I’ve felt a bit spiritually dry lately. I know I’ve been easily
distracted and had a difficult time making space or time for God. But
He showed something interesting last night, one of those simple truths
that it seems like you have to learn a couple hundred times before it
starts to stick. I was praying and as I prayed I asked God to pour more
of His life into me, to “refill” me so to speak with His light. And He
responded by quietly saying to me, “I am the light”. That
simple statement revealed a position in my heart that was so obviously
off, and yet so subtly present that I hadn’t noticed it. I was asking
for an impersonal interaction with God that could satisfy my spiritual
dryness.
The easiest thing I can compare it to is food. When we get hungry,
we eat and it fills our stomachs. There’s no intimacy required, it’s
just an impersonal meeting of a need. For whatever reason, I found
myself asking God to meet my spiritual needs in an impersonal way, and
He just doesn’t work like that. If you want God to meet your needs, be
prepared for an invasive, personal and intimate encounter with God
Himself. He says, “Taste and see that I am good” not “taste and see
that the things I can give you are good”. What He wants to fill us with
is Himself. There’s no such thing as an impersonal christianity. And
that’s something I’m incredibly thankful for.
As we prepare for our trip, our goal will be to connect hands and
hearts to the hand and heart of Christ and to introduce others to our
wonderful, personal God. Catherine and I are setting our hearts over
the next few months to continue growing in our acquaintance with Him. I
love the little lessons He teaches and how He uses them to “adjust” our
path and bring us closer to Him.
As I process more and learn about God, the Light, I also hope to
grasp more fully the truth that Jesus says of us, “You are the light of
the world”. As we head out into the world we pray that this would be
more and more true of us.
