk about God. He said, "God is sensitive." Again my heart was broken. I knew he was holy, just, and powerful and that we needed to obey. When I failed I felt the failure. Hearing this, I fell to my knees and apologized for his pain. That, I could relate to and it grew my love.
At times, like anyone else, I can forget and get caught up in busy work but I know that the core of who we are meant to be is in companionship with God. For me, that is my purpose.
Thank you so much for sharing your heart and thoughts. You speak with passion about the truth. God doesn't want religion and correct, but meaningless behaviours. He wants our hearts for him. He wants our faith. You are indeed my brother Kelby. Thanks.
I'm quoting you again because I get so much joy out of reading your post.
First I want to say "THANK YOU" for taking your questions to God. By doing so, you give him opportunity to answer. We forget that God HAS to keep his word lest he be a liar. And his word says "You have not because you ask not." Do you realize that he has to keep that word all the way to watching those that he loves go down into hell with burdens he was eager and desirous to remove from them?
You mentioned that He is sensitive...and He is. So many times he longs to relieve our pains, lift our burdens, comfort our hearts...but we refuse to ask for his help. And he weeps like he wept over Jerusalem:
Luke 19:41-44 KJV
And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, [42] Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. [43] For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, [44] And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.
Sorry, that part was kind of on the sad side. What I started this post to say was actually on the side of when we DO take our requests to him because your post reminded me of something that happened after the attacks on 9/ll.
I'd been noticing that in every catastrophe the news would cover the story of some person or persons who, in the middle of the catastrophe, would cry out to God...and God would deliver them. 9/ll was no different. There was a guy on one of the floors that the airplane hit. He was injured and trapped under some rubble with no way out because everyone with the ability to leave had already abandoned that area. But he prayed something along the lines of "God, I don't want to die like this. Please don't let me die like this". In short, God sent someone to him that was coming down from the upper floors (if I remember correctly) who helped him to safety.
The news actually covered it from his point of view AND from the perspective of the person who eventually came to help him. That guy explained that he'd felt led to take the path he did for some reason, and that he had clear passage the whole way even though others gave accounts of intense smoke. On his way he'd heard the cries of this man and turned aside to help. It was a cool story and fit the pattern I'd been noticing.
I was thinking of that story while praying one day and said "God, thank you for being accepting of man when he has nothing to offer and all to ask" when God stopped me and said "Pay attention to what you just said." I did (and still do).
Your prayer (and mine too) fits that same pattern. You faced the realization that you had
nothing worthy to exchange for what was both your true internal desire and his will that he was offering to you...and yet you left it at the alter of exchange (so to speak). And it was accepted.
What I consider to be a subversion of that concept has actually been bothering me for the last several days. It's the idea that we need to "Give our life to Christ" (as if he needs it, or that it is of some value to him) and "Accept him as your personal Lord and savior" (as an agreement to submit to his leadings from now on). If there's one thing we've both discovered is that what we have to offer is more of a detriment than an offering...and our ability to submit to his will is just as corrupt.
I see several places where he tells us we'll have to lay down our lives...but I don't see where he intends to pick that part up.
As you said, what he wants is US (not our lives). And he wants to GIVE us his life in replacement. Which I guess is the reason I created this thread (at God's direction).
Baptism isn't an accepting of what we had to offer... it's the removal of it from us, so we could be clean. And the outpouring of the Holy Ghost isn't saying that our future dealings would be any better than what they were before...but rather the provision of the power we didn't/don't possess if left in our natural condition. (The power to overcome what
we had to offer).
Not sure how to end this, but I needed to say at least that much.
Love in Jesus,
Kelby
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