Love – it’s the greatest reason that I still want to exist anymore, and the single greatest cause of why I no longer want to.
Mike Bickle in his book titled Seven Longings of the Human Heart* says,
As I stare out my 4th floor apartment here in Split, Croatia I see cars parked everywhere on the sidewalks. As I walk to the café to work or head to the Riva to share Christ, sometimes I’m bored enough to notice the cracks in the sidewalk stand out in this concrete jungle. Just next door a huge, multi-story modern mall is packed with a theatre, the latest fashions, and expensive restaurants. None of it means anything to me. Thousands of people living out their lives in oblivion…in a slow, plastic, fake, horrific death.“God’s capacity for burning affection is one of the most unique aspects of His character. To be deeply loved and to deeply love in return is one of the unique qualities of the human spirit. This capacity for affection brings us to unimaginable heights of glory, but it can also be our downfall, bringing us to agonizing depths of perversion. An individual’s capacity for burning desire, if re-fused, releases a terrifying capacity for destruction. Emotions can bring us to heights far beyond the angels if we say yes to God’s grace, but to the lowest places of darkness if we say no to it. Exodus 20:5 says, “For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God…” God has jealous, fiery emotions for us and has created us to have the same emotions in response to Him.”
All around Split, huge billboards of women in bathing suits showcase their physical beauty. And yet their beauty is only like an instant flash on the movie screen of my mind before it fades. Most likely, her beauty is horrific and cruel – like a plastic plant; the outside from afar alludes to a great beauty on the inside, but from 10 feet away, she, the person whom the picture was taken of, is just fake. She’s just an empty shell desperate to know Jesus but who has chosen to reject being transformed into beauty from her ashes. And I hurt SO MUCH!
For the last nine years that I can remember, my heart has longed for intimacy and beauty – to be one in the spirit and in flesh. And yet that desire has only led to great pain, torrential hurt. I’ve failed semesters of classes because of my horrific loneliness. No sense of duty, no fascination with science, no longing for great accomplishment or greatness comes close in comparison to the gnawing emptiness within me.
Once again, here in Split of all places, God has asked my dreams to die. My affections towards Him are still too weak, my heart too fickle. I fear I could never commit to a person in marriage. I fear that my passions for my wife – even if I found her to be captivatingly beautiful – could be turned at any time.
Right now, God is putting thorns in my path to protect me, protect my heart – because my heart, my affections are still far more affected by the beauty that God has placed in women than for his own beauty, the source! I’m desperate to know what David speaks of in Psalm 27:4 when he says, “One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.”
I have no hope now. I’ve either been rejected … and most often God has told me NO most of the time to my desires to pursue somebody. But somehow I want to deeply know the beauty and love of my Jesus. I’m scared of the loneliness, scared of how long this will take. Yet I want to be completely satisfied, comforted, and captivated by the source of all beauty and love even it if means never being united with someone here on earth. I want my love song to always be for the one whom I love and who loves me the most. The one who has made me a covenant with me. Who is my Savior? What does that word mean? It means that one who will do ANYTHING for intimacy with me, the one who recklessly values my true affections. Who will allow His heart and body to be torn up in incredible pain for the hope of intimacy and affection with me. That is Jesus.
I will do ANYTHING for the one whom I love just because I love them. I’m not there with my creator yet – but I wanna be there. I’m afraid because I want to physically express and physically know the love and beauty my heart screams for inside as my act of worship. I don’t want to settle or compromise. I don’t want to be denied physically the intensity of the beauty, love, and intimacy I desire spiritually. But for now I choose to trust the best that I can even though I will make mistakes … and see how for the rabbit hole goes.
I can feel your presence here with me
Suddenly I’m lost within your beauty
Caught up in the wonder of your touch
Here in this moment I surrender to your love– Excerpt from Here With Me, Mercy Me
The amazing side of life here in Croatia:
1.) I get to see God’s love expressed through our team and a church already here as we share Jesus here in Split!
2.) I get to see God revealing incredible beauty in the women on my team as they are continually transformed!
3.) We get to swim a mile in the Mediterranean non-stop and run through beautiful trails in a huge park nearby!
1.) I get to see God’s love expressed through our team and a church already here as we share Jesus here in Split!
2.) I get to see God revealing incredible beauty in the women on my team as they are continually transformed!
3.) We get to swim a mile in the Mediterranean non-stop and run through beautiful trails in a huge park nearby!
*You can download Seven Longings of the Human Heart for free at: http://www.ihop.org/Publisher/File.aspx?ID=1000010084
